More racial profiling and cleaning up the DA's office

Racial Profiling 101

I get a call yesterday from a friend, his son, a Muslim, was sitting outside of school with his backpack on the curb waiting for his father to pick him up from school. Next to him was a boy his same age, also with his backpack, he happened to be white. The security guard comes up to the Muslim, and asks him what he is doing there. The kid says he's a student and is waiting to be picked up. The guard proceeds to ask to see his ID--the guard checks it out and leaves. He does not say a word to the white student.

The father is furious. I'm left with the thought that while this might be innocent and innocuous, it would seem that in this day and age with the issue of racial profiling burning in our community that a security guard would be a bit more sensitive to the social context of his interaction and take care to make sure that his actions do not spark allegations of racial profiling. It can't be that hard, can it? The son is embarrased and humiliated at something where he did not do a single thing incorrectly, other than to sit on a curb and be a Muslim-American in Davis. When is this community going to start to question our practices?

Cleaning up the DA's office

Interesting gossip coming out of the DA's office. When Jeff Reisig ran to replace the long-time DA Dave Henderson, he was supported by nearly everyone in the DA's office as well as most of the law enforcement community. Despite that heavy support from the establishment Reisig won a relatively narrow race with just 54 percent of the vote.

For a long time, there have been complaints about the operations within the department. Most of us assumed that Reisig would continue business as usual within the office given the people who supported his candidacy. However, it seems that the specter of a future challenge may be convincing Reisig he had better clean up the office while he can. He has pulled the files on all of the employees and will review them. This move has apparently caused quite a stir already. We'll see if this is just a ploy or whether Reisig is prepared to clean house (an act that is long overdue from what we've heard).

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Chair of the Senior Citizens Commission Blasts Back

Yesterday I reported that Councilmember Stephen Souza publicly browbeat the chair of the Senior Citizens Commission. Well in last night’s Davis Enterprise Elaine Roberts Musser fired back.

She strongly opposes the proposed merger of the Senior Citizens Commission with the Social Services Commission arguing that “based on my knowledge as a commissioner at the county level. Such a merger may have unintended consequences.”

Moreover she informs us that County Supervisor Mariko Yamada strongly opposes this merger and wrote a letter the members of the Davis City Council expressing that.

But the real fireworks come toward the end of the letter.

“In my opinion, if the Davis City Council doesn't think enough of its senior citizens to have a separate commission for the elderly, Davis may find itself in the unenviable position of not being represented at the county level. When matters with respect to the county come up for budgeting and projects, Davis seniors may discover themselves on the short end of the stick. Woodland and West Sacramento, who do have separate senior commissions, may garner a windfall with respect to county monies or projects, whereas Davis will be left out in the cold.”

Finally she delivers the electoral threat with the full-force of the Senior voters behind her. “I would also urge Davis seniors to keep in mind who on the City Council did not think their concerns were important enough to rate continuing the Senior Citizens Commission, the next time City Council members come up for re- election.”

I will be very interested to see how the Council responds to what I am guessing they will perceive as a threat. This is starting to bear a remarkable resemblance to the situation of the HRC, where the Chair, frustrated at the Council’s attempts to skirt the issue and undercut her finally threatened them with going to the voters. That was a huge mistake, but the Senior Citizen Commission is probably in much stronger position to press home this threat than the HRC ever was and that’s why it will be interesting to see if the Council ends up being as heavy-handed with the Senior Citizen Commission as they were with the HRC.

One thing is clear—the council in June tried to portray the situation with the HRC as unique—it was not. The difference is that the HRC was politically vulnerable enough to isolate. The Senior Citizen community is probably far too strong for those kind of tactics to work.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting…

Racial Profiling

Every so often I get an email worth sharing. Most people end up putting their comments on the blog and that's obviously ideal.

But I got this email last night and it was particularly pertinent to the ongoing discussion of the police issues here in Davis.

So I'm driving down Sycamore Ln. just passing Willett Elementary School on Sunday...yesterday. I'm with the family trying to go shopping. I see a Davis Police car traveling in the opposite direction and following a car very closely. No, not close, on the bumper of the other car. I had to interrupt my family shopping trip to see for myself. I make a U-turn. Sure enough, two Hispanic kids are being pulled over for apparently no reason in the parking lot of Willett elementary. The police ask the driver for his license and ask him if he is a student. He explains that he is just here to play a game of volleyball with friends at the park. The cop leaves and the kid turns to me...we are at this point watching...and says "if that's not racial profiling I don't know what is."

This is the kind of situation that is frustrating. And the basic that it is frustrating is that everyone knows what is going on here. You have a minority kid driving the car, the cop pulls him over, asks him a question, and then lets them go. No citation, no warning, nothing except a question.

So the kid is angry because well they feel violated by this intrusion into their everyday life by the state.

There is no report on the incident, so we have no idea how many times this occurs, and there is no good way to study it.

And the police can always fall back on the justification that either the person was acting suspiciously or the person matched vaguely the profile of someone who might have committed a crime.

Last May heard numerous stories and they were all very similar of African-American UC Davis students who were pulled over asked either if they were from Sacramento or Oakland, asked if they were in a gang, asked if they were on probation. Probation is always a good one for the police, because then they can actually do a legal search without permission or probable cause. These students really resent this and it creates a climate of distrust between UC Davis students who happen to be minority and the police.

Last summer I saw something similar happen, I was walking through Central Park, suddenly I see a police car make a fast move, drive onto the sidewalk. Cops get out of the car with both doors left open and weapons drawn. And they talked to an Hispanic male for a few minutes, let him go and leave. I walked up and asked him and he just kind of shrugged and said they asked him some questions and he has no idea why they pulled him over.

These are the type of things that it's going to be hard to investigate for an Ombudsman. The Buzayan's of the world are violate perhaps but at least there is a paper trail. Here, there is no paper trail and the police control the flow of information. And a lot of kids leave UC Davis and that's it, they don't come back.

I do not have a good answer for this, but we have to figure something out.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Browbeating Seniors

My focus on the HRC and the Council’s reconstruction of the HRC is closest to my heart, but my single-minded focus has obscured some of the other controversial changes to the commission system proposed by Souza-Asmundson.

To most of us Stephen Souza is the mild-mannered councilmember, who looks like he’d be right at home smoking a bowl with his constituents and philosophizing about the meaning of life until the wee hours of the morning. Souza appears generally calm and reserved and often tries to play the role as moderating force to the cold and calculating Don Saylor. But there is a dark-side to Stephen Souza that few in the public have seen. He’s every bit as cold and calculating as Saylor, with an equal mean and vindictive side to him.

