2009-02-20 Police Commission Minutes

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Hawaii County Police Commission Regular Session Minutes February 20, 2009 Page 2 due to budget constraints. They will go over the Chief's goals in executive session in the afternoon. The motion carried unanimously. COMMITTEE REPORTS • Budget and Finance (Whittemore / Kaoiwi) — No report. • Office Management and Staffing (Whittemore) — No report. • Rules and Policies (Behenna / Sumja) — No report. • Contractual Services (vacant) — No report. • Public Relations /Information (Lassiter /Behenna) — Commissioner Lassiter stated that the recent recruit graduation was very nicely done, whereby the family presented the shield to the officer. Chair Whittemore stated that at the last meeting, there was discussion on expanding the Public Relations Committee. He will hold off appointing committee members until the new commissioners come on board. Chair Whittemore spoke on his proposed Complaint Review Committee. The intent is that there would be two commissioners who would rotate on a quarterly basis. Captain O'Connor, of I.A., would be the point person with whom they would review actions taken on complaints forwarded to them. They want to be informed and to see what is really going on. Many times when I.A. gets back to them, they don't remember the case. He will appoint the members on an east -west basis for a four -month period. Commissioner Sumja moved to establish the Complaint Review Committee. Vice Chair Kaoiwi seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously. Chair Whittemore appointed Kaoiwi and Morimoto to the Complaint Review Committee. Commissioner Politano Steckel informed that the Chief appointed an officer to work on the Fallen Officers' Monument. NEW BUSINESS Discussion on issues covered at 2008 National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement Conference. Commissioner Behenna reported that he and Commissioner Sumja attended the NACOLE Conference in Cincinnati. It was a great experience, particularly for new members of the commission. There were different types of civilian oversight. Their intent is to raise some issues that seemed to be themes relevant to them. They looked at how different civilian oversight bodies collected and presented information, organized data, etc. He passed around samples for review. Many of the annual reports had a lot of statistical information and addressed different issues. They talked about the need for transparency. Commissioner Sumja stated that many people were surprised that they hire the Police Chief because many of them do not. They know other things such as what punishment is meted out. They talked about getting younger people on the commission. There were