Mayor, police union respond to Kelly’s call for CPD external review
Mayoral candidate Chris Kelly is calling for an external review of the Columbia Police Department. His opponent in the race, incumbent Mayor Brian Treece said Kelly is two years and two months late on that issue.
“We have a number of external studies that the new city manager and the new police chief can rely on,” he said.
Treece is referring to two studies done over the past decade or so. The first was completed in 2006 by the University of Missouri’s Center of Organizational Change. The second, completed in 2012 by an private consultant hired and paid for by the city, painted a dismal picture of the department. The study found a culture of toxicity existed under the leadership of Ken Burton, and identified poor management organization.
Kelly said he wants the review to dive deeper into poor officer pay, officer morale and what he said is a strained relationship between the department and the African-American community.
“We’ve all known those problems existed,” said Treece. “What we didn’t have was a city manager who was willing to address that.”
Treece said the council has the information it needs and issues have already been addressed by the council, or are starting to be addressed under new leadership by interim City Manager John Glascock.
“We have vehicle traffic stop data. We have an employee engagement and satisfaction report that is coming to City Council in February. We have a toxicity report that’s been on the city manager’s desk for years. And we have a compensation study that we have taken swift action [on],” he said. “We don’t need an external review.”
But Kelly disagrees. He said the reviews didn’t answer many questions.
“I’d hope we’d be a little more deliberate about getting an organization or a person who will get us more detailed, more thorough answers,” he said.
He wants a review that can be used as a blueprint for the new city manager and police chief, but one that is free of “internal voices.”
“I want the review to be objective and outside,” he said. “There’s no substitute for factual information.”
Columbia Police Officers Association spokesperson Dale Roberts said the new management should be involved in a review process, if it happens. For now, he said, it’s too late for a review after the removal of Burton and former City Manager Mike Matthes, but too early to review a department that’s still coming to terms with the change.
“It’s too late to do anything about the Burton regime, he’s gone,” he said. “There’s no desire or feeling among the officers that there’s any need for a study.”
He said morale has improved almost overnight with the removal of Burton.
Both Roberts and Treece said they thought the call for a review was a campaign ploy by Kelly, who Treece said has not been involved in the process to implement community policing.
Kelly said he’s been involved in a number of boards and commissions for a number of years, inlcuding the Mayor’s Task Force on Infrastructure. He said by calling for the review, he’s expressing his opinion on issues of public concern.
The Columbia Police Department did not respond to requests for comment on a possible review.