One of the proposed changes was merging the Social Services Commission with the Senior Commission. Now last week, Souza and Asmundson went to the Social Services Commission and asked them to support the merger, they did by a 6-1 vote. Now there is subtext to this vote, the next day, the Council was going to here on the issue of accessibility in new building projects, which is the most important issue to that commission. Would they vote against the wishes of the council majority knowing that their issue was going to be heard the next day? No. And they were not all that happy with the council’s decision anyway.

The sham comes when the Senior Commission meets late last week, and Souza and Asmundson show up again. Souza browbeats the chair of the Senior commission for over an hour. Apparently it was quite abusive from eyewitness accounts. They have not voted on the matter yet, but will at the next meeting.

To begin with, I do not understand the rationale of the merger. The two commissions do not deal with the same things. Even if the merger were to make some sense, I do not understand why Souza would have so much invested in the merger that he would feel the need to be abusive toward a senior (or anyone for that matter). The chair of the commission is furious and this is not the first time that Souza has done this to a chair. He may have been able to get away with this with the HRC, but seniors are a large percentage of our population and they vote. Word will get around about this. And I’m just left scratching my head.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

The New (White) HRC

Diversity Gone from the HRC

Last Summer the Davis City Council voted 4-1 to remove every member of the Davis Human Relations Commission from the commission and have them reapply. Only one member--member emeritus John Pamperin chose to reapply. The rest of the commission is entirely new.

I write this column with a great deal of ambivalence because it touches upon an explosive issue and also a philosophical conundrum. I begin with a simple statement—the Davis Human Relations Commission has since its inception been one of the most diverse bodies in this entire city. The last human relations commission had members from many different ethnicities—Latina, Africa-American, Muslim, Jewish, East Asian, Indian, among others.

The new human relations commission appears to be nearly completely white. That brings up the race issue and also brings up a philosophical question about the nature of representation.

Let me clarify right away—I do not believe the city council is racist. I’m not accusing anyone of racism. However, I do believe that the current city council majority created a climate that limited the number of applicants.

Let me also clearly state that I think there are some excellent members on the new commission. I have concerns about one of the members who had to resign due to a conflict of interest five years ago, but this entry is mainly about the charge of the HRC and its new membership.

This is a commission whose primary charge is to deal with issues of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. Can a mostly white body effectively address those concerns? That is a crucial question that gets to the nature of what representation is itself.

I do not wish to criticize the membership of a commission before they have met, but I believe there is a fundamental problem in the city of Davis with racism. And that problem is not one that most white people, myself included, are very aware of. It was only my close proximity with several instances of racial problems that I became aware of this problem.

Moreover, a white person in Davis, I have never had a personal problem with a police officer or the police themselves. If I did not know people who did have problems, I would never have become aware of it. Almost all of those people with problems with the police have been minorities.

The very problem that the HRC now faces is not racism by the City Council necessarily, but rather neglect. The City Council was in a great hurry to get rid of the former Latina-American chair because she chose to raise issues, but they did not do sufficient outreach in order to get a diverse pool of applicants on the commission. I doubt if they even considered what the make up would look like.

They got exactly ten applicants, two of whom became ex-officio/ non-voting members and one of whom is an alternate. The other seven are regular members. Why such a small pool of applicants? Because everyone saw what happened to the previous HRC and non one wanted to deal with the current council and their consolidation of power.

But the ultimate effect and we cannot lose site of this is an HRC where the majority of the members have never personally had to deal with prejudice and the majority of the members are white people. And that is a fundamental problem.

---Doug Paul Davis Reporting

The voice of the voiceless?

Council Strips the HRC of power to look into police issues

In a matter of just three months, the City Council disbanded the Human Relations Commission, re-wrote its charter and then appointed new membership. The great crime of the previous Human Relations Commission appeared to be advocating for a specific issue.

And it’s in some ways ironic that the very night that the Davis City Council approved the hire of an ombudsman, Bob Aaronson (an act that never would have happened without the direct intervention and sweat and blood of the previous commission) they also rewrote the rules for the new the commission to make it so they could effectively never do this again.

Let it be clear—this was done clearly because the majority of three on the city council did not like the way the HRC advocated for a police oversight board. They said as much.

In defending the decision to remove the police issue from the HRC and at least temporarily from the public purview, Stephen Souza reminded us all that in fact, they were a public body, they were a permanent body, and that any complaints about the police should go to them—the city council. They are the ones that can take action.

However, that is not the way it is supposed to work. The commission system is designed as a filter for public discourse—they can take their complaints to the commission, the commission has the charge to research and investigate and then make recommendations to the city council as to how to act. What this city council wants to do is remove the commissions (and not just the HRC) from public deliberations and concentrate power within the city staff and the city council. The city council would not operate effectively if each individual with a complaint took the complaint directly to the council rather than to the commissions.

Or did they?

The intent of the council is very clear:

The Subcommittee agreed that, with the addition of a Citizen Advisory Board to the Police Chief, a Police Advisory Committee to the City Manager, a contract Police Ombudsman for the community and other steps underway in the police department, the Human Relations Commission should focus on issues other than police oversight.

However, the authorizing resolution is foggy. It makes no mention of exclusion. This point was raised at the city council meeting by members of the public. At this point, Don Saylor added language directing the HRC to “refer” police issues to the appropriate agency. But instead of clarifying the directive from council, it made it more ambiguous. Saylor acknowledged that there would have to be some degree of processing for that to occur. However, the plain meaning of the language itself does little to give one the impression that police issues are outside of the purview of the commission’s resolution.

Sue Greenwald, was unclear about the meaning of the added language and ended up voting against it. Heystek, was generally opposed to the changes, and voted against it. Neither one was clear about the meaning of the language change, though talking to Heystek after the meeting he seemed to think that there was nothing in the language of the resolution itself that would preclude action by the council on police issues, however, the intent of the council was clear.

Resolution vs. Ordinance

Stephen Souza stated that they changed all of the commissions from ordinance to resolution unless they were required by law to have them as an ordinance. It is a subtle move but it greatly weakens many of the commissions. During this discussion, Souza maintained there was no functional difference; however, it was enlightening to hear him during an earlier discussion state that ordinances have “a little more teeth.” An ordinance writes the language into the municipal code and it requires one reading and then a second meeting to have a vote on the ordinance. A resolution can be changed at anytime by majority vote and it is not placed into the municipal code. This is another indication that the city council has tried to weaken the commission system in order to consolidate power within the council and city staff.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Does Davis care about living wage?

