East Bay Town Scrambling For New Police Chief Again After Abrupt Resignation

KENSINGTON (CBS SF) -- The small unincorporated Contra Costa County community of Kensington is once again searching for an interim police chief after the last one abruptly resigned last week.

In October, the Kensington Police and Community Services District voted 3-2 to select former Santa Clara police Chief Kevin Kyle for the part-time job.

Kyle resigned last Friday, leaving the district scrambling to find a replacement.

"I do not believe the part time schedule I am constrained by will allow me to achieve the excellence I demand of myself and the District deserves," Kyle said in his resignation letter.

Kyle's departure comes in the wake of the November election that put two new members onto the district board and after the recent hire of a new district lawyer.

In addition, the district is mulling over structural changes to how it operates.

One idea would be to separate out the police chief job from the general manager job and another would be to disband the police force entirely and contract out for law enforcement services, board president Len Welsh said.

"There's a lot of change in the air right now and it would be good in my view if we let things settle down for a couple of months (before making any major changes)," Welsh said.

Welsh said it's possible that the man Kyle replaced, former interim Chief/general manager Kevin Hart, could come back to the job while the district renews its search for a permanent replacement.