Aurora’s councilmembers voted unanimously Monday to create the Office of Public Safety Accountability to oversee the police department.

The council will cast a final vote on the ordinance creating the office at the next council meeting and city officials will begin hiring after final approval, a city spokesperson said.

The oversight office, as outlined in the ordinance passed Monday, will serve as an “independent function reporting administratively to the city manager and functionally to the public safety policy committee.”

Aurora police will be required to notify the office of any critical incidents within 30 minutes and the office will assign liaisons to family members of anyone killed or injured in a critical incident, according to the ordinance.

Office members will also get unrestricted access to employees, information, records, body-worn camera videos, property, equipment and facilities required for reviews and oversight.

The creation of an oversight office has been in the works for years, with approval and $330,000 in funding initiated when the city also entered into a consent decree with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

At the time, city officials decided to wait to stand the office up until the consent decree finished so as not to have two such bodies simultaneously, according to officials. Aurora’s consent decree is expected to end Feb. 15, 2027.

The consent decree, which the city entered into to implement sweeping changes to Aurora Police Department policing, notably in the use of force and how officers engage with residents, was envisioned to last about five years, according to Independent Monitor Jeff Schlanger.

The latest report, covering Aug. 16, 2025 through Feb. 15, was the 10th of 12 total reports the monitor is expected to produce and marks four of five scheduled years for the monitorship.

As the decree enters its final year, a renewed push for the oversight body was spearheaded by two of the city’s new councilmembers: Amy Wiles and Gianina Horton.

Horton thanked city staff Monday night for “genuinely listening to community … and embedding that throughout this document.”

“We still have a long ways to go and there’s really no end post here … beyond the vision that we have a police department that is effective in their job without the loss of life,” Horton said.

Several members of the public spoke to the council about the ordinance Monday night, with some calling it a step forward and others saying the power the office will hold over police is not enough.

Aaron Futrell called the office “exactly the type of accountability healthy institutions embrace.”

Cassandra Heil, with the Denver-Aurora Community Action Committee, said the office falls short of its goal to hold police accountable.

“This bill lacks the one thing that will actually help citizens of Aurora,” Heil said. “The only way to make meaningful changes is with power in the hands of the people who have it the least.”

Heil criticized the office’s lack of power to hire and fire police and create or change police policy and the public’s lack of power in choosing who runs the office.

MiDian Shofner, who has lead protest efforts in the wake of police shootings, said the creation of the office “feels like a welcome mat, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve been invited into the room just yet.”

Strong parts of the ordinance include the critical incident notification and family liaison requirements, Shofner said.

However, she said it seems like it will act more as a “spectator” system than an “accountability” system.