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San Mateo County Sheriff-elect Christina Corpus announced Dec. 20 that Mountain View Police Chief Chris Hsiung will join the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office as undersheriff.
“I’m excited to welcome Chief Hsiung to the team, and to bring him home to San Mateo County,” said Corpus in a Dec. 20 statement. “This is a renowned professional with a demonstrated commitment to enhancing community safety and officer wellness. We share a modern approach to this work, and I know he will help me make the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office a premier law enforcement agency.”
The announcement comes one day after the news that Hsiung will be stepping away from his role as Mountain View’s police chief, which he has held for the past two years, in February. Hsiung has served the department for nearly three decades.
Hsiung said the decision to leave wasn’t an easy one, given how long he’s served in Mountain View.
“I was very conflicted because of how much I love Mountain View, plain and simple,” he said. “That’s been my life for the last almost three decades. It’s the community, the people, the culture, my department.”
After getting to know Sheriff-elect Corpus, “the more it became clear that she and I have very similar views and vision on how we feel policing should be,” Hsiung said.
“It’s taking a look at the current culture in policing and understanding that a lot has to change, and that as leaders, it’s our responsibility to really push the profession forward,” he said. “The best way I can describe it is what you see in Mountain View: We care deeply for our own employees. … And in turn, we also know that that’s exactly how we expect you to treat the community, too.”
With the new position overseeing a much larger agency, Hsiung said, “it’s just a tremendous opportunity to take that work and continue onward with the hopes that it spreads even beyond just San Mateo County.”
Hsiung described the undersheriff position as “the No. 2 person” under Sheriff-elect Corpus.
“The undersheriff basically runs everything internally in the Sheriff’s Office, while the sheriff position itself, obviously has oversight, but is mostly focused outwardly as an elected official,” he said.
Having grown up in Foster City and now living with his wife and four children in San Mateo, Hsiung said the new job “is almost like coming back home, in some sense.” But he added, “I didn’t envision this chapter closing so soon in Mountain View.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office statement, Hsiung will be the first Asian American undersheriff in San Mateo County history.
Hsiung will begin his duties as undersheriff in early February. He said he looks forward to learning the ropes in a different type of law enforcement agency.
“I love learning,” he said. “Having been almost three decades in policing, I don’t have the same amount of experience in corrections or all the different breadth of resources and teams and units that a sheriff’s office has. So it’s going to be like drinking from a fire hose, and I’m totally excited at that chance just to learn and grow.”
Hmm, perhaps a lesson in not believing things just because they were said by a cop.
@Another MV Resident. Cute. You have obviously never met him. MV is widely considered a model for other PD’s across the country. In fact they are often sent to other cities to train their police leadership on how to run a PD in a way that respects the community. Do some homework before you make critical remarks. It makes perfect sense that Chris would be promoted to a broader role in the county. Do you have suggestions for who would have been a better candidate for the role? Hmm, perhaps not.
Classic double dipping at its finest.
I don’t discount Chris’ 28 years of service for Mountain View, but this move to a non-Calpers agency stinks of selfish motives.
Greg David, why is moving to a more challenging position to help more broadly in a different community selfish?
Hey David, what does that even mean? Most people work two jobs and draw two salaries. If you are being paid by a different city, county, and tax dollars Is that double dipping? I think it’s called a new job! If the chief were to return to MV, while still collecting his pension, that may be considered “double dipping.” Law Enforcement officers have a lot of rules of employment set by the city, state, and retirement system. LE can also retire at a young age. Once you reach the age of 50 (classic employees) you can retire. You can’t work full time after retirement in the same city in LE. This is not a classic case of “double dipping” it’s an ignorant statement made by a person that don’t understand LE careers or just regurgitating a phrase he overheard in the media.
How does a fat pension + full time salary = two jobs?
Just wanted to chime in a bit on the topic of double-dipping.
For the record, “double-dipping” does not involve working two jobs at the same time, and thus earning two salaries. No, it means conducting one’s career in a way as to earn TWO different sets of retirement benefits. And that appears to be what is happening here.
From 12/19: “Mountain View Police Chief Chris Hsiung will retire in February, after 28 years with the Mountain View Police Department, the city announced in a statement Monday.” https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2022/12/19/mountain-view-police-chief-chris-hsiung-announces-plans-to-retire
From 12/20: In the news story above we learn that two days after “retiring”, Hsiung is now going to be taking on new Law Enforcement responsibilities in San Mateo. Presumably he is being paid a salary and offered a second set of retirement benefits as part of his benefits package. If so, his situation would in fact qualify as “double-dipping”.
It is interesting that the law allows double-dipping to occur in some occupations, but not others. If I am not mistaken, those who go into teaching after working a first career that involved paying into Social Security face a tough choice. Teachers don’t pay into Social Security, they pay into a different retirement benefits system. However, when retirement rolls around, they are not allowed to take benefits from both Social Security (which they paid/earned during their first career) and also benefits from the teachers’ retirement system (which they paid/earned during their second career). The law prevents double-dipping when it comes to teachers.