'Better than I found it': Clive's police chief retires after 12 years with the department

Clive's police chief of 12 years has retired and the city's next chief was sworn in on Thursday.

Retiring Chief Michael Venema, 62, was appointed to be Clive's chief in 2012 after he rose to the rank of lieutenant with the Davenport Police Department. But after a 40-year career, Venema still won't be quite done with law enforcement.

Venema told the Des Moines Register he will spend some time in Florida, but he also will be the director of a state-level police department accreditation program that the Iowa Police Chiefs Association and the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association are developing.

He said he didn't go into law enforcement in 1984 with a goal of being a chief someday.

"No, I just wanted to be a cop when I got into it," Venema said. But as the years went on, "I just kept feeling that I could reach for the next level," he said.

He began his career with the Sterling Police Department in northwestern Illinois and worked there a year before moving to Davenport in 1985 and working there for 26 years. He was born and raised in Fulton, Illinois — just on the other side of the Mississippi River from Clinton.

His successor in Clive will be Capt. Mark Rehberg, who joined the Clive Police Department in 1999, according to a city news release. Rehberg is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and 2016 graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Rehberg was sworn in as chief at Thursday's Clive City Council meeting.

Venema's retirement reception is 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, with a program at 4 p.m. The event is open to the public at the Clive Public Safety Center, 8800 Hickman Road.

Venema most proud of use of body cameras, Clive Police Department's national accreditation

Venema said the Clive Police Department was the first agency in the Des Moines metro to have body cameras on all of its officers — something that's fairly standard now. He said the department started using body cameras in 2013, with five or six cameras shared among the officers on patrol.

He's also proud of the department's national-level accreditation with the Virginia-based Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, or CALEA.

Only 10 other police departments in Iowa had that distinction in CALEA's annual report for 2023: Cedar Rapids, Davenport, DeWitt, Dubuque, Iowa City, Iowa State University, Muscatine, Sioux City, Urbandale and West Des Moines. The Waukee Police Department received its CALEA certification in March 2024.

The Des Moines Police Department entered the accreditation process in September 2022 but the process will take years .

Venema explained that being CALEA-certified means outside law enforcement assessors have determined a police department's policies and procedures on things like pursuits, use of force, handling of complaints against officers, and property and evidence management meet national standards.

“It’s a management blueprint for how professional law enforcement agencies should be run," he said. "Instead of just having the chief decide what the policies are, we decide our policies based on what national standards are.”

Clive earned its accreditation in November 2020 and Venema said the department is in the process of getting re-accredited.

The city has certainly grown during Venema's 12 years as chief, but given that Clive is mostly surrounded by neighbors Urbandale, Waukee, West Des Moines and Windsor Heights, he said that growth has been slow and steady.

It's still been enough growth to require a new public safety center that the police department has been in for two years — something else Venema said he's proud of, along with close cooperation with the city's four neighbors.

“I’m leaving the place a little better than I found it," Venema said.

He said he will be the director of the Iowa Law Enforcement Accreditation Program when it launches as a state-level accreditation program.

The Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association's website did not include a timeline for the program's launch but noted Iowa is one of few states in the U.S. to not have a state-level law enforcement accreditation program.

"This program is being explored not to compete with CALEA, but rather to provide agencies of all sizes opportunities for betterment in a more scalable format," according to the website .

Phillip Sitter covers the western suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com or on X at @pslifeisabeauty.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: 'Better than I found it': Clive's police chief retires after 12 years with the department