Let's be blunt here--you could work a full-time job at the newly built target and not be able to afford to live in Davis. Does that trouble you?

That's the question raised by newly elected Lamar Heystek who was promptly villified for playing politics. There is a political element to the debate, there is no denying that, but the core issue is that defines our society and our town--fair wage for a hard day's work. That is in many ways the core of the progressive mantra.

Yet that action embroiled Heystek in a heated fight into the wee-hours of the morning. Don Saylor went on the attack.

(From the 9/20/06 Davis Enterprise) “There’s just a number of questions about this,” Councilman Don Saylor said. “To bring it up as a discussion is appropriate. To bring it up as a full-blown ordinance for a first reading, that’s not talking about policy, that’s talking about politics in a lead-up to an election.”

That's really the statement at issue for me. The first problem is the requirements for an ordinance to be passed--namely a first reading and a second passage.

City Attorney Harriet Steiner told the council that for the ordinance to have a potential effect on Target, it would have to go through a first reading at this week’s meeting, and be approved no later than Oct. 6, a month before the election.

So this measure is time sensitive. Can we fault Heystek for bringing this up at the last possible moment? Well if we look back to the August 1, 2006 meeting, yes a month and a half ago, Lamar asked this be agendized. Of course, the council majority voted it down. Saylor then suggested to Lamar that he could prepare the item himself (in lieu of staff preparation) and put it on the agenda as a councilman's agenda item. That is what Lamar did.

Had the council approved the placement of the agenda, it could have been on last week's agenda, and brought back this week for discussion. They voted against that option as such they created the situation that they faced late Tuesday night, not Heystek.

The rest of the council assured Greenwald and Heystek that they would like to see a living wage ordinance— and in fact, Councilman Stephen Souza said he and Saylor are hammering out a projected labor agreement between Target and two unions — but questioned the narrowness of Heystek’s proposal.

Well, I'll believe that when I see it. The Sacramento Labor Council has already come out against this proposal. The Council majority opposed even having an item on the agenda discussing this issue. IF they were truly concerned with the narrowness of Heystek's proposal, they could have at the August 1, 2006 council meeting have made an alternative suggestion. They are not interested in doing that because they do not support a living wage ordinance in Davis. They are merely trying to kill this proposal before the ballot initiative in the fall. In essence, they are trying to have their cake and eat it to.

The question really is, do the people of Davis care about living wage?

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Human Relations Commission and Ombudsman on Tonight's Agenda

Following up on the Ombudsman Position

Did anyone catch the Davis Enterprise last night; you might have seen the announcement of the new Ombudsman, Robert Aaronson. Buried in the niceties and praise for the new city employee were some cold, hard facts.

Aaronson will keep his duties in the city of Santa Cruz, and spend a couple of days a month in Davis, said Deputy City Manager Kelly Stachowicz. "He's a contract employee, so he will basically be accessible by e-mail or voice mail; anybody can use that at any time and he will check those frequently," Stachowicz said.

Hang on, now I’m fuzzy on my math as it relates to couple, few, several, many… but I’m pretty sure a couple is two. As in the guy will be in Davis two days a month. Is that correct?

Claire St. John writes:

There might not be much discussion about the $60,000 contract, however, as the item is on the consent agenda along with 12 other items that are approved with a single motion.

Again, let me do the math here, we are spending $60,000 on a guy who will be in Davis two days out of the month. And they complained that the Berkeley model was too expensive?

I do not know whether to congratulate Mr. Aaronson or apologize to him for not give him the resources and power to be able to adequately do his job.

Following up on the Human Relations Commission

I’m not even going to talk about living wage today, but it is going to be a very busy council meeting tonight.

When the Human Relations Commission was founded there was a city ordinance establishing its charter. The City Council is now removing that ordinance and replacing it with a resolution. Does that resolution weaken the authority of the HRC? That’s unclear.

What is clear is that this resolution replaces any existing charges that the HRC had:

WHEREAS, this resolution supercedes all previous resolutions related to the structure and purpose of the Human Relations Commission

Here’s what I do not follow quite as well. In the resolution, they write, “the commission is established and guided by the following documents: a. Davis Anti-discrimination ordinance…”

The Human Relations Commission shall have the responsibilities as provided in this section and such other duties as the Council may, from time to time, decide:

a. Study and make recommendations regarding problems in the city which arise from alleged discrimination prohibited by state and federal law or local statutes and report such information to the City Council.

b. Advocate and encourage educational and other appropriate activities to seek to discourage or prevent discrimination and prejudice and/or to promote diversity, equality and justice. This function can be addressed by holding conferences and other public meetings, engaging in educational campaigns, partnering with other organizations to develop outreach information and programs, and other methods determined to be appropriate. Specific activities for which the Commission is responsible include the city of Davis Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, the city of Davis Cesar Chavez event and the city of Davis Thong Hy Huynh Awards. Resolution No. 06 –XXX

c. Recommend to the City Council such publications and reports as may address issues of discrimination, diversity, prejudice or other matters related to the community principles or anti-discrimination.

d. Recommend programs and activities to encourage minority- and woman-owned businesses in Davis.

e. Recommend to the Council additional programs and practices designed to further commission objectives and take other necessary action to prevent discrimination against groups and individuals to ensure public peace, health, safety and general welfare for all residents of Davis.

f. Take other necessary actions, as directed by Council, to prevent discrimination against groups and individuals to ensure that all members of the Davis community will be treated equally and fairly.

However, the council wants to take the police issue outside of the purview of the HRC. How do they do that when they are directed to take “other necessary actions… to prevent discrimination against groups and individuals to ensure that all members of the Davis community will be treated equally and fairly.” I think they need a disclaimer: except when the offending party is a police officer, in which case there is nothing they can actually do.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Aaronson handed down major finding in a police spying investigation

I remain skeptical of the mechanism put in place by the Davis City Council for reviewing the police. I do not think the ombudsman position has enough teeth to it. I also do not believe that the support boards—the PAC and the CAB—have sufficient public scrutiny. Adding to that is the recent move to remove the issue of police complaints from the purview of the soon-to-be newly formed HRC.

That said, from the research that I’ve done, Aaronson looks to be a fine choice for police ombudsman. In one highly publicized, the Santa Cruz police department was accused on spying on war protesters. The police investigation exonerated the police.

