ithaca police

Acting Chief Ted Schwartz said he supports some parts of Ithaca’s Reimagining Public Safety reforms, but said his priority is to bring stability to the police department.

Common council members voted 8-2 Wednesday to approve an increase to the maximum starting salary for Ithaca's next police chief, as the city continues its search to fill the position.

Last week, acting Police Chief John Joly told the Ithaca Voice he was taking an indefinite leave of absence and planned to sue the city of Ithaca and Mayor Laura Lewis for a "hostile work environment".

Christine Barksdale is one of three IPD officers to face de-certification since 2016. Barksdale was the first Black woman to join Ithaca's police department.

"A number of comments and emails that we received recently made me feel like I was living in some alternate universe," said Alderperson Ducson Nguyen.

Van Houten said the Reimaging Public Safety working group lacked full understanding of Ithaca’s existing criminal justice system when it authored the report.

The proposed Department of Community Safety would oversee the current police force, as well as a new division of five unarmed responders.

“Having an acting chief at the helm of the department right now is not causing any problems."

A task force will now take over the work for designing how the new overarching Department of Public Safety would work.

So far, most councilors have not explicitly said how they’ll vote on the resolution.