1999-10-13 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-13-99Page 26 of 31 BALOG: Right, but you’d like the chance, if something arose, like what was the example given? OKABE: To be independent, in a sense that we’re not trying to micromanage. That is not our role. The Commission is not to micromanage, so we do not get involved in promotions or anything like that. We are civilian review, where the civilians will come to the Commission if they have a complaint on the Police Department or a police officer. If they have a complaint on a police officer, they bring that complaint to the Police Commission’s office, and the Commission then reviews the information they were given from the police officer, and from the civilian, and if the officer should ask for legal counsel, the Police Commission can, or will not, grant approval of legal counsel. And we also have investigative powers so that we can ask for investigation to bring to the Commission to see if there are any charges that are substantial. But that is our main role, not to micromanage the Police Department. BALOG: I’ve got a question then, if you could take back to the Commission, why they wanted to change that portion. What example? There must have been an example they discussed when they proposed that Amendment to the Charter, if you don’t mind. OKABE: Okay. BALOG: Thank you. RAY: Marni. HERKES: That same question came up from the Corporation Counsel and I think we have to somehow deal with it, and would you take it back to the Police Department, that somehow we have to deal with this because once it disappears, and, it’s my understanding the Police Commission handles the investigation, and then it is referred to the Police Department, and it disappears. Nothing comes back to the public and that’s a concern, so I’d appreciate it if you’d take that back to Chief Carvalho. Tell him that is a concern. We’ve heard it three or four times in this kind of process, and it may not be something that even is appropriate for the Charter. It’s a process that is broken somehow, so it needs to somehow be solved, and I understand there’s confidentiality, there’s a lot of different civil liberties that can be breached, but there’s got to be a solution to it somehow. And I want to tell each of you, in our major overall goal that we’re doing here, we’re liable to end up with a whole new document, a whole new Charter. To simplify, to make it more accountable, Program Review, a lot of different things that are more accountable to the public, that the public will feel more comfortable with. For instance, we’ve got the County Band in the County Charter. There’s a whole bunch of things like that, that over the last 20 years, have kind of been inserted because there was some very emotional vocal testimony for it. So when we’re looking at this, we’re trying to look at it as a clean slate, like throw out the whole thing and go back and say how do you really want to do this. When you look at a simpler, more effective governance for public safety, I’m really attracted to a Public Safety Commission. One that will protect me. One that’ll protect me in civil defense. One that will protect me in the police. One that will protect me in the fire, and I’m the major recipient of government actions, so I’m looking at it from a client’s standpoint rather than from a Commission standpoint. What’s going to work best for me. So, I haven’t seen any testimony in favor of Public Safety Commissions, in fact, we’ve had quite a bit against. But I’d like you to kind of look at what will work best from my standpoint, rather than working best from who appoints it, from working best how it looks, or from an emotional standpoint, is what’s going to protect me the best. What’s going to be the most effective governance tool that we can use, and you kind of have to wipe out the slate and not read the Charter, and kind of look at it from a different standpoint than what is there now. So, I’d appreciate it if each of you would come back with some kind of - MAHUNA: Just some clarification on that. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-13-99.html7/1/2011