Aaronson issued a scathing report on the investigation. He said the investigation "is incomplete and flawed for a very predictable reason. It violates one of the most basic investigative precepts by having been compiled and written by the very individual whose decisions are and should be under investigative scrutiny." He went on to say, "I am surprised and disappointed that he was assigned to that task."

He then did the review itself and found serious wrongdoings by the police department. “Details of the 600-page report , released to the public Friday, reveal a pattern of abuses, including spying on parade organizers, spying on other unrelated groups and first amendment activities, and profiling organizers and other unrelated people. Officers posing as parade planners gathered information about the planned peaceful protest against virgin forest destruction by Victoria’s Secret and relayed this information to Capitola Police." (For the full report please click here).

Here’s his letter castigating the review process.

According to people who have worked with Aaronson, they consider him to be a fair and straight shooter concerning investigations on the police department. He does tend to go public with critical remarks, although clearly the letter was very strongly worded to the Santa Cruz City Council.

If anyone knows of any other cases involving Aaronson, please post it here or send me an email.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Davis to Hire Robert Aaronson as Police Ombudsman

Breaking News—According to reliable sources, I have been told that Davis is set to hire Robert Aaronson as the police ombudsman. He is currently the Independent Police Auditor for the City of Santa Cruz.

Info on him and his department can be Info on him and his department can be located at: http://www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us/cm/ipa.html

My source who has met with him tells me that he thinks he’s a good hire and this is the best opportunity to fill the position with someone who will be dedicated to doing a good job and oversee the operations of the police.

More on this as info becomes available.

Acting Police Chief Steve Pierce Misses the Point

In an article by Claire St. John in yesterday's Davis Enterprise, she quotes David Greenwald, husband of the former chair of the HRC:

Handling allegations of police misconduct would be removed from the HRC's mission statement, Asmundson and Souza said, because the formation of the Police Advisory Committee, the Community Advisory Board and an ombudsman position will serve that purpose.

David Greenwald, husband of former HRC chairwoman Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, questioned where people will turn.

"As I understand it, neither the PAC nor the CAB are open to the public," he said.

People can still come during the HRC's public comment to make statements about alleged police wrongdoing, Asmundson responded.

This morning, Greenwald found that solution troubling.

"The problem with that is that the HRC could not act," he said. "So there would be no public body that the citizens could go to that could hear their complaint and actually act on it."

Steve Pierce however claims that there is a venue for such complaints...

Interim Police Chief Steve Pierce this morning said the ombudsman position, which is still open, will serve that purpose.

Either Pierce is flatout wrong or he's missing the point. As we have reported in our series on police oversight, city staff themselves acknowledge the lack of community outreach incorporated into this model of oversight. “Another downside to the contract police ombudsman function is that it is not structured to allow for much public outreach to the community.” (See Page 11 of the May 2 agenda report on the ombudsman).

The concern here is that the public has no public forum with which to take their complaints. Neither the Community Advisory Board nor the Police Advisory Commission are public meetings. Therefore neither of them serve the purpose formerly served by the HRC.

The Police Ombudsman does take in complaints, but again this is not a public body that will take the place of the role that the HRC served. Pierce is correct that citizens will have the opportunity to file complaints with the ombudsman, but that is something the HRC never had formal jurisdiction over to begin with. Instead the HRC served as a public means by which members of the public could publicly air their complaints and have a forum to have them heard and perhaps investigated. The former part of their function has now been supplanted by a much more private and formal mechanism.

It seems clear that neither the City Council nor the police chief fully understand the importance of having a public forum where these issues can be raised.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

A step in the wrong direction

The city council meeting last night featured a number of changes to the structure of the commission system. A number of these changes were fairly technical—standardizing the number of commissioners, standardizing the operational language. But there were some substantive changes as well. The public did not receive notice of this item until Monday morning. Fortunately, Heystek moved to table the motion and the council majority agreed.

“The Subcommittee agreed that, with the addition of a Citizen Advisory Board [CAB] to the Police Chief, a Police Advisory Committee [PAC] to the City Manager, a contract Police Ombudsman for the community and other steps underway in the police department, the Human Relations Commission should focus on issues other than police oversight.”

The problem with this proposal is that it removes the only access the public had to the police oversight process. As council argued, they put in place two bodies the CAB and PAC that will handle oversight issues. However, neither body meets in public.

Council did suggest that the public would always have the opportunity to speak before the HRC on whatever issue they wanted. But this again avoids the central problem: the HRC has no power to act on these concerns. There is now no body in Davis with any kind of power that can listen to public complaints and act on them. The city council by changing the charge of the HRC, has now completely cut off the public from the process of police oversight.

Lack of public input into the process was already a concern during our seven-part series on police oversight. Now there is yet another contact with the public that has been removed. This represents a clear step in the wrong direction.

The good news is that because of the efforts of Lamar Heystek, this issue has not been voted on. There will still be an opportunity for public input and community discussion. The council has shown themselves to be relatively unreceptive to public pressure, so we remain skeptical that this can be changed. At the very least the public needs to understand that the council threatening to cut off public input into the vastly important issue of At the very least the public needs to understand that the council threatening to cut off public input into the vastly important issue of police oversight.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Police are leaving Davis

As I waited at the police station with a neighbor of mine who had just had her laptop stolen along with some cash from her home, we fell into an inevitable conversation about how short-handed the police are. This is one of the claims that opponents of police oversight were making that I never quite bought, yet turned out to be quite true.

• 2005-2006 - 12 officers
• 2004-2005 - 6 officers
• 2003-2004 - 3 officers
• 2002-2003 - 5 officers
• 2001-2002 - 7 officers

That's information supplied by the county clerk's office to one of our confederates. As you can see, the number of officers who left this past year is significantly higher than the previous four years. Without going into statistical discussions, it would appear something unusual is going on. Our first thought settled on the amount of relative pay that Davis offers and that has been a concern, although the new MOU provides a healthy pay hike that with benefits brings the amount of money near 100K. This for people with largely high school educations. There's also the ridiculous cost of housing that the city needs to address as does the university--somehow they need to be able to provide housing for their employees because the majority do not live in Davis itself, that is a problem.

The kicker in this discussion is that as we're talking a guy sitting in the lounge informs us it was the HRC that was the reason for some of the police leaving Davis. He goes on to tell us his cousin did not want to "work under the commission." He said he transferred to Fairfield. Then he looks at us in a very frank tone and said that he doesn't understand that logic at all. He'd rather deal with some commission than have people shooting at you like they do in Fairfield.

This reminds us of a conversation that occurred with Bob Dunning of the Davis Enterprise. In his column he suggested that Davis would top the worst place for cops to live. The choice between dealing with getting shot to death and dealing with the former chair seemed like an easy decision. Dunning agreed: "Agreed. Just sticking the needle a bit. Then again, the chief did leave for a higher crime city." Then again Bob, the police chief doesn't generally get shot at.

However the glib exchange with Dunning not withstanding, I'm beginning to believe that somehow we were wrong. That in fact, cops would rather be shot at than face oversight.

It goes past that though. The Human Relations Commission was largely marginalized by the efforts of the police and the majority on the city council. The HRC did not have the majority in council in support of their agenda. The majority on council opposed it strongly and heavily favored the police. The HRC was finally removed in late June, but that move was in the works for five months--the Police Chief had to know that.

None of this makes a great deal of sense to us. What exactly was the police chief afraid of? What exactly caused 12 officers to transfer to over jurisdictions? The threat of oversight? The fear of scrutiny and criticism? Were they afraid that they would be caught up in a legal issue? None of these issues of endemic merely to Davis.

The problem that Davis faces was apparent when we finally went in to see the officer to make the report. The officer was a young guy, looked like he could not be 30 yet. And yet he already seemed jaded, fatiqued, and burnt out. It was almost sad watching him operate. This is our future in this great community?

I do not know where this will go but it is obvious that the police need strong leadership and advocacy that they are not getting. And they also need to not give in to paranoia. The likely affect of any oversight system is very small on an officer. If one does nothing wrong, one need not worry about the system. Is that what they tell us?

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

thanks to Henry Bianco for some of the information...

Saylor's Labor Moment

It was one of those awkward moments when Don Saylor got up before a group of Democrats in Davis on Thursday night and gave a rather long and dispassionate history of labor in this country. It was a strange moment and Saylor who has at times given quite good speeches, and is generally articulate, but here he clearly sounded flat and uncomfortable. Compared to speeches by John Garamendi, JR (son John Garamendi, Democratic Candidate for Lt. Governor), former Yolo County DA candidate Pat Lenzi and former Davis Human Relations Commision Chair Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald, it was a complete yawner.

People have good nights and bad nights, the surprising thing about Saylor’s comments is that he has a track-record that goes against labor. We can trace this back to his days on the school board of Davis. He was initially elected in 1995 with the endorsement of the Davis Teacher’s Association. However, in 1999, he was re-elected despite not getting the teacher’s endorsement. What changed? A few things. For one, the teacher’s felt that with his background as an educator for the CYA, Saylor would be supportive of programs for disadvantaged and at-risk youth. Instead he was primarily concerned with GATE and Spanish Immersions. Those are two very important programs, but he’s clearly in those instances catering to the establishment and the gifted rather than trying to help the lesser gifted students.

Furthermore, the teacher’s association felt he played games in his negotiations. Following a budget negotiation agreement with the DTA in 2000, Saylor strongly opposed a pay increase that had been negotiated and was approved by the school board with a 4-1 vote (Saylor the lone dissenter). In what would become standard Saylor fashion, he spoke from three pages of prepared remarks (something he now does on a regular basis): "noted that he has voted in favor of every contract between the school district and the DTA over the past five years, but said that "in good conscience" he could not vote for this one." (Source: Davis Enterprise). This of course followed his failure to gain endorsement in his reelection bid and during a time of huge budget surplusses for the district that the other members voted to pass onto the teachers. In short, he was not a great friend to the union.

More recently, the issue of Target came forward. Newly elected Councilman Lamar Heystek, wanted to have a discussion agendized on whether there should be union reuquirements for Target. Target is a notoriously anti-union corporation. They’ve strongly opposed unionization and have been union-busters. In the anti-Target campaign you will see Bill Camp and the Sacramento Central Labor Council prominently featured. They had requested a hearing on this, the majority on the council opposed agendizing this. Sue Greenwald attacked them as anti-union. Both Souza and Asmundson defended their opposition but stated their support of union. However, Saylor was silent on this issue.

Saylor of course, has aspirations for higher office, but you wonder whether a Democrat can win the nomination for Assembly without strong labor backing. We shall see. Regardless, Saylor’s labor record leaves a lot to be desired and the those listening to the speech had to be left wondering where his loyalties lie, because while he said the right thing, there was no passion and no conviction behind them. Regardless labor leaders will not forget his continued opposition to their crucial issues.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

The Disease of Big-Box Retail

Big-Box retail is like a disease. Like most diseases, it has symptoms that appear in a predictable progression after initial contraction. A town that has been newly exposed to Big Box can expect a marked diversion of consumer dollars and traffic followed by store closings. This effect will snowball as more Big Box arrives near the initial exposure site and vacancies spread through other retail centers like cancer. The entire economy then suffers as money once spent and reinvested locally is funneled off to Minnesota or Arkansas. The final stage of the disease is a blighted downtown, vacant neighborhood centers and total dependence on the Big Box for goods. This is the pattern that has played out in every small city that has allowed Big Box in. It is folly to think that Davis will be any different.

If Measure K passes the Big Box process will begin here. At 2.4 football fields in the Target store alone, this project will vastly change the scale of Davis retail. The current limit on retail is 30,000 square feet; this Target is 137.000. No existing business can compete on that scale and any future retail project will have to be able to match this new standard. Once the general plan restriction is discarded and the zoning is amended to allow this Big Box, there will be nothing to stop more Big Boxes from locating in Davis. The rest of the 72 available acres along 2^nd Street will be bid on by the only businesses that can locate and compete next to Big Box: more Big Box. Sam’s Club joined the Davis Chamber of Commerce the same time Target did. Big Box begets Big Box. If you doubt the inevitable progression, ask yourself: Have you ever seen a Target store surrounded by idyllic fields and quiet grassland?

Just the huge Target will cause local business to close. With a massive expansion of the Target in Woodland, a new Target planned for West Sac and the Super Wal-Mart in Dixon, there is no reason for people in the outlying communities to come to a Davis Target. This Big Box will draw its expected $60 million annual sales almost entirely from Davis. Some of these sales will be from Davisites who previously went to out of town Targets, but you can bet that Target Corporation isn’t going to build here to get sales they are already getting in Woodland. So the majority of this Target’s sales will be diverted from existing Davis businesses. That is the only purpose to a store like this.

