Caution: chief pilots may be hazardous to your health and your career.
if you look at a plane and think more than 1 second about the deice question, you have over thought the situation. If you think it might need deicing, then get deiced/anti iced.
the old, "snow will blow off once we get going" has fallen out of favor at my airline about 19 years ago.
of course, if you want to get all the mechanics to get brooms and sweep off the snow, you can try that first, then place your hand on ever part of the critical surface to make sure that there is no ice...but of course it is easier to just get deiced.
I have a feeling the chief pilot in question used to work at one place I worked ...on a metroliner...he climbed up on the tail and swept off the snow/frost...gotta save money, gottta stay on time.
of course, in this sunny california case, pulling the plane into the bright sunlight would melt the stuff in 20 minutes, and NO risk of falling off the tail (many things wrong with this guy).