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i don’t know how much business the CRB will cover tonight seeing as they didn’t get any real concrete feedback from the city council session two hours ago, but here we are at their regularly schedule meeting.
oh dear. public comment is starting off PRETTY BAD. a woman is saying the reason for racial disparities in policing is because black people commit more crime.
public commenter: “there are certain trends that are detrimental to having a lawful society,” like accusing cops of being racists. ohhhh lord now she’s talking about george soros this is a nightmare.
am i being punished for listening to a lot of alex jones? is the universe sending this woman here to punish me?
board member josh bowers interjected to say her comments about dangerous mobs of black teenagers in chicago are bordering on offensive. he also says the FBI statistics are not reflective of african americans committing more crimes, it reflects enforcement.
he tells her she’s welcome to keep talking but asks her to refrain from offensive racial statements like sweeping statements about “black criminality.”
whew lord. she said she was a substitute teacher for years, which made me reflexively say “that’s terrifying, you old racist.”
as she was passing out the handouts she brought, she says that most mass shooters are black, which causes the room to erupt.
she’s left now. reverend don gathers says he can’t allow that kind of ignorance to go unchallenged & gives a comment if his own.
for the record, i googled her and apparently she’s also fought against water fluoridation.
nbc29.com/story/16092311…
nbc29.com/story/16092311…
ok back to the actual business of the meeting.
(ok ok i promise we’ll get back to this actual meeting but i also found meeting minutes from a 2014 library board meeting that she interrupted to complain about radiation from the library’s wifi)
city attorney john blair encourages the board to talk to the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. josh bowers says they have talked to platania who says his office has an informal understanding with the police department re: criminal investigations taking precedence over IA.
josh says they asked when & how it was decided that the memorandum of understanding with the police department is no longer a deliverable for this board, but it’s not clear.
that MOU was listed as a deliverable in the resolution authorizing the board. it’s troubling that there’s no record of when or where or how it was decided that this is no longer something they’re charged with.
city attorney john blair says a resolution doesn’t have the force of law so they “don’t necessarily” need to pass another resolution authorizing this change but there’s just no indication that council met to decide this in any capacity.
it’s unclear now if the two private meetings CRB members have scheduled with the police chief are still on, now that the MOU is off the table. the first one of those was supposed to be the day after tomorrow.
sarah is going to reach out to determine if the private meetings with the chief are still on and if they are, asks john blair if he can attend.
moving on to discussion about the board’s involvement in selecting the next board.
(the city has yet to even post about the two vacancies that have been open for months, let alone the entire board’s worth of vacancies opening up in a few weeks)
(the city has yet to even post about the two vacancies that have been open for months, let alone the entire board’s worth of vacancies opening up in a few weeks)
as to the question of the public candidate forum like they had last time, bowers says he would like to keep it but wouldn’t die on that hill.
sarah says she understands wes’ concerns that it would scare people away from applying, but says it’s perhaps overblown. she says members of the board have been put in the public eye by virtue of sitting on the board far more than the forum.
now debating the issue of whether to make the council member representative on the board a voting member. wes tried to make the case earlier tonight that giving that person a vote makes the council more engaged in the work of a board.
they seem to have settled on keeping the council representative as an ex officio (non voting) member of the board.
(this meeting shows no signs of ending anytime soon - not sure why i thought the 2.5 hour council meeting preceding this meeting meant this wouldn’t also be long!)
(this meeting shows no signs of ending anytime soon - not sure why i thought the 2.5 hour council meeting preceding this meeting meant this wouldn’t also be long!)
sarah says she heard someone (she’s not sure who) say during today’s earlier meeting that it’s not true that CRBs are usually given access to complete IA files, but she clarifies now this is a nearly universal practice.
sarah says she was a little surprised and disappointed to just now be finding out about these two new police department job postings
the “sensitive data specialist” would be a civilian employee of the police department. sarah says she’s concerned the talk of duplication with regard to their proposed auditor position represents a misunderstanding of what they envision to be the role of the auditor.
i can’t tell cops apart, but someone from the department says “it doesn’t have to be adversarial, and i wish it weren’t” but expresses dismay about the “bias” against the police expressed by some members of the board.
been in meetings since 2, taking advantage of these meeting snacks. (more meetings should have snacks) 
there is a possibility that they may propose to have the advertised data specialist position moved out of the police department (and reporting to the city manager instead) vs hiring a second person to do similar work, but the board needs more time to discuss that.
apparently the positions have been posted “for weeks,” but the board just learned about them when the chief mentioned them at the meeting earlier today.
moving on now to discussion of what circumstances would trigger a simultaneous, parallel investigation by the CRB (as opposed to the CRB reviewing completed investigations as a sort of appellate body)
city attorney john blair reads aloud from an email vice mayor heather hill sent the board about the city no longer wanting the board to handle the MOU with the police department.
as to this change to the original charge of the CRB, blair says there is no need for a formal vote to change the resolution. he says she may have contacted each other councilor individually, which wouldn’t necessitate any public meeting.
well, meeting adjourned. a lot is still unclear. it’s unclear when the city will get back to the board with the feedback they need to proceed. it’s not clear of the chief still plans to meet with them. it’s not clear if council will agree to adequately fund the board.
