A City Council committee will meet Monday to look at the Honolulu Police Commission's efforts to select a new police chief.

Donovan Dela Cruz, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said he's bothered that the commission chose to name six finalists for the position even though a search committee had recommended four people.

Two members of the selection committee resigned in protest over the commission's decision to add the next two candidates to their list of four.

"There are concerns about the process being altered, and we want to make sure there's transparency and accountability, as well as confidence from the public and, especially, the police officers," Dela Cruz said.

He noted that police officers have come forward to voice their concerns with the process.

Police Commission Chairwoman Christine Camp said she and her colleagues want to have a new chief named before Thanksgiving.

Four of the six finalists are HPD brass: Acting Chief Paul Putzulu, assistant chiefs Deborah Tandal and Delbert Tatsuyama, and Capt. Louis Kealoha. The other two candidates are Cmdr. Harry Markley of the Phoenix Police Department and Cmdr. Gary Yamashiroya of the Chicago Police Department.

Dela Cruz's Public Safety Committee will meet at 3 p.m. Monday.

Different stakeholders will be asked to attend Monday's meeting and answer questions, including members of the commission, the selection committee and consultants from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Dela Cruz said.

Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, also a Public Safety Committee member, said she's also bothered by the recent developments in the search and by what she's heard from people in the department.

"Some have said that morale in the Police Department is pretty low," Kobayashi said, adding that transparency in government is a top priority.

Camp, told of the meeting, said she respects the council's decision to hold a hearing. "But we as a police commission will set out what we set out to do, and that is to select the best qualified chief among our candidates," she said.

Tenari Ma'afala, president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, said he also believes the commission's actions and the search committee resignations have raised questions about the integrity not just of the process, but of the department .

"The selection committee (along with the police chief's association) was appointed by the commission to do the screening and to submit the four finalists, which they did," Ma'afala said. "And the whole intent of creating that search committee was to have that extra layer of transparency."

Ma'afala said the two men who resigned from the search committee are respected in the community.

William "Buzz" Hong is head of the Hawai'i Building and Construction Trades Council and a former police officer. Ron Taketa is financial secretary for the Hawaii Carpenters Union and was on the Police Commission when it chose Boisse Correia to be chief five years ago.

Ma'afala said he believes the commission can put the controversy behind it and go on to pick the best candidate.

He said he personally is rooting for one of the Hawai'i candidates to get the post, although not any specific one.

Camp last night reiterated that the commission has not pre-selected a chief.

"The whole intent of the City Charter was to place the sole responsibility of picking a police chief on the Police Commission and to take the politics out of the selection process and, at this point, that is what we're doing," Camp said.

After the committee submitted four names to the commission, she and other commission members decided to send the top six names forward to expand the pool of candidates, Camp said.

The commission did not know Tandal and Tatsuyama were the next two names on the list as ranked by the committee, she said.

Noting that this is the first time a selection committee has been used to help pick HPD's chief, Camp stressed that the committee was advisory only and that the commission was not constrained from naming more than four candidates.

The controversy emerged, she said, after a staff member of the commission mistakenly informed the original four finalists to return for further testing while telling seven others who'd made it as far as last week that they were no longer under consideration. Among those seven were Tandal and Tatsuyama.

The commission is slated to receive public testimony on the six remaining candidates at its meeting at 1 p.m. Friday. Written public comments are also due to the commission that day. All six candidates are scheduled to be interviewed by the six members of the commission next week.

Camp said she wants the public to offer comments not just on the specific applicants, but on what qualities they want to see in the next chief.