Public Pushback Saves City Commission on Police Practices
It was such a typical move in San Diego politics. While 75% of the voting population affirmed the need for genuine oversight of the San Diego Police Department, when it came time to delve into the details, the City Attorney’s office served up a nothingburger.
What’s more, they delivered a promised document only after Voice of San Diego reported activists' frustration with a series of missed deadlines.
It was reminiscent of the sleight-of-hand move by a now-gone City Council member that delayed getting the reform measure on the ballot for two years. The near-failure of the city to take a strong position was a reminder of how reports on police policies, procedures, and racial profiling have failed to get more than lip service.
The Commission on Police Practices (CPP), created by Measure B in 2020, needed an ordinance spelling out its new duties and powers. Release of the draft of that ordinance on Monday triggered alarm bells throughout the coalition of civic and activist groups who’d spent years trying to get the measure enacted.
It’s almost as if somebody in city hall thought that by dragging out the processes and then asking the council to act quickly while summer vacations were happening, the ordinance could be watered down and nobody would notice.
SD POA president Jack Schaffer told the media that the union was not involved in writing the ordinance, and that’s likely the truth. The reality is probably more like the drafters of the ordinance in the City Attorney’s office were trying to protect the ecosystem between prosecutors and police rather than looking at the bigger picture.
A Tuesday night meeting was called by San Diegans for Justice to craft a strategy for responding to perceived weaknesses in the proposed language.
From Voice of San Diego:
Speakers at Tuesday’s community forum said the ordinance, as written, gives too much power to the City Council and the police department. Late last year and in January and March, community groups held a series of roundtable discussions and came up with a list of priorities for the new commission.
“Community should be involved in every stage of the commissioner selection process (including in the design of that process)” was at the top of the list, yet the draft ordinance gives the City Council sole authority to select commission members.
“This was not written with the community in the forefront of anybody’s mind. This does not benefit, this does not build trust,” said Francine Maxwell, president of the San Diego chapter of the NAACP.
[SD4Justice co-chair Andrea] St. Julian described as “outrageous” language in the draft ordinance that allows the police union and the city’s labor negotiators to include commission rules in any collective bargaining agreements. While state law requires governments to negotiate with unions over anything that could impact a public employee’s working conditions, St. Julian said the ordinance goes too far in requiring the commission to comply with “anything” in a collective bargaining agreement.
The City’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee held a hearing on the ordinance Thursday.
Speakers from San Diegans for Justice, Women Occupy San Diego, the American Civil Liberties Union, Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance, a Quaker group in La Jolla, San Diego Pride and other local organizations come in response to social media pleas for public input..
Not even one of the roughly 70 members of the public who spoke supported the draft. The city attorney’s language was called a “betrayal” and a “mockery.”
At the top of the list of expressed concerns was the extent of the commission’s investigative powers.
The draft ordinance made no mention of the independent legal counsel prominently mentioned by supporters prior to the election. The full investigative powers supposedly given to the commission were translated into permission to “review” cases; the promised subpoena power was mentioned in a way ensuring it would rarely be used.
At a press conference held shortly before the committee meeting started, St. Julian, author of Measure B, released a response to what they’d seen from the city.
Advocates said the Voters’ Ordinance, in contrast with the City’s Ordinance for the Commission on Police Practices, was written with the community in mind, fulfilling the promise of Measure B.
From Union Tribune coverage:
Several speakers urged the committee not to move forward with the draft ordinance and to consider an alternative proposal put forward hours earlier by San Diegans for Justice, a community group focused on police accountability and transparency.
Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe, who chairs the committee, said she looked forward to revisiting the ordinance and meeting with community members to discuss their concerns. She said she agreed with some of the speakers’ concerns.
“This is not the end-all, be-all,” she said, “and it was never intended to be.”
In the end, the council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee agreed that revisions were needed, with Councilmember and Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe calling for language offering whistleblower protections for officers who file complaints.
You have to give the activists, some of whom have worked on this cause for almost a decade, credit for persistence and creating the kind of network that stopped the same old story in San Diego politics from repeating itself.
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