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today’s special session of city council on the CRB proposals is getting started. incoming city manager tarron richardson and outgoing city manager mike murphy are both in the audience.
city attorney john blair is defining some terms here as we get started. i certainly hope everyone on the dais already knew that an ordinance is a law, but here we are.
blair clarifies that some of what is included in the bylaws is “ordinance material.”
“the crb has done what it was charged with” in producing the draft bylaws. blair says his office is happy to craft the necessary draft ordinance.
“the crb has done what it was charged with” in producing the draft bylaws. blair says his office is happy to craft the necessary draft ordinance.
(surprised to realize i’m more familiar with the way city ordinances are used to define things like board composition than sitting city councilors are)
blair says “one council candidate” has been vocal about his belief that the CRB bylaws violate the law (he means lloyd snook) but clarifies that the bylaws do not grant the board subpoena power or disciplinary authority (so snook is incorrect)
blair says there may be some issues with regard to juvenile records when it comes to the data the CRB would have access to, though they have not specifically asked for any records of this kind.
sarah burke, a CRB member, clarifies from the gallery that there is no proposal that the board itself would conduct any investigations. that’s the purpose of the proposed staff position.
heather hill says there are some problems with the idea of parallel investigations. blair says it would perhaps be more of an appellate body after an internal affairs investigation.
blair: if the CRB is a review board and if they conduct independent investigations, then there is no avenue for review.
how can someone appeal the results of a CRB investigation into a complaint?
how can someone appeal the results of a CRB investigation into a complaint?
galvin asks who would reconcile differing findings between CRB & IA investigations into the same complaint?
CRB member sarah burke comes up to address the issue. the CRB would have no authority to do something like that - they would simply produce findings to the city manager who would make final determinations.
sarah burke says they primarily envision functioning mostly as the appellate body, as blair stated earlier, but they included in the bylaws the option to independently investigate if necessary.
burke, who is an investigator in a professional capacity, says you do not need to be a private investigator to conduct an administrative investigation if you are an employee of the body - which is why the executive director, not the board, would do that.
galvin asks why they wanted more than the appellate function.
burke says they felt it was necessary to include in the event that an external investigation was necessary, but they don’t see that as a primary function.
burke says they felt it was necessary to include in the event that an external investigation was necessary, but they don’t see that as a primary function.
signer: “one of the major concerns is confidentiality.” how would that be enforced? he proposes a “worst case scenario,” in which a board member violated confidentiality.
blair goes back to the idea of release of juvenile records - there are criminal sanctions for that.
blair: for a breach of a confidentiality agreement re: personnel records, the city manager would handle that for a staff member. if it were a board member, council could remove them from the board.
signer can’t let go of this point, which he’s been stuck on for a while, about ensuring there’s punishment for hypoethical breaches of these yet unwritten agreements.
it’s easy to forget signer is in house counsel for a tech company, what with his apparent confusion about how confidentiality agreements work.
josh bowers, a member of the CRB and a professor at the law school, says he understands signer’s concerns and that’s why training & professional guidance are important.
i thought i’d discovered a brilliant way to miss nothing while i duck out to go to the bathroom but the livestream is nearly a minute behind actually being live.
there is some underlying legal issue with providing information collected by the government to any other body, but this seems easily resolved by adding a disclaimer to the police complaint form that the complaint will be shared with the review board.
i wish that there were already some agreement that the CRB is good, important, and will survive this process. this feels less like a hashing out of details about something we know is going to move forward and more like a tribunal to decide whether it lives or dies.
police chief brackney now at the mic outlining the department’s policy on complaints.
brackney says she is now posting complaint case numbers & their status on the department website. that’s good! and a clear indication that the pressure of an oversight board is motivating positive change. (that’s not how she’s framing it, obviously.)
galvin asked a clarifying question about the timeline for responding to a complaint. jeff fogel offers from the audience that there is no limit to the number of 30 day extensions the department can request.
brackney is yelling over jeff fogel and wes bellamy, demanding order in the meeting. she is acting like she has any kind of authority to direct the meeting.
the core of the disagreement here seems to be when the CRB’s investigation can begin, given that the department can technically request infinite extensions and never end their initial investigation into a complaint.
