The City of McCleary recently hired a new interim police chief.

Interim Chief Steven Blumer was introduced to the city during the Nov. 9 city council meeting.

Blumer says the city council is planning to make him the permanent chief during the Dec. 14 council meeting.

Blumer’s most recent professional experience was spent as a detective with the Mason County Special Operations Group, where he worked with DEA, FBI and ATF agents on federal drug cases. Prior to that, he was a patrol officer for Squaxin Island, and prior to that he served as a reserve officer for the City of Lacey.

He wasn’t always in law enforcement. Blumer’s background is in financial planning — he and a partner owned their own financial planning firm in Lacey. But Blumer had the itch to serve in law enforcement.

“I was always interested in law enforcement. My roommates in college were going into law enforcement,” Blumer said.

For a while, he balanced the work as a reserve officer with the life of a financial planner, but when he went to the police academy to become a full-time patrol officer, the demand took its toll and he sold his part of the business to his partner and focused on police work.

This will be Blumer’s first opportunity to lead a department as police chief.

“I’ve never had the title, but it’s a position I’ve always wanted in order to use skills from my past,” Blumer said.

The financial planning skills could come in handy. About a year ago, the City of McCleary was divided over potentially outsourcing its police services to the county. An agreement was approved with the police union for buying out the department’s employees, and a motion was made (but failed) to contract services with the county. While the police department has been funded through 2016 and is included in the 2017 budget, funding still remains tight.

Blumer says he’s aware that finances are tight everywhere, not just in McCleary.

“Controlling costs is a big thing these days because money is tight everywhere, especially for small departments,” he said.

Blumer lives in Thurston County with his wife, Khristine. They have three daughters — the youngest is a sophomore in high school.

New on the job, Blumer says he hasn’t cleared his ideas with the council and the mayor so he’s not sure what’s completely feasible, but Blumer hopes to engage the community in outreach to learn about the issues most important to residents. Some options to engage the community include a questionnaire on the city’s website, or a Facebook page where citizens can anonymously message the chief, or even sending out mailers to residents.

Community involvement is a centerpiece of his plan to lead the department.

“The responsibility of the department is to the citizens of the community,” Blumer said. “How does the community want the department to run? What’s their focus? Does the community want us to be more visual? Do they want us going to more city functions, and do they want us to go to schools to interact with the children?”

“It’s easy to look at what I think is a problem, but what’s important is what’s the community’s concern. That’s who I work for, is the people of McCleary,” Blumer added.

Some things, like a particular drug house known to neighbors, may not be as quick a fix as citizens may want, and Blumer says his responsibility in that situation is to educate the public and to be open to the citizens about why and how the process should move forward.

But for now, only days on the job, Blumer is focusing on settling in.

“I’m trying to get organized. My focus has been getting things streamlined and into a system of how I like them organized,” Blumer said.

He’s trying to be seen in the community and make himself known to the citizens, and it’s been going well.

“Everyone I’ve met in town so far has been more than excited that I’m here,” Blumer said.