1999-10-13 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-13-99Page 28 of 31 us from the Commission, and we investigate it, and we find that there is criminality involved, the Prosecutor’s Office is the first people that we contact, because we, more than anybody else, would like to police our own police officers, because not only do they present a liability to us, but they also present a liability to the community that they serve. IRVINE: Theoretically, you’re right, but I mean, we’ve been reading the paper this week. It’s been a difficult process. MAHUNA: Well, irregardless of that, we’re talking about improprieties that I think, that go beyond the scope of what the Police Commission could do. IRVINE: I wonder if one of these officers would have felt comfortable coming to the Police Commission with the problem that he saw at the Police Department if your Commission had been at the Prosecutor’s Office rather than under the Police Department, where it is now. RAY: George. MARTIN: Point of clarification. If an officer has a complaint, is it the Commission that he goes to, or is there another body that he goes to? I think there may be some confusion on that. MAHUNA: A complaint against? MARTIN: I guess, if he saw something. Let’s say, his Sergeant is doing something. It’s handled internally, isn’t it? MAHUNA: That’s correct. MARTIN: It doesn’t go to the Commission, right? MAHUNA: Right. MARTIN: That’s what I thought. Thank you. RAY: Daryl. KUROZAWA: We’ve heard a lot of testimony tonight concerning the appointment of Police Commission by the Mayor, and actually, I heard twice tonight, saying that if it was appointed by an independent body, that morale in the department may be better. I know a lot of police officers, actually personally, and I don’t know if I agree with that statement, but what’s your take? You’ve been on the force for a long time. Does the Police Commission have anything to do with your morale issues in the department, or if there was an independent body helping out, would it change morale? MAHUNA: It depends on what the issue is. I’ve heard a lot of complaints too, in my position, and a lot of it has to do with probably not enough manpower, probably working a lot of times overtime when they shouldn’t be. They like to be home with their families. Working on assignments that carry them through the holidays where they’d like to be with their families. A lot of stress-provoking incidents that they become involved with. One of these things may be promotions, and maybe they feel that the system is unfair. That may be part of the whole picture, but there’s a lot of separate issues here, that I think, are addressed, or we attempt to address them administratively, and we only have a certain amount of monies, and we’re trying to fill the positions. We have, I think, something like 20 some odd positions file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-13-99.html7/1/2011