Akron Mayor Shammas Malik submitted language for a proposed charter amendment to Akron City Council on Monday that would formally allow outside candidates to be considered for future police and fire chief openings.
If approved by City Council, a city charter amendment would be placed on November’s ballot for Akron residents to vote up or down. The proposed amendment must be submitted to the Summit County Board of Elections by Sept. 5 to get on the ballot, Deputy Law Director Brian Angeloni told City Council’s Rules Committee on Monday afternoon.
The legislation would make good on Malik’s promise during the recent Akron police chief search to seek to change the law that caused tension among his supporters, particularly in Akron’s Black community and among Black elected officials.
Malik reversed course in April on his plan to launch a nationwide search for the police chief position vacated when then-Chief Steve Mylett stepped down at the end of Mayor Dan Horrigan’s term.
Despite previous Akron chiefs being hired from other departments, Malik announced in March that his law department discovered an Ohio law that states the two highest positions on the police and fire departments must be filled through an internal promotion.
Because Akron didn’t have language in the charter to override the previously unheeded state law, Malik said he was only allowed to consider APD deputy chiefs as candidates.
Because both of Akron’s deputy police chiefs applied for the job, it guaranteed that only two white men would be considered, including Brian Harding, who got the job. Leon Henderson, a Black man, was named fire chief in June after an internal-only hiring process.
With Malik’s refusal to wait until after the November election to appoint a permanent chief, tension grew with Black elected officials and community members who were upset about the lack of diversity in the candidate pool.
“I will always, always, act with fidelity to my understanding of the law whether it’s popular or not popular — I will stand on that,” Malik said during an April 10 forum organized by three Black-led organizations. “Our law department looked at [the law], and I said, ‘Please go back and look at it.’ They went to outside counsel and outside counsel looked at it too. They sent emails, they sent us memos, we sent them back. We had questions and questions and questions.”
Waiting until after November’s election to hire from a pool that would include external candidates, he said during that forum, “would do more harm than good. I could be wrong about that, but I’m giving you my opinion.”
Attorney and organizer Imokhai Okolo, who frequently takes on the city and police department in court and in the media, called for Malik to wait until after the charter amendment in the November election to appoint the chief, in order to have a more diverse pool of candidates. Black people have been waiting hundreds of years for justice, he said in April, so waiting until after the election to appoint a chief wouldn’t be an issue.
