The Columbia Heights City Council unanimously approved a first reading of a charter amendment that would shift oversight of the police department from the mayor to the city manager.
City Manager Aaron Chirpich said the city’s Charter Commission had been working on the proposal for at least a year.
The amendment would change how police oversight is defined in the city charter. Chirpich said the charter currently states that the mayor has appointment, control and direction over every police officer in the city, language he said is overly broad and does not reflect how modern police departments operate.
Chirpich said the city has become more complex since the charter was adopted, and policing no longer functions the same way it did when the document was written. State statutes have also evolved, he said, shifting authority away from elected officials and toward police chiefs.
The Charter Commission has discussed the issue multiple times over the past dozen years, Chirpich said, with the goal of aligning the charter with current law and city operations while avoiding situations where a mayor might appear responsible for operational police decisions.
“If you read that in its simplest form, the residents would really get the impression that, if there’s an issue at the police department, the mayor can go…and just take care of it like that,” Chirpich said. “That kind of broad language just isn’t reflective of the laws and statutes and processes and union restrictions and all of the things that go along with a 21st century police department.”
Under the proposed amendment, the city manager would oversee the police department in the same way other department heads currently report to the manager.
Chirpich said the change would remove language giving the mayor authority over the department and also eliminate a section of the charter stating that the city manager oversees all city functions except the police department.
Council Member Connie Buesgens said the charter originally reflected how city government operated when it was written in 1921, when the mayor played a more direct role in policing and hiring.
Buesgens said the amendment updates the charter to reflect modern governance.
Council Member Rachel James said the change would not remove council oversight but would align the police department with the structure used for other city divisions.
“We are really lucky that we have a police department that regularly communicates with us, and that we have an opportunity to provide feedback in lots of ways,” James said.
Mayor Amada Marquez Simula said the amendment clarifies how the city’s government operates and reflects the council’s role in setting policy rather than managing department operations.
“As we all want a very transparent, equitable police department, it’s very misleading to say there’s one person who’s in charge of what they do,” Simula said. “And it’s not what they do, because they have lots of rules and integrity to do things the way that is the right way to handle it.”