Woitena, who has been part of the League City Police Department since 1999, was unanimously appointed to the position by League City City Council on Sept. 12.
Woitena’s tenure includes serving as a K-9 officer, field training officer, maritime safety enforcement officer, bicycle patrol officer, firearms and tactics instructor, certified mental health officer, Honor Guard member, and a Galveston County Auto Crimes Task Force agent.
Community Impact held an interview with Woitena to discuss his priorities for the League City Police Department.
Have you identified any strategic priorities for League City and League City PD since becoming police chief?
One of the big things that the staff is excited to promote and is trying to build up is our mental health unit as a proactive unit within the city. We’ve probably been working on that for the last 18 months. So being that an internal chief was selected, it’s easy for me to carry on the work that was done by the command staff and some of our supervisors prior to me being the chief.
And so I think that's probably one of the biggest ... projects moving forward right now is trying to get that proactive mental health unit fielded out in the community, hopefully, maybe, depending on how grant funding goes, maybe in the first quarter of 2024 or maybe in the second quarter of 2024.
We’re [also] going to add to some of our existing training to meet new state mandates that have come down this year. We’re also looking to submit to the state to become a recognized police academy so that we can have a hand in training our officers from the cadet phase all the way through their field training.
Many police departments show problems in retaining officers. Is League City experiencing officer retention issues, like many departments statewide?
Officer-retention-wise, we're doing pretty well. The community that we police is very supportive, and the agency is very proactive. So once we can get an officer here, I feel like we have a really good chance of keeping them here.
As far as new hires, that is a challenge. Getting a large pool of qualified candidates these days is harder than it used to be. We don't have as many people turning out to take the tests. But, we still are able to find a core group of people that meet the expectations of the department, and we’re able to get them through the hiring process and put them into service here at the agency. So it's not as easy as it used to be, but we're still making do.
If you had one thing to say to the residents of League City, what would it be?
I've been here for almost 25 years, and I travel the country teaching for a couple of different organizations, and so I get to teach at agencies big and small, from Chicago PD, Detroit PD, all the way down to small four- or five-officer departments that no one's ever heard of.
Every time I come back to League City, those travels away to other departments make me appreciate the community here in League City. We're blessed to police in a community that is very supportive of its police department. Our citizens have always taken very good care of us. So it's a blessing at times. When I sit back and I look at some of the struggles and trials that other organizations go through in other parts of the country, ... we’re blessed to police here in League City.
