Baldwin ? The people of Baldwin didn’t know it, but during last year’s Maple Leaf Festival, a law enforcement officer from out of town had the city under surveillance.

“I even stumbled into the Police Department and looked around like a poor, lost soul and asked a couple of questions,” said Mike McKenna, a retired Wichita Police officer.

The things McKenna learned that Saturday in October had a lot to do with why he is Baldwin’s new police chief.

“The people were positive about the town and the community,” McKenna said, reflecting on the first look he and his wife, Debbie, had at Baldwin.

McKenna, 56, proceeded to sell himself to a Baldwin search committee looking for a new police chief, then to the city council and City Administrator Larry Paine.

Just before Christmas, McKenna was hired from among 50 applicants to replace Steve Butell, long-time police chief who late last summer abruptly resigned. During Butell’s last two years as chief, the Police Department was embroiled in strife and controversy.

An officer suspended for alleged improprieties was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. The entire department was stopped for a period of time by the state from accessing certain computer crime records because of allegations the records were being improperly used.

And several officers threatened to file federal lawsuits because they thought they had been unfairly targeted by city officials for alleged wrongdoing.

Moreover, the department’s handling of a shooting investigation appeared to be so inept the case was ultimately turned over to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

McKenna said he took the Baldwin job fully aware of the problems that beset the Police Department. He thinks he can turn the department around.

“Can you think of anything more challenging?” he said.

Baldwin's new police chief, Mike McKenna, is a former officer with the Wichita Police Department. McKenna, who most recently worked as a buyer for Boeing Co., says he welcomes the return to police work.

McKenna applied for several police chief jobs in the past year. Baldwin was the first city in Kansas to make him an offer. He said he took the job because he and his wife always wanted to stay in Kansas and move to a small town.

Debbie McKenna supervises the Safe and Drug-free School program in the Wichita public school system.

One of the first things McKenna did after being hired was to meet with the nine officers in the Baldwin department.

“As far as I was concerned, everybody here was starting off with a clean slate, and they’d be treated fairly, consistently and honestly,” McKenna said he told them.

Mayor Ken Hayes, who was often critical of Butell, thinks McKenna will make positive changes in the department. He said he had no qualms about bringing in a big city law officer to handle a small town department because of McKenna’s experience in so many areas of law enforcement.

“He seemed to be ready to take on the task,” Hayes said.

McKenna started in law enforcement at age 21. He worked for a short period as an officer in Coffeyville before going to Wichita in 1974.

In Wichita, McKenna rose through the ranks, chased serial killers, supervised detectives and patrol officers and headed the Major Crimes Section. He earned a master’s degree in administration justice from Wichita State University.

McKenna retired from the Police Department in 1996 and took a job with the Boeing Co. He worked as a buyer and procurement director. He said he took the Boeing job because he wanted to prove to himself that he could handle a career outside law enforcement.

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“Although I enjoyed working with Boeing, I didn’t receive the personal satisfaction that I had as a law enforcement officer,” said McKenna, who left Boeing last March. “I love police work. It’s in my blood.”

McKenna said he planned to make the Baldwin department more community oriented. Officers will work with businesses and community organizations to solve crime problems.

Though Baldwin doesn’t have a lot of crime, McKenna noted there were two armed robberies of businesses last year — and the neighborhood shooting the year before. The community is growing and the Police Department has to be prepared for additional problems, he said.

McKenna will be paid $55,000 annually, the same pay Butell received.

McKenna said he wasn’t looking at the Baldwin post as a two- or three-year term before permanent retirement. He said he had no intention of moving his wife to Baldwin for such a short period.

“What I want to be able to do,” McKenna said, “is to go into the Police Department and for people to say 25 or 50 years from now that it was in 2002 that this man, McKenna, came to the Police Department and helped it make the turn in becoming a professional law enforcement facility.”