In July 2021, Chicago’s City Council passed the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance. This landmark ordinance creates two bodies: a new city agency called the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), with power to advance systemic reform, and District Councils, which will be elected in each police district and work to improve policing and public safety in the district. The Commission and District Councils will give community members powerful new tools to provide oversight of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), COPA (Civilian Office of Police Accountability), and the Police Board, while promoting meaningful community engagement to build and implement public safety solutions. Among its many duties, the citywide commission will play a central role in selecting and removing the CPD Superintendent, COPA Chief Administrator, and Police Board members; setting police department policy; establishing annual goals and evaluating progress for CPD, COPA, and the Police Board; and promoting community engagement and transparency.

In February 2023, Chicago voters will have the opportunity to elect three District Council members in each of the city’s 22 police districts. Elected District Council members will in turn nominate fourteen people (who do not serve on the district council), the Mayor will select and the City Council will confirm seven of the fourteen nominees to serve on the Commission. Prior to the first district council election in 2023, the CCPSA will operate with interim commissioners, nominated by the City Council and chosen by the Mayor following a public application process.

The CCPSA’s Executive Director, Adam Gross, will manage the team that supports the work of the Commission and District Councils, and will serve as the liaison between the CCPSA, the agencies and departments it oversees, the City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the consent decree monitor.

Given our experience in organizational design and strategy development, the CCPSA called upon Civic Consulting Alliance to support Executive Director Gross in standing up this new agency. With a generous project-specific grant from the Polk Bros. Foundation, we provided critical capacity and expertise to accelerate the CCPSA, as described below.

Phase 1: February – April 2022

With pro bono support from Protiviti, we worked with Executive Director Gross to develop the operational structures the CCPSA needs to provide effective and meaningful community oversight of the police and police accountability agencies. Specifically, we:

• Outlined a “launch toolkit” of operational considerations to start a new government agency;
• Developed tools to help the CCPSA establish its guiding mission, vision, and goals;
• Identified, mapped, and sequenced potential priorities for the CCPSA to accomplish in its first year; and
• Clarified its organizational structure, including roles, responsibilities, and a management structure.

Phase 2: April – August 2022

With the CCPSA’s foundation and operational structures in place, we began to support Executive Director Gross in preparing to launch the interim commission in the summer or fall of 2022. Supported by the pro bono work of an undergraduate fellow from Northwestern University, Civic Consulting Alliance:

• Developed draft commission policies and processes, such as bylaws and meeting procedures;
• Created an onboarding plan for the interim commissioners and developed training materials; and
• Drafted a meeting plan to guide the interim commission through fall 2022, including topics and speaker suggestions.

As a result of this foundational work, the CCPSA is equipped with the structure and resources needed to immediately begin working toward its goals to improve policing, increase resident engagement, build greater trust between the police and Chicago residents, strengthen accountability, and make the city safer and more just. Civic Consulting Alliance anticipates a continued partnership to support the CCPSA, potentially by building out policies and procedures to support one of the agency’s key functions laid out in the ECPS ordinance.

“Building a new City department from scratch is an extraordinary undertaking and Civic Consulting Alliance (CCA) is an extraordinary partner. The launch toolkit, onboarding plan, and training materials that CCA developed will be crucial for ensuring that commissioners have the knowledge and information that they need to effectively carry out their duties starting on day one. CCA has built an incredibly strong foundation for the Community Commission’s success.”

 – Adam Gross, Executive Director, Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability