Why Proposed Change For Police Review Board Won't Be On November Ballot

. I'm Maureen Cavanagh. A measure to create a stronger police review board for the city of San Diego will not be on the November ballot and the reasons according to one city councilman do not make us look good. Although the proposal has been working its way through the city council for the past six months council members rejected the measure last week because the procedural clock ran out of time. Proponents of the measure to create a new police review panel say they did everything right. So why won't city voters get a chance to decide on the issue this November. Joining me is K.P. vs metro reporter Andrew Boe. Andrew welcome. Thanks Maureen. Andrew let's start with who wants to change how the city reviews police shootings and bias complaints and how they'd like to change what we have presently which is the community review board on police practices. So the main supporters of this particular charter amendment proposed charter amendment are a group called Women Occupy San Diego. They formed around the 2011 2012 Occupy movement and they've held numerous community forums. A lot of them in Council District 4 where they feel they've gotten feedback from community members saying that they don't trust the process by which complaints against police officers are investigated and reviewed and they want something more robust and they want something more independent. So what women occupy came forward with was a proposal to create a new commission that would oversee complaints of officer misconduct in custody deaths. Officer involved shootings and it would have more power than the current board does so not only would it also have independent legal counsel separate from the city attorney's office which also advises and represents the San Diego Police Department. It would also have subpoena power and that power to do their own investigations parallel to what in turn Internal Affairs does and that they could then present their own findings. Now as I say the issue has been working its way through the city council for months. How did it fare in committee. So this was first heard at the City Council's rules committee in April and the action out of that committee was to delay further discussion until the council members had input from current CRB members. The Chief of Police David has light and the Police Officers Association the union that represents officers the direction did not include forwarding it to the city attorney's office for a deeper analysis. And so what ended up happening was that the the discussion was delayed until the June committee meeting. The rules committee meeting that agenda was jam packed. There were a lot of different ballot measures. And so the supporter and Murdo Kohl's office who chairs she chairs the Rules Committee. Mutually agreed that it would be heard instead. And at the July meeting at the July meeting the issue of the necessity to meet and confer with various city employee unions became more public. The supporters became more aware of it and they suddenly realized there a very fast ticking clock and we don't we may not have enough time to actually conclude this process of negotiating with the unions in time for it to be placed on the ballot. So by the time the city council actually took a vote on authorizing that meet and confer process it appeared that it would be too late and it would be futile. There would be no time to actually place it on the ballot. Now there's some disagreement about whether what the city attorney said only last month that the city council would have to meet and confer with the police officers union in order to get these charter changes on the ballot. So there's disagreement about whether or not that's actually true. Yes. Women occupy you know they have some lawyers among them. And they don't believe that meet and confer would be necessary. I think the city council is hyper aware of this issue in particular because of the Supreme Court decision or the California Supreme Court decision that came out last week which found that the city violated its meet and confer obligations in the prompt B pension reform measure. First of all the city council actually held a closed session meeting on this very issue of meeting confer regarding the women occupy proposal in June. That's all there can be no denial that the city council knew of this meeting good for obligation in June. I believe the meeting was June 26. City council members are hyper aware nowadays of their meet and confer obligations. And so given that this was first discussed in April given that the city attorney you know has been every time an issue with city unions comes up. The city council has to be aware of their meet and confer obligations. I think it's safe to say that this could have been addressed sooner. So how did the council vote on whether to put the measure on the ballot. Well they never actually got to that particular vote. They only voted on whether or not to authorize meet and confer with the unions and so that failed in a 4 4 vote. So the three Republicans who were at that meeting voted against it along with Chris Ward who's a Democrat. So for people listening to this with all this procedural stuff going on what we have is a measure that was put before the City Council went through committee. It was supposed to the proponents of it wanted it on the November ballot. Is someone to blame for this. Who is taking the blame for this. Well certainly no one is taking the blame. The police officers union made no secret of their opposition to this measure as it was presented. They've certainly been lobbying against this. If you want to look at you know which Council members are most to blame. You know I think the supporters of this amendment certainly put a lot of the blame on council president Bertel Cole given her chair her position as chair of the rules committee and her position as council president they feel that she could have done more to shepherd this through the process in time for it to be placed on this November's ballot. And despite the fact that she did vote in favor of it at the committee and at the full City Council her support was was was not to the level that it should have been in order for it to be in order for this sort of last minute failure and fizzling out to have happened. And her opponent in the upcoming election Monica Montgomery what's her take on the police review board. Monica Montgomery has wholeheartedly endorsed this particular measure. She spoke at the Rules Committee meeting in July and said you know this is a necessary reform and we need our our community members need certainty that when they make a complaint against the police that it's being investigated fully and thoroughly and that it's being investigated without any sort of bias or in favor of the police and certainly I would I would expect that she might make an election issue out of this that she you know could say I think there's certainly an opportunity for her to say that. Council president Cole could have avoided this particular situation. So what happens now. Does that mean the supporters of this proposal are back to square one. Well they say that they're not going to back down on this issue. You know they tried to bring it forward in 2016 and what ended up on the ballot was very much watered down version of what they had originally presented. They say you know this issue isn't going away that community members are still upset and still you know desiring a more robust review process for Officer Miske allegations of officer misconduct. I think that you know there are there is a lot of certainly a lot of political pressure on the council to get to do something about this. And we'll see you know if there are any changes in the council after the 2018 election whether or not this can ultimately be placed on the 2020 ballot. I've been speaking with Kate PBS metro reporter Andrew Bowen. Andrew thank you. Thank you