Columbus Monthly / December 2011 / A new police chief: Bringing in an outsider?

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A new police chief: Bringing in an outsider?

Mike Coleman may have a different avenue to follow in his search to find a new Columbus police chief. If the Columbus mayor wants to explore bringing in an outsider to lead the police division, it appears he won’t face a political showdown with the powerful Columbus police union.

A city civil service rule requires a police chief to come from within the ranks, but Jim Gilbert, president of the Columbus local, says he’s willing to consider a change in the criteria. “We would have open discussions with our members on that,” he says.

The stance is a reversal from two years ago, when the idea (first suggested in a Dispatch editorial) drew a swift, negative response from Gilbert. “We absolutely would object, and we would try to gain support from the citizens,” Gilbert told Columbus Monthly. Rather than risk a war with the union, Coleman, in the midst of a campaign to get a city income tax increase passed, took an easier route, promoting Walter Distelzweig, a deputy chief, to the top spot in early 2009.

So what changed? The past two years under Distelzweig have been tense. “Our department is in such turmoil internally right now,” Gilbert says. The union battled top police brass over a plan to reorganize patrol districts. Union leaders also have concerns that administrators are disciplining officers unfairly.

As a result, if the mayor and his staff asked Gilbert to poll his membership about going outside the division for the next police chief, the union head predicts a different outcome than before. “They’d probably prevail, hands down,” Gilbert says. “There are just a lot of issues internally right now. Morale is terrible. It’s continued to be terrible. You need somebody that is going to come in and pick that back up.”

Gilbert identifies deputy chief Kim Jacobs as the front-runner to replace Distelzweig, who will step down in early January to avoid forfeiting pension payments accrued as part of a deferred retirement plan. Jacobs, a finalist for the job two years earlier, supervises the patrol south subdivision. “A lot of the issues we have internally are with her,” Gilbert says.

All six deputy chiefs and up to seven of the 18 commanders are eligible for the top spot under current requirements, says Columbus public safety spokeswoman Amanda Ford. City officials expect to spend about three months searching for a new chief, Ford says, and will name an interim one if they don’t identify a long-term successor before Distelzweig leaves
Jan. 13.

But it wouldn’t take much effort to widen the field. If the mayor wanted to allow outside candidates, all he would have to do is propose the change to the Columbus Civil Service Commission, which then would consider the idea at one of its monthly meetings. “That is something the mayor has considered in the past and could be open to in the future,” says Dan Williamson, Coleman’s spokesman. “But the civil service rule right now remains in place.”