News - Local

Published: Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Longtime SLO Policeman, Dan Blanke, retires

When Dan Blanke started, it was often the Wild West

Comments (0) |

Capt. Dan Blanke, who is retiring from his role as public information officer for the San Luis Obispo Police Department, said the city had sharper edges when he arrived back in 1980.

When asked what seems truly different about law enforcement today, Blanke immediately started talking about the bar fights.

In the city of 29 years ago, the bar fights were knock-down, drag-out affairs, he said. Blanke said officers knew everybody on duty had to roll to the scene and would arrive to find bar stools and customers flying.

“We would get called to what were like Wild West saloon bar fights,” he said. “If we got called to bar fights, everybody would go and we would have to really expect to mix it up with people.”

But bar fights are much quieter now, he said, with only two to three people involved and the rest of the clientele pretty much trying very hard to stay out of it.

Blanke attended Cal Poly and received a bachelor’s degree in natural resources management. He then took a job with the San Jose Parks Department as a ranger, but that led to an interest in law enforcement and back to the town he remembered from college.

“I tell people that from the first day I got here, I felt like a first round draft pick because it seemed it was law enforcement done the way it should be,” he said.

Blanke has been a captain for eight years in the department. He was above Capt. Ian Parkinson in seniority, but both served as second in command under Chief Deb Linden.

Parkinson has taken over the role as department spokesman.

Blanke has also been the public face of the department during breaking news events, such as in the case where psychiatrist John Michael Rivard shot and killed his wife and 7-year-old daughter in October 2007.

He also played a key role in negotiating with student leaders at Cal Poly and Cuesta College to make sure the Mardi Gras riot of 2004 was not repeated.

He has served under five chiefs, and diplomatically avoids saying which one was his favorite.

The department he joined in 1980 did not have a female police officer, although it had previously. Nine of its 59 sworn officers are women now, including Chief Deb Linden.

“The first ones ended up facing a lot of things that would be considered sexual harassment now,” he said. “Now, it doesn’t really make any difference to anybody. You never hear about it.”

Blanke was once a rookie cop who had the misfortune of crashing up a senior police officer’s favorite patrol car in a chase. And up to his final day, he was a captain who dressed out in uniform and bulletproof vest almost every day.

One department policy he does not agree with allows officers to seek permission to not wear the vests on particularly hot days.

He himself has been shot at just once, as a ranger in San Jose, and the shooter missed.

“The thing I admire most is that he would suit up when he didn’t have to,” said Rob Bryn, current spokesman for the county Sheriff’s Department and former spokesman for the San Luis Obispo police. “And he’d go out and work a beat.”

Blanke plans to hike and kayak and enjoy the great outdoors and travel with his wife. One of the first things he will do is take his 14-year-old niece from Nebraska on a hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.

The department is expected to promote one of its lieutenants to take the vacant captain position, while eliminating a lieutenant position as a budget-cutting measure.

Parkinson, in addition to being a spokesman for the department, is currently waging a campaign to be elected county sheriff. Other candidates include retiring CHP Sgt. Michael Teixiera, former Pismo Beach Police Chief Joe Cortez, former county Supervisor Jerry Lenthall, sheriff’s Deputy Mark Adams, and entertainment broker Kevin Faircourt.

20 take advantage of early retirement

Capt. Dan Blanke is one of the veteran employees taking advantage of a retirement incentive program that the San Luis Obispo City Council approved in April.

The program was developed as a way to deal with the city’s need to cut the number of its employees because of its current budget crisis. The city eliminated 28 jobs as part of its recent budget process, and some of those jobs were occupied by those taking this option.

Twenty employees applied for the program that allows them to receive $20,000 if they retire by Aug. 31, $15,000 if they retire by Dec. 31, and $10,000 if they retire between Jan. 1 and July 1, 2010.

Twelve of those, including Blanke, are taking the $20,000 amount before Aug. 31.

The total cost to the city for all 20 is $350,000.