Months into a widely publicized national search for the next Akron police chief, Mayor Shammas Malik and the city’s law department said they can no longer consider candidates outside of the Akron Police Department for the position.
The change means there are now only a handful of potential candidates who can fill the job. The next police chief will likely be Deputy Chief (and current Acting Chief) Brian Harding or Deputy Chief Jesse Leeser. If one of them doesn’t apply, APD captains will be considered.
The move, Malik said, comes after city lawyers looked into the legalities of a “retire-rehire scenario” involving Akron Fire Department Chief Joseph Natko and discovered a state law that now shuts down the nationwide search.
“They began looking at an Ohio Revised Code provision that essentially says when there is a vacancy above the entry level in safety forces, that that must be filled internally,” Malik said during a Monday afternoon press conference.
ORC 124.44 says, in part: “No positions above the rank of patrol officer in the police department shall be filled by original appointment. Vacancies in positions above the rank of patrol officer in a police department shall be filled by promotion from among persons holding positions in a rank lower than the position to be filled.”
Malik noted the penalty for willfully violating that provision is that the public official who does the hiring is removed from office. “That is something we’d like to avoid,” he said.
“We are going to let the external candidates know today about this decision,” Malik said on Monday afternoon.
Akron is a “home rule” city and is allowed to adopt and enforce its own rules that, in many instances, supersede the ORC. But Akron’s charter doesn’t have language that overrides the state law, and instead says roles should be filled through internal promotions “whenever practicable.”
“Now this certainly came as a surprise to me,” Malik said. “The city has had two prior police chiefs who have been appointed externally. And so as we began this process last fall, I believed that we would have the opportunity to do the same. However, I’m acting based on the best legal advice that I have today. I do believe the previous administrations were acting on the best understanding that they had at the time.”
Malik’s and the law department’s interpretation of the state law and the charter now mean the pool of candidates is significantly limited. If the department’s two deputy chiefs – Harding and Leeser – apply, Malik believes the job legally has to be offered to one of them.
The news was likely a welcome change for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 – Akron’s police union – which has been calling for the police chief to come from within the department.
“The new Chief should come from within,” the union wrote on Facebook in January. “Two attempts to go outside the department have largely failed… SAVE OUR TAX DOLLARS. HIRE FROM WITHIN.”
Monday was the original deadline for candidates to apply for the job. Malik pushed the deadline back two weeks in light of the recent legal discovery. Once the finalist is identified, Malik said the city will hold two community meetings before the hire becomes official.
In the meantime, he said, the administration is going to look at how other cities hire external police and fire department candidates. They’ll also try to get a measure on the ballot this November that would amend the charter to explicitly allow the city to hire externally for Akron Police and Akron Fire leadership positions.