Let’s be generous and assume that only half of the Target’s sales will be diverted from existing businesses. This really is conservative; people aren’t going to have any more money to spend just because Target is here. But half of their sales is still $30 million per year! Many Davis shops cannot survive such a loss, even spread out, as it would be, all over town. Large groceries and pharmacies operate on small margins and count on much traffic. This Big Box center expects 10,000 car trips per day. That traffic also has to come from somewhere. One stop shopping is the Big Box motto, and it means that consumers don’t go anywhere else! With thousands of customers a day and millions of dollars a year being diverted, it is a certainty that local stores will begin closing soon after this Big Box opens. And the damage will increase geometrically with each new Big Box opening.

Once the retail outlets that Big Box competes with directly begin closing, other businesses will follow suit. The restaurant with vacant storefronts around it will not last long. After the anchor stores close in the neighborhood centers, the small shops will have to follow. Even the professionals will suffer as their small business clients go out of business. This progression will combine with the acceleration of more Big Box to cause eventual but inevitable blight. And once blight occurs, it is irreversible. Berkeley is hemorrhaging money trying to cure the symptoms of Big Box on Telegraph, to no avail. Once the Big Box disease is in its final stages of a blighted downtown and permanently vacant shopping centers, everything the city hoped to gain is lost. The taxes, jobs and convenience are all gone as the cumulative sales tax, employees and convenience once found in the closed businesses vastly exceeds that created by the Big Boxes. This is not a Chicken Little prediction; it has happened in every small town across America that has allowed Big Box retail on its outskirts. Go to downtown Woodland, Fairfield or Vacaville to remember why you live in Davis and why we don’t want Big Box here.

Cities everywhere are resisting Big Box because they see the damage it does to their communities. For 20 years Davis’ leadership had the foresight to block Big Box proposals. Now it is up to us citizens. The negative effects of Big Box are documented facts. Big Box is a disease for which prevention is the only cure. Preserve our community. Vote NO on K.

---Dan Urazandi, guest commentator

Dan Urazandi owns "Bizarro World" in Davis and is a member of the group opposing Target coming to Davis, "Don't Big-Box Davis"

http://www.DontBigBoxDavis.org/

Part VII: Alternative Models of Oversight

This is the final installment in the seven part series.

I’ve spent the last six entries discussing the weaknesses and problems that the current Davis Ombudsman Ordinance faces. During the course of that discussion were some implicit and explicit suggestions for improvement. This final installment will put together a number of those suggestions into a final proposal.

Alternative Ombudsman Models:

Santa Cruz Model: This is very similar to the model that the current council has adopted and it seems to be one of the weaker models. “A complaint may be filed if you have concerns about specific Police conduct or actions. If a complaint is filed, it is forwarded to the Professional Standards Unit and a supervisor will be assigned to conduct a formal investigation. The final investigation is forwarded to the Police Auditor for review. The investigation is reviewed for thoroughness, objectivity and to insure that the evidence supported the finding.” In other words, the auditor, as they do in Davis, merely reviews the investigation rather than conducts the investigation.

San Jose Model: In this model the internal affairs division does the primary investigation just as the current Davis model provides, however, the Independent Police Auditor “monitors and reviews all stages of the complaint process from intake through final disposition of the complaint. One of the most critical stages of the investigation of Formal complaints is to ensure that officers accused of misconduct are interviewed objectively and thoroughly. The IPA participates directly in many of the officer interviews to ensure that this goal is achieved.” Here, the IAD does the primary investigation just as it does in Davis, however where it differs from the Davis Ombudsman is that the IPA monitors each step of the process, sitting in on interviews and ensuring throughout that the investigation is thorough and objective. That would be a great step up over the current law where the Ombudsman only comes into play at the conclusion of the initial investigation.

Boise Model: Boise has an even stronger model, providing flexibility as to who conducts the primary investigation. “The Community Ombudsman has primary responsibility for the investigation and case management of all complaints filed with the Office of the Community Ombudsman… Investigations, as determined by the Community Ombudsman, may be performed by …” any number of law enforcement agencies or by the Ombudsman themselves. “In determining the most appropriate assignment of a complaint for investigation, the Community Ombudsman will consider the following factors: (1) The wishes of the complainant, particularly any expressed fears or anxiety about interacting with the police during the investigation…” This model would seem to enable the complainant uncomfortable with the police doing the primary investigation to opt for other bodies. The advantage of this model is that it gives the complainant a choice as to who conducts the initial investigation and allows for an independent body to investigate rather than the police investigating the police.

There have been a number of proposals for a civilian review board. A civilian review board is generally composed of a professional investigator, who would fulfill the primary tasks that an Ombudsman or Auditor would fill, and there would be a body of appointed citizens who would hear complaints from the public and recommend investigations. That investigation would be carried out by the investigator and presented in public meetings to the review board who could then make recommendations.

A civilian review board would be a good ultimate goal for this community, but it seems clear that a good deal of the community right now and the police are not receptive to the ideal of civilian oversight.

As such, here are several recommendations made based on the examination of the current model and current problems.

1. Strengthen the Ombudsman position by making it a full-time position. As we’ve seen, the City Manager has had difficulty finding a qualified person to take a part-time position and it seems clear at this point that the city needs a full-time position. In the future, we might be able to cut back on that as department practices adjust to avoid continued complaints and adverse findings.
2. Give the Ombudsman a stronger role in the initial investigation. Both the San Jose and Boise models would accomplish that. The San Jose model would be a less drastic change but it would have a great impact simply allowing the ombudsman to monitor and participate in the entire investigation. The Boise model would change who conducts the primary investigation.
3. Strengthen the PAC by using it to replace the Internal Affairs Department. This is drastic, but it seems very clear that the IAD cannot police or even properly investigate complaints against the police. The PAC is made up of legal professionals, a retired police chief and two attorneys. These are not amateurs. The current model puts them as mere observers; this change would put them into the forefront of the investigation.
4. Strengthen the CAB by giving it specific advisory authority. Right now the CAB is not being used as a Community Advisory group. It needs to be given specific charges to advise the police on specific department policy.
5. Improve Community Outreach. There needs to be forums for the public to participate to express concerns. Some of this happens already. However, in order for this to work properly, the department needs to go into the minority communities and actually interact with segments of the public who feel aggrieved in the current climate—that includes students, the African-American, Muslim-American, and Mexican-American communities.
6. Improve Representation on the Boards. Find a way to get diverse opinions on these boards. Find students not heavily involved in student government. Find minority students. Find people who represent youth. Find representatives from the minority communities who may not support current polices. Give the public a true forum by which to express their views. And make the CAB meetings, public meeting.
7. Re-instate the Human Relations Commission. When the City Council shut down the HRC, it shutdown the most effective body to register dissatisfaction with current system. By removing its membership, the Council chilled the possibility of a future Commission that would heavily voice its dissent of Council goals. That creates a very dangerous precedent for future interactions.

---Doug Paul Davis Reporting

Part VI: Community Outreach and Transparency

In yesterday’s segment, I discussed problems with the lack of representation for specific communities most affected by the police. A reader made a good point that in addition to the lack of representation for minority UC Davis students and others in the minority community who have had the bulk of the adverse dealings with the police department, that there was a lack of people who deal with youth and at-risk children. Carlos Matos does deal with youths and at-risk children, but he’s an exception on the Community Advisory Board in a number of ways.

Compounding this problem is the basic weakness in the Ombudsman Model. On page 11 of the agenda item, city staff wrote: “Another downside to the contract police ombudsman function is that it is not structured to allow for much public outreach to the community.”

There are two separate but related problems that this raises. The first problem, dovetails from yesterday’s discussion and that is the lack of general communication between the police department and certain members of this community.

We can trace the foundation of this problem back to the initial response of former chief Jim Hyde to allegations coming from the Human Relations Commission. The HRC has in the past often worked very closely with the police department. Under previous chiefs and in the early part of Hyde’s tenure, the police and the HRC worked closely on hate crimes. There were liaisons and other contact between the police and the HRC. When the allegations began last summer, Hyde immediately cut off contact. His liaisons no longer attended meetings. He stopped meeting with the chair and other members. And as we’ve seen, he did more than that, he actually according to public records documents, waged a public relations campaign against the HRC.

The problem of communications goes beyond the conflict between the police and the HRC. The Chief would seek out only forums where the people attending would be supportive rather than critical of himself and the department. In much the same way that we see President Bush seek out only very supportive audiences for his speeches and announcements, the Chief operated in much the same way. The organizer of the May 23^rd March Against Racial Profiling tried to get police representatives at an University of California wide conference on April 29 about Police-Community Relations and was turned down. He tried on a number of occasions to organize meetings and public forums and the chief had no interest. The line of communication was cut off.

Now the Ombudsman is going to be in a position to oversee the operations of the police department and yet there is no channel of communication set up in the current system to go from the members of the public who are aggrieved with the current process to the Ombudsman. To make matters worse, the HRC is now disbanded. They will likely reformulate the committee, but is it going to be a place where the public can air their concerns as it has in the past? The City Council has generally been unresponsive to public concern. The police department does not have a replacement chief. And the Ombudsman is part-time and will not be involved in any form of community outreach.

If there is one single area that could be fixed tomorrow and make a huge difference, it is in this respect.

The second problem, relates from the first. And that is the notion of transparency. There is a lot of talk about the word “transparency,” but what does it mean? As used in this situation, it implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphor from the sciences meaning a transparent object is one that can be seen through (source: Wikipedia). The article goes on to say: “Transparency cannot exist as a purely one-way communication though. If the media and the public knows everything which happens in all authorities and county administrations there will be a lot of questions, protests and suggestions coming from media and the public. People who are interested in a certain issue will try to influence the decisions. Transparency creates an everyday participation in the political processes by media and the public."

And that is the key. “Transparency cannot exist as a purely one-way communication…” The system set up at the moment is exactly that—one-way communication. There is a professional hired to oversee the operations of the police. The investigation process is a closed one. We are given the results of the investigation. The officer has a chance to have a hearing before an administrative law judge. The complainant gets no such luxury. The complainant’s only recourse is to sue the city if they do not like the process. The complainant has to under most conditions bare that cost themselves; whereas the officer is given a chance to appeal, funded by the taxpayers, and in most cases defended by taxpayer expense even in a civil trial.

There is no transparency in this system. We do not have any sort of public investigation of the facts or the findings. There is no part of this system open to public scrutiny. And they’ve even managed to create a system that closes down the lines of communication. So there is no public discourse.

Lack of communication leads to public distrust. Someone wrote me, that a person who files a complaint, has that complaint thoroughly and sincerely investigated, has the complaint found to be unfounded, will often still believe in the veracity of their charges. There is no way around that dilemma per se. However, compare two situations. One in which all investigations are conducted largely in secret and the rulings handed down with no public scrutiny. In the second situation, there is a public meeting discussing the allegations and charges. An investigation is conducted. They then present findings of the investigation (much as you would present an academic paper) in public, where the public can ask questions about the process and the findings. Which situation is the public more likely to have confidence in the overall findings—the secret one or the public one?

Everyone who opposes this forum of civilian oversight believes that those who support public oversight are against the police. I think this system would, if conducted properly, would benefit the police. The current system hides the process and the person who feels wronged is not going to be convinced that the police did their job when they are handed a letter explaining it to them. That leads to an inherent distrust of the police and the system. They are left to either expend vast amounts of money on a lawsuit (which will cost the taxpayers a lot of money as well) or they are left to accept it, often with a degree of bitterness. On the other hand, if you go through a formal process that is open and lose, but if you think the process was fair, you may not like losing, but you’ll at least accept it and have faith in the system. I think that strengthens the hands of the police and fosters rather than erodes public trust. I know a lot of people see this as an attack on the police, but it is really an attack on an ineffective system of oversight and unfortunately, the new system seems to be as lacking in this capacity as the old system.

Tomorrow, I shall discuss alternatives to the existing model in the final installment of this series.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Part V: CAB: Representing the Community?

The following is part five in our series looking at police oversight in Davis. In addition to the PAC, the City Manager and the Police Chief have created a Citizen’s Advisory Board.

An advisory board of 12 people representing a cross-section of the community based on neighborhoods, businesses, schools, religion, race, gender, and other factors was formed the last quarter of 2005. The members are selected by the Police Chief with the City Manager’s approval. This board meets with the Chief on a monthly basis to provide input to the department regarding constituent concerns. Additionally, the CAB members will take information away from the police department back into the community. This Board has broad public representation and input into the police department. Most importantly, CAB opens and sustains on-going dialogue with key members of the community on issues of mutual concern. (Source: http://www.city.davis.ca.us/Police/fivepointplan.cfm )

The goal of this body would seem to be relay constituent concerns to the police. From descriptions from some of the members it has generally been used to present information to the members of the board, rather than used in any sort of advisory capacity. Generally they have provided information about crime statistics and new programs that the police have implemented. It is less about solving problems within the police department and more about receiving information about the police department. I do not want to disparage this, because the people involved I have spoken to have found it useful. But we should not be under the illusion that this body is currently being used for any sort of critical inspection of the operations of the police department.

