San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore is retiring after two years in San Jose and more than 30 years in law enforcement. However,  he's leaving behind a police department in turmoil dealing with pension reform, pay cuts, low morale and an increase in crime.

He says called the staffing levels in the department, dire.

"The issue we are facing is although we have people in the academy, we continue to lose people to resignation and retirement," said Moore.

Chief Moore was criticized by city council member Pete Constant for his shortened service time as chief.

City Manager Debra Figone said she regrets having to conduct a new search.

Moore said he would not be retiring if the city council voted in August to put a sales tax initiative on the ballot to help pay for more resources and officers.

"The issue for me was the unwillingness to even put it on the ballot," said Moore. "If that measure, tax measure had been put on the ballot I think we all could have lived with that and said that's the choice the taxpayers made but they never had the choice to vote on it."

The city is holding four community meetings to get public input on the next chief.

At the first meeting Monday night, several people told city staff they wanted an internal candidate. But Moore says no one inside the department is interested in the top job.   

"Once it was determined that nobody from inside the organization for all the same reasons felt compelled to seek this job, it opened up the opportunities for other chiefs, sitting chiefs."

Moore says he's going to take a month off, and then consider other career possibilities, including police chief jobs in other jurisdictions.

"I'm evaluating some opportunities that people have put before me that are really gracious and wonderful,” said Moore. “Some of them have nothing to do with law enforcement."

As one of his last major acts, Chief Moore says he'd like to see every officer have a mounted camera on their uniform to record every interaction. He says that would save the city time and money when dealing with complaints from the public.