COLUMBUS — Columbus wants residents at the table as it builds a new way to answer emergency calls. The city has opened applications for the inaugural 15-member Community Crisis Response Advisory Board, which will oversee a voter-backed program that sends clinicians — not police — to certain emergencies such as mental health crises.
Applications opened Oct. 6 and run through Oct. 23 on the city’s website. City Council and Mayor Andrew Ginther plan to appoint the board in early November, with a goal of holding its first meeting before the end of November. The push follows concerns raised about three weeks ago by Chana Wiley, co-chair of the Columbus Safety Collective, that the city was moving too slowly on the voter-approved plan. Wiley said this week she was encouraged by the quick turnaround and urged residents to apply.
The board stems from Issue 5, which passed with about 77 percent of the vote. The measure commits the city to begin operating non-police crisis teams by February 2028 and to make them available around the clock by Feb. 1, 2030. The panel will oversee both the new program and existing alternative-response efforts, including a pilot that pairs clinicians with police on certain calls. Council passed legislation in June requiring the board to be in place by the end of November.
Wiley has lobbied City Hall for alternative crisis response since her younger brother, 36-year-old Jaron Thomas, died in 2017 days after Columbus police responded to his call for help. For supporters, the advisory board is the first concrete step toward a system where a mental health crisis gets a mental health response — and where families like Wiley’s might have had a different outcome.