brackney herself admitted she’s only recently gone back, based on things brought to light by the CRB (not that she credits them at all), and resolved years-old complaints.
sarah burke says the board hasn’t fully fleshed out exactly what would trigger the parallel investigative process (again, they don’t see this as a primary function!) and would like to take the issue back to the board for more discussion.
i’m worried we’re really stuck in the weeds on what IS an important issue, but it’s not the primary one. this can get worked out once we have the actual framework of the body in place.
the police department has posted two job openings - one for an additional internal affairs position and one for analyzing arrest data. again, these are clearly direct responses to the pressure of even PROPOSING civilian oversight.
john blair has been talking about the role of the executive director as though it were already decided that the position would exist, which is heartening, but this hasn’t actually been discussed. the meeting ends in 26 minutes ⏰
kim, an attorney with the legal aid justice center, is addressing the issue of the parallel investigations. the ability to conduct independent investigations is critical for the board to be seen as legitimate by the community, even if that isn’t the default mode.
kim also reiterates the importance of someone not directly employed by the police department having access to & understanding the process of analyzing the investigative detention data.
the draft bylaws state that a city council member would be an ex oficio (non voting) member of the board. wes asks if they have any interest in a council member being a voting member. burke affirms the ex oficio stance of the bylaws.
galvin offers that the PLACE design task force and the planning commission both have non voting members of city council. blair offers the counterpoint of some boards with voting members of council.
‘ex officio’ has two f’s in it and apple’s autocorrect is fucking useless with latin terms. how many times have i typed voir dire? does it still change to “voice dice” every single fucking time? you bet.
tbh i think voir dire is french. i don’t care. don’t @ me, i’m not a lawyer.
there is exactly one (1) fruit fly in city council chambers and it keeps trying to fly into my mouth and eyes.
kathy galvin putting me in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with her by pointing out that the reason the council member of the place design task force doesn’t vote is to prevent any one councilor from having undue influence on policy.
talking about board composition now. the draft bylaws have requirements about the board’s demographic makeup that signer thinks are unreasonable.
“at first glance it looks incredibly prescriptive and hard to meet,” says board member josh bowers, but the demographic boxes don’t all have to represent different individuals - one person can represent multiple categories.
wes bellamy says the public applicant forum for the original CRB was a mistake & prevented a lot of people from applying or continuing through the application process.
signer has a hard out at 5pm but before he leaves he says he disagrees with pegging the budget for the board at 1% of the police department’s annual budget.
nikuyah says she thinks the entire current council has been “supportive” of the CRB (i’m not sure i agree) but that future councils might not be - this is something to consider in deciding how CRB members are appointed.
nikuyah counters wes’ argument against the public forum - if someone is opposed to exposing themselves to any public forum, is that someone who will act in the best interest of the public?
(the planning commission pre-meeting started half an hour ago in the NDS conference room down the hall, but their actual meeting starts in THIS room at 5:30...)
wes says we need to be cognizant of the fact that future councils will likely not be as social justice minded (which is what nikuyah was just saying).
hill raises the issue of extending terms... which she was quoted as saying would NOT be done in this weird press release
sarah burke says the board needs four weeks to proceed based on feedback from council. they need concrete feedback on whether one, both, or neither of the proposed positions would be funded, for example.
galvin supports both the executive director and independent auditor positions. “i realize there’s a budget implication here,” she says.
nikuyah is supportive of the executive director position and is interested in more information about what the auditor would do.
nikuyah is supportive of the executive director position and is interested in more information about what the auditor would do.
nikuyah says she is not, at this point, in favor of extending terms past the current july 2 expiration date but is open to revisiting that.
heather hill is worried about “redundancy” with the auditor position and wants some more information from staff about how that would work.
she is also fine with “waiting” to determine if “relatively limited” term extensions are necessary.
she is also fine with “waiting” to determine if “relatively limited” term extensions are necessary.
now for public comment! walt heinecke says he understands they all support the idea of parallel investigations and asks them to confirm the issue is just what triggers that. (that was my understanding, too, but the details are going back to the CRB for more work)
