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Career oportunity, or something else?

Has LA's Assistant Chief Gascon been offered the top police job in Mesa?

Is George coming to Mesa, or not?

Or is Los Angeles’ assistant top cop too streetwise to stroll nonchalantly into what could be dangerous duty career-wise?

Both the Los Angeles Times and The Arizona Republic reported that Assistant Chief George Gascon has been offered the Mesa chief of police position. That would make Gascon the first Latino, Spanish-speaking chief of police in Mesa’s history.

But George is playing it coy, as of mid-June neither saying yea or nay.

Maybe the L.A.-born policeman heard that Mesa voters rejected a property tax in May, triggering a 24-percent drop in the human services budget.

Or maybe Gascon heard about the investigation of e-mails at the Mesa Police Department. Police e-mails included jokes, photos and cartoons about Hispanics, gays, African Americans, seniors, fat people and even Mormons.

Of the 266 police and civilian employees busted for abusive e-mails on department equipment, 84 face suspensions and 182 could get written reprimands slipped into their personnel files.

Maybe, maybe. Only George knows, and at press time, he wasn’t talking.