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i don’t know why i switched meetings at the actual appointed start time of this CRB meeting. we’re just coming to order 26 minutes late.
oh bill, the retired data scientist who moved to the city recently & volunteered his services at the last meeting to analyze the data from the police department is giving a presentation! i gotta find a way to get a copy of it.
there is literally no way to tell what this slide says 
the board is discussing the staff positions they envision would be necessary - what would it cost? what would the job descriptions be? sarah says she’s already written job descriptions for the ‘auditor’ position proposed.
“it’s not radical, it’s not revolutionary, it’s not more than a lot of other cities do,” but it is a real opportunity to build public trust, says board member sarah about the mission of the civilian review board.
“this is not something that can be done on the cheap,” josh bowers says.
with the FY19 just passed, it seems unlikely they could get the probably $180k+ it would take to hire two people and get this operation up and running before the FY20 budget.
with the FY19 just passed, it seems unlikely they could get the probably $180k+ it would take to hire two people and get this operation up and running before the FY20 budget.
the board’s bylaws, which haven’t yet been finalized, are due may 1. their april 17th meeting is a joint session with council, so they’re having to schedule an additional meeting to vote on the bylaws.
oh wow i thought he was joking but he is stone cold serious - josh said they should be prepared for a line by line read through & debate about the bylaws at the meeting they’re scheduling to vote on the finalized bylaws.
the bulk of all municipal government and all legal proceedings is people comparing their calendars to schedule the next time they’ll get together to compare calendars.
josh bowers has prepared a spreadsheet showing the population, # of cops, # of staff for the board, total budget for the police dept, and board budget in 35 localities (with populations under 1 million) that have civilian review boards
the average CRB budget is on this data is $967k, but the dataset doesn’t include any localities with a population under 100k people (charlottesville has around 50k people)
he extrapolates based on this data that a city with the number of cops & population that we have, a budget of $160k and at least one professional staffer would be appropriate.
josh says another way to calculate the budget for the board is to take 1% of the police department budget, which puts them at the $180k number they’ve been batting around.
the meeting has long since devolved into a casual discussion with a lot of cross talk and side conversations.
i love the civilian review board. its work is very important. i want them to be successful. but the meetings nearly always feel like a waste of everyone’s time.
i love the civilian review board. its work is very important. i want them to be successful. but the meetings nearly always feel like a waste of everyone’s time.
there was maybe 30 minutes of business over the past 2 hours and ten minutes. i should’ve stayed at the planning commission meeting.
the board is now debating whether or not they should prepare a packet of information to the new city manager. his official start date is very close to the end of their terms as board members. there isn’t actually any business left to discuss tonight. someone please adjourn this.
i can’t remember where they landed with selecting someone to officially chair meetings? having someone keep them on track with the agenda would really help. every meeting of every body needs someone to mind the agenda!
