Bowing to pressure from City Council and the public, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock added six people to an already-large, multilayered team tasked with reforming the Denver Sheriff Department.
The mayor’s sheriff reform executive steering committee now has 13 members, including the two City Council members who were added Tuesday after a bristly meeting. He also added four people from the public.
The steering committee is tasked with hiring an outside firm to review the entire Denver Sheriff Department and help recruit candidates for sheriff. In addition, the city already has at least six other studies of the troubled department underway.
The committees and processes to reform the sheriff’s department have continued to evolve in the month since Gary Wilson stepped down as sheriff and Hancock announced plans for a top-down review of the department and a national search to find Wilson’s successor.
Still, Hancock insists he has not been spinning his wheels.
“I think the media and stakeholders have been bogged down on who’s around the table, but we’ve been focused on moving the table,” he said.
During Tuesday’s mayor-council meeting, council members leveled heavy criticism toward the entire process. But they were especially offended that Hancock had not picked a representative from their group to sit on his steering committee.
Hancock missed the meeting, and that, too, angered his fellow politicians.
That left David Edinger, who is overseeing the steering committee, and Stephanie O’Malley, Denver’s public safety director, on the receiving end of the complaints.
“What are you thinking?” Councilwoman Jeanne Robb said about council being excluded. “I am astounded. You’ve set up council to be inclined to question every move.
“The public’s upset, and I’m very upset.”
Hancock told The Denver Post that word had reached him about council’s anger, and he had changed his mind. He was calling council members Tuesday afternoon to make amends.
“I’ve expressed my regret of misreading their desire to be involved in this process,” Hancock said.
District 3 Councilman Paul Lopez, who leads the public safety committee, and Robb, who represents District 10, were chosen, Hancock said.
Council members also criticized what they see as an unorganized, convoluted process.
“The process you described is very confusing,” Councilwoman Robin Kniech said. “It’s confusing to council. It’s confusing to the public.”
Councilman Charlie Brown demanded the mayor’s staff give council members outlines and reports to review before meetings so they are prepared to ask questions.
“Let’s be more professional about how we are treated here,” he said.
Kneich also questioned why so many study groups are underway and preparing reports before a consulting firm is hired.
To that, Edinger said the city was capable of doing some of the reviews and any consulting firm would be welcome to use the work or disregard it.
Edinger hopes to have an outside consulting firm hired by early September.
Meanwhile, the city’s human resources office has written a draft report from its study, Edinger said.
On Thursday, four task forces, which also have received criticism, created by Wilson will meet to start combining their work into one report, Edinger said. And a peak performance team from Edinger’s office recently launched a review.
The reports from those studies will be given to the consulting firm that eventually is hired, he said.
If the various study groups find a problem that needs immediate attention, the city will go ahead and make changes, Edinger said.
In an interview with The Post, Edinger often compared the search for a new sheriff to the city’s search several years ago for a new police chief.
He wants to have the top-to-bottom review well underway before the city looks for a new sheriff.
“What we’ve been struggling with and something we’ve found in the past few weeks is it is hard to go out and find a new leader when we don’t know what the organization is going to look like,” he said.
Noelle Phillips: 303-954-1661, nphillips@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Noelle_Phillips
The committee
• Joseph Sandoval, criminal justice professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver
• The Rev. William Golson, chairman of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.
• Rosemary Rodriguez, a former city councilwoman
• Paul Lopez, Denver City Council District 3
• Jeanne Robb, Denver City Council District 10
• Nick Mitchell, Denver Independent Monitor
• Regina Huerter, program manager, Crime Prevention and Control Commission
• Jim Davis, Denver FBI agent
• Elias Diggins, interim Denver sheriff
• Scott Martinez, Denver city attorney
• Stephanie O’Malley, Denver Department of Safety executive director
• Janice Sinden, Denver chief of staff
• Robert White, Denver police chief