The question is about how representative of the diverse community is this body. And in some ways, it appears to be very diverse. You have people from various communities involved. Shelly Bailes, a gay/ lesbian activist is a member, Hamza Al-Nakal, a member of the Muslim community is a member, Carlos Matos, a prominent Latino, Calvin Handy an African-American former UC Davis Police Chief, representatives of the business community, and even two students are there. One thing you will notice though is that those involved in this group tend to be supporters of the current majority on the council. There are some exceptions, but that seems to be the case. But, that’s not surprising.

There is one issue involving the CAB that is of particular concern. And this extends beyond the CAB itself to include the UC Davis-Davis Police Liaison Committee. My concern comes from observing the largely minority student march on the Davis Police Station in late May. There were somewhere between 100-200 minority students. And let me tell you, if you have been a long time resident of Davis, the number of minorities, particularly African-Americans in this crowd was surprising in and of itself.

What particularly struck me that day was the level of anger I saw in the marchers. The level of frustration seemed to be at a boiling point. And a big problem was the lack of legitimate channels of communication open between these students and the police department but also city government in general. No fewer than 20 students came forward in a two hour protest outside of the police station following the two mile plus march and talked about their experiences with the police. Very naked and raw stories about being pulled over on very little pretense, asked if they were in a gang or on probation. They were asked routinely if they were from Sacramento or Oakland. Finally, they were released. Almost none of them received any sort of citation and almost none of them were accused of breaking any laws. For some this happened multiple times—to the point where some refuse to drive in Davis because they do not want to deal with this police.

The reputation of Davis for minority students is absolutely horrendous. There are almost two separate types of complaints about the Davis Police. One is the excessive force, violation of rights and procedures, and general intimidation. The other is the racial profiling. They’ve been lumped together at times, but in many ways, they are different and need to be addressed differently.

The police refused to have a spokesperson even talk with the students. A number of officers stood behind the glass, practically jeering and taunting the students. It would have been a marvelous gesture on the part of the police to send someone out there and try to have a dialogue with these obviously frustrated students. The organizer for this march tried on a number of occasions to meet with the Police Chief or Assistant Chief and was rebuffed.

But the other thing that struck me was to compare the students at this march to the students traditionally involved with student government. Those are the students now sitting on the CAB and on the Liaison Committee. And these students are not represented in this process.

Why is this omission important? Because there is no one on these committees that has gone through the experience of being pulled over for no apparent reason other than to ask questions to ascertain whether or not this is a criminal or someone dangerous. There is no legitimate reason to believe that this person is a criminal or someone dangerous other than the color of their skin. There is no one on any of these boards that can personally relay that to the police. And the police have refused to engage on this issue.

More alarming are stories I have heard relayed to me that indicate that otherwise liberal and progressive individuals are either oblivious to this problem or support these policies. A story was told to me that a woman, a self-described progressive, did not have a problem with racial profiling. That her primary concern was rising crime and she wanted to stop it at all costs. She was asked, if a black person committed a crime in Davis, should every black person be pulled over in an attempt to catch the criminal. Her response was yes. When pushed on it, she said, she didn’t care, all she wanted to do was stop the crime, she did not care how they did it or whether people’s rights were violated.

I find this not only alarming, but emblematic of the attitude of the Davis populace. There is probably only a 15 percent segment of the population that has had problems with the police, but this problem has gone on for years, and unless there is a way to get these communities represented on the CAB, the problem is going to continue. As presently composed, the CAB fails to address the fundamental problems that are going on in this community. I will warn you, watching these students in May, things were near a boiling point. Unfortunately, it may take a major incident to alert the general public to the treatment that a sizeable segment of the population faces each day.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Part IV: Examination of the Police Advisory Committee

Part IV of the seven part series takes a lot at the Police Advisory Committee.

The names for the Police Advisory Committee were barely announced when Bob Dunning of the Davis Enterprise was singing its praises. On May 9, 2006 he writes:

[F]or those who might not recognize the names of Calvin Handy, David Sandino and Joseph Taylor, trust me, we're dealing with integrity at the highest level here … those three, named by new City Manager Bill Emlen to this city's newly created Police Advisory Committee, will serve our city well …

None of them would participate in this if they were simply coming aboard to rubber-stamp police actions … they will approach this task without preconceived notions or political agendas … they are ordinary — yet extraordinary — citizens who have been asked to step into a pot of boiling water and turn down the heat from the inside out … lucky for us, they all said yes …

In short, these three dedicated Davisites already have interesting, relevant lives and have no need to make a name for themselves by participating on this panel … only time will tell how this will all wash out, but at this early date it appears the first major decision of the Emlen Administration is a good one …

I start out by saying that I have no desire to disparage the individuals on the committee. I know many people who speak very highly of Retired Police Chief Calvin Handy. Few probably realize that Handy himself was on the hot seat as Chief of the UC Davis Police Department and the Davis Human Relations Commission came to his aid and helped save his job. David Sandino, an attorney with the CA State Water Resources Board, ran against Mariko Yamada for County Supervisor, certainly that was not a fair fight and he also served for a time on the planning commission. I do not know anything about Joseph Taylor other than the fact that he is a professor at McGeorge Law School.

However, as Bob Dunning himself said, the structure of the model is more important than the individuals and that is what this segment focuses on.

The description of the role of the PAC comes from the City Council Agenda from May 2, 2006:

In addition to the development of the police ombudsman function, staff had already proposed the creation of a three-person Police Advisory Committee (PAC) to work with the City Manager. The PAC will provide an added level of review on police complaints and on the police ombudsman function. The PAC will review citizen complaint investigations, paying special attention to investigations where the police ombudsman noted issues of concern, assess the workload and effectiveness of the police ombudsman and provide comments and recommendations to the City Manager. They will review citizen complaints so that they may look for trends and for the thoroughness of the investigations and will look at Police Department policy and training.”

As with the ombudsman there are several weaknesses with this group:

1. While the PAC reviews citizen complaint investigations, they do not themselves investigate complaints. So this is primarily an auditor function rather than a separate investigation function.
   
   
2. It is unclear how much authority they possess. They appear to have advisory capacity only. They also appear to rely on the City Manager and the Ombudsman to bring issues to their attention, which means they will only be as effective as those two bodies will allow them to be. While in some ways this seems a small point, it also means they are not truly another independent body of review.
   
   
3. The review process of the disposition of complaints is limited unless the PAC is given the actual authority to conduct investