Thread by @socialistdogmom

the joint session of city council and the police civilian review board should be starting momentarily. it’s being live-streamed here:
facebook.com/cvilletv10/vid…

typically councilors attending a joint session with a board sit in the press box off to the side. tonight we’ve got the entire board and three councilors (wes, heather, and nikuyah) crammed into the dais.

“we really put ourselves into these bylaws,” says board member ms gloria. “we need transparency and unity” between residents and police.

the board’s bylaws are due to council may 1. they’re presenting their work so far to council tonight.

board member sarah says they researched 120 different civilian review boards nationwide and said no two are alike. our board has to meet the needs of our community.

sarah: “this is an iterative process.” most boards take 5-7 years to become fully functional. this is the first step toward a longer term goal.

“we know that what we’re asking for is going to be expensive,” sarah says of the full time staff positions required by the plan they’re outlining tonight.

guillermo says people have only seen the work that happens in their meetings every two weeks but the meat of their work has taken place between meetings over the last 8.5 months - research, working with NACOLE, meetings with city staff, etc.

heather asks if they mean for the “executive director” position to be dedicated to the CRB only, as a full time position. (they do)
wes asks how many complaints come in per month. sarah says “30 per year,” but isn’t certain how reliable that data is over time.

sarah says according to NACOLE, in communities with relatively low rate of complaints, the number tends to increase once there is a robust CRB in place. people feel more confident and comfortable making complaints.

wes says even if the rate of complaints went up, it would be maybe 5 per month... is there a need for a full time employee to field those complaints? guillermo & josh say the exec director position would do more than processing complaints & will explain later in the presentation.

the “executive director” position also includes investigative duties. it’s an interesting mix of responsibilities.

the second staff position they propose is the “police auditor,” who would work mostly independently.

sarah and josh are making it very clear that it is standard operating procedure for a board like this to have professional staff. it isn’t unusual. it is necessary.

there are a lot of cops here tonight. i’d really appreciate it if they’d turn down their fucking radios. i can hear the dispatcher loud & clear, officer!

community engagement is a critical component of the plan.

proposed job descriptions for the two staff members required by this model

the board members are using she/her pronouns when referring to this hypothetical individual. one of the cops in the back row is loudly complaining about this “she keeps saying she, she, she!”

“if you’re committed to oversight, it’s an expensive enterprise,” josh says he was told by NACOLE.

he compared boards around the country and made some calculations about what their budgets would look like in a municipality our size.

josh says a common metric is funding the board at 1% of the police department’s budget. our PD is funded at $18mil annually, which would put the board’s budget at $180k annually.
he’s explaining the issue of economy of scale.

a budget of $180k would be plenty for the two staff they propose hiring, training, and events.

heather asks interim city manager mike murphy to ask HR to look at the actual cost with benefits to hire for these two positions.

heather asks city attorney john blair for guidance on what belongs in bylaws and what needs to be a city ordinance.
blair says several items in the bylaws would be more appropriate as ordinance.

board member sarah says they need to sit down with the city attorney and parse that out - not a conversation for this particular moment.

the draft bylaws are included in tonight’s packet but we’re not going to get a line by line review tonight.

wes said at the top of the meeting that he had a hard out at 7:30pm for a date with his daughter. it’s 7:33 - you better get outta here, wes!

some board members had expressed interest in things like police car ride alongs as a form of training, but others have said such an experience would have a negative impact on their mental health. the bylaws wouldn’t require that for members who decline it.

wes asks if they envision this to be an independent body, like the housing authority? or like the planning commission, which operates under the auspices of the city with city staff?
sarah says she isn’t quite clear enough on the difference to make a comparison.

sarah acknowledges that budget won’t be decided at this meeting, but whether or not they can afford to hire these staffed positions is feedback they need before finalizing the bylaws. heather says “let’s be realistic about this” re: getting that decided before the may deadline

5 out of 6 members of the board have terms that expire at the beginning of june. nikuyah says council can extend those if necessary.

wes (whose daughter is probably pretty mad about how late he is!) asks if they can get started without the staff positions, if those are gonna be phased in, or if they need them immediately. sarah says they imagine them filled within a year.

wes says he sees that as being a difficult request to meet. the human rights commission, which is similar in structure, has asked for additional staff & not gotten it. also, the FY20 budget was just finalized - this is a huge off cycle request.

nikuyah says the job description for the auditor is clear to her, but the need for an executive director is less apparent given the volume of complaints we have.

wes headed out which causes the joint session to lose its quorum. heather & nikuyah will remain, but not in their official capacity.

now moving on to public comment. a woman asked about the number of complaints processed by other municipalities, but they don’t have that information.

“you can only put so much stock in the number of complaints to date,” says josh. with a well functioning CRB that has the trust of the public, that number could skyrocket.

walt says the board is headed in the right direction & thanks them for their work. he says the composition of the board as outlined in the bylaws may need to be tweaked - the people’s coalition wants to make sure affected communities are represented on the board.

“i’m not feeling the urgency from council on this,” walt says. he references a recent daily progress article on shocking racial disparities in stop & frisk data
dailyprogress.com/news/local/cit…

of how the city handled the human rights commission, “you did that wrong,” walt tells council.
“the political culture of this town suppresses people from coming forward,” “if you build it they will come,” “i know the complaints are there.” people don’t trust the current system.

walt says he doesn’t want the board’s work to be undermined by a lack of funding and a lack of political will.
applause from the gallery.

adeola from legal aid justice center says the city needs to be clear & transparent about what information the board will have access to. these conversations have to take place in the open.
(the issue of access to raw data is ongoing and messy)

josh says they have meetings set up for may with the police department to have conversations about establishing a memorandum of understanding, but those conversations are not public.

harold folley from LAJC and the people’s coalition: “there’s been three police chiefs and the data’s still the same,” he says of the disproportionate minority contact.
he says the city has to fund this board for it to be successful.

and that concludes both public comment and the meeting. we are adjourned. the CRB will meet again for their regularly scheduled tuesday meeting next week and have two special sessions scheduled for during the day the 30th & 1st to finalize the bylaws.