On Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council approved two proposals from Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.

The proposals initially passed through the Minneapolis City Council Budget Committee on Tuesday.

The first of the proposals formally accepted new changes in state law that eliminate a cap on the number of deputy chiefs MPD can hire. The second proposal was for MPD to create two new deputy chief positions.

Both proposals were approved Thursday without any opposition from the council.

A spokesperson for MPD said the changes will allow the department to create a Bureau of Internal Affairs and a Bureau of Constitutional Policing, an idea that Chief O’Hara first presented to the City Council in February.

“For the first time in decades, we are able to change the structure and the leadership of the Minneapolis Police Department,” O’Hara said Thursday morning after the council’s vote.

O’Hara says he now plans to “realign the agency around achieving the results that our residents want” and split the department in half, with one assistant police chief overseeing each half. One of those will deal with all police operations and crime while the other will oversee everything regarding the city’s consent decrees and rebuilding community trust.

The council approved a second assistant chief for the department just this spring after O’Hara proposed adding it.

The chief called the move “historic” and said he plans to finalize his appointments in the coming days, adding that people can expect to see changes in the department’s leadership “very soon.”

“I am not here to maintain the status quo. I did not leave my family and my entire life to come halfway across the continent to keep things the way they are,” O’Hara added.

However, the new deputy chiefs will be current members of the department, not from outside the agency. Those positions will have a salary range of $153,524 to $181,995.