Scotts Valley Police Chief John Weiss is retiring Dec. 31, after more than 26 years with the only department where he has served as a full time police officer, 10 years as chief.
City Manager Jenny Haruyama said she began her search for a successor almost immediately after Weiss informed her, City Council members and his staff of his plans early this month. She is scheduling initial interviews with applicants for the position next month. Weiss earned $148,000 in 2015.
“The retirement of Chief Weiss is bittersweet,” she said. “While we are happy for him as he embarks on his next phase of life, his departure will be felt throughout the community and organization.”
“Scotts Valley is fortunate to have had a compassionate professional such as Chief Weiss,” she said. “He leaves a legacy built on community partnerships and trust, all of which have contributed to Scotts Valley’s exceptional quality of life.”
Weiss said he is going to miss the job, but plans on staying in Scotts Valley doing the things he loves outside of police work: his family, painting (oils), reading, playing piano. He said he has no plans for another “retirement job” in law enforcement.
“I’m going to miss the interactions in the community that I’ve had,” he said. “I’m going to miss the satisfaction of coming home at night and feeling that you have done your part to keep your community safe.”
Despite periodic increases in property crimes, Scotts Valley’s 12,000 residents enjoy one of the lowest small-city crime rates.
Weiss credits the city’s affluence and small-town values with this, plus his department’s commitment to what’s known as community policing.
“If you want to have a healthy relationship with the community then you have to get out there and talk to people,” he said in an interview this week. “Community policing is the model.”
He said knowing people in the community, so that they can share information with him, so he in turn can share information with them has been a strategy that has worked in Scotts Valley.
“That’s how we keep the community safe.”
Weiss’s father, John B. Weiss, was an administrative law judge for the Public Utilities Commission. The late judge also was a “weekend painter,” whose oil landscapes and portraits were part of his son’s home environment.
After earning an undergraduate degree in criminal justice at Sonoma State University, John P. Weiss lived with his parents in Los Gatos while earning his master’s degree in criminal justice and working as a part-time security guard with Apple Computer.
He still paints – oils, mostly landscapes. And he plays his baby grand piano, a step up from his high school rock band. While a sergeant with the Scotts Valley Police Department, he was the editorial cartoonist for both the Santa Cruz Sentinel and the Press Banner.
He has been a uniformed officer, juvenile officer and detective who created the city’s first Police Athletic League program. He was named Chief of Police in 2006, and has chaired the County Police Chiefs’ Association and sits on the County Animal Shelter’s Board of Directors.
