At Aurora City Council’s meeting Monday night, a majority of those who spoke during the public comment period expressed displeasure with the firing of former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson.

City Manager Jim Twombly fired Wilson last week. Her supporters characterize the move as the culmination of a coordinated effort by a new conservative majority on City Council. Many of the public comments were based on this notion.

‘There should not be partisan politics in public safety’: Former Aurora police chief speaks out after firing

Missy Berglund, an Aurora native, said she has worked with the city and its police department many times through her work in child welfare. She said she trusts, believes and cares for the city’s police officers, but said she is disappointed in the decision to fire Wilson and called it a “political game of ‘fire the chief because we don’t like her’.”

“I believe that Chief Wilson was doing the work necessary to ensure that our police department met the needs of our community…” Berglund said. “My worry is by disrupting the work that she has been doing actively, you are making a choice to send our police department back by decades. You are making the choice to send a message to officers that old behaviors are OK, because if somebody challenges them, you’re going to get rid of their chief.”

Berglund added that she hasn’t seen that Wilson’s commitment to the community is matched by members of City Council and she said their decisions prioritize political alliances over her children’s safety.

Aly DeWills-Marcano said while Wilson was appointed to “reform and revolutionize the globally notorious Aurora Police Department,” she was fired for working to do just that.

“The administrative choice to terminate Chief Wilson is clearly retaliation for her commitment to making those same changes that she was directed to make,” DeWills-Marcano said.

“The message has been sent to the community – primarily by the legislators who applied pressure and secondarily by the administration that capitulated to the political pressure – (that) the city is committed to maintaining the status quo. And let’s not forget the status quo is a world-wide embarrassment.”