Editor:

Your Nov. 30 editorial ("New top cop in Asbury") did a distinct disservice to departing Police Director L. Louis Jordan, as did the City of Asbury Park itself.

I was on the city council in 2002 when the top police job became vacant. Although the city manager ultimately hires the police director, I was immediately besieged by department members from sergeant to captain, all seeking that position.

The council was also visited by leaders of the NJ State Association of Chiefs of Police, who urged us to replace our police director position with a civil service police chief who would be promoted from within.

Given the city's entrenched drug and crime problems, and the lack of a clear leadership mandate within the department, the council opted to follow the police director route, and Lou Jordan was hired.

The effects were immediate: Within his first weeks in office, Jordan staged a highly visible, city-wide drug sting that netted 23 arrests and had residents literally cheering in the streets. His behind-the-scenes actions insured that the destructive 2001 "melee" (to the use the Press's term) inaccurately known as Greekfest became a low-key, family-oriented beach day.

And he established a disciplined, statistics-oriented "COMSTAT" program that kept the entire department - and visiting council members - updated on current crime statistics.

Jordan visibly patrolled the streets around the clock, monitoring police activity and serving as a role model for new recruits.

Then the reaction set in: Prompted by complaints from the Police Chief's Association, the state attorney general - otherwise known as Peter "See No Evil" Harvey - suddenly announced that Jordan, as a police director, was not authorized to wear a police uniform, drive a police car, carry a gun, or use a police radio - even though he had years of police and Prosecutor's Office experience, was a police academy trainer, and the city council had authorized him to do so. (Never mind that other state police directors have apparently followed similar practices for years without comment.)

If there was any doubt that the fix was in, it was erased when I wandered into a training session on police leadership at the annual NJ League of Municipalities meetings. There, a representative from the Police Chief's Association spent his entire allotted time before a packed audience publicly mocking Asbury Park's police director. ("Why does he need a gun? Is he afraid of getting robbed on his way to the bank?")

Needless to say, I was the first in line at the microphone, but what responsible law enforcement officer would do that to another - particularly to one who needed to command respect in one of the most drug-ridden small towns in the state? And what message did that deliver to the members of our police department?

Despite the internal and external agitation (and the lukewarm assistance of our city government), I saw Jordan coax the federal Drug Enforcement Agency into Asbury Park (resulting in the big "Asbury Park Organization" arrests), I saw him support the establishment of our first Citizens on Patrol program, and I saw his effect on the troubled teenagers who worked in the director's office after school and who clung to him like a father after last summer's first Asbury Park Boot Camp.

Now that the city manager has named Mark Kinmon (a quiet, competent man from what I've seen) as Deputy Police Chief and the council is considering establishing a police chief's position, I imagine that peace should reign for the next several months.

But, given Asbury Park's deep-rooted crime problems and what I'm sure will be on-going competition for the coveted chief's position (even if Kinmon initially gets it), I predict that peace will be fleeting.

Last Saturday, about 100 of us met to celebrate Lou Jordan's work in Asbury Park. That night, he was given the first-ever lifetime achievement award from the 56-chapter National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), and letters and certificates from the FBI, the Greater Long Branch NAACP, local residents, and Coretta Scott King.

Lou Jordan will undoubtedly survive and thrive. I'm not so sure about Asbury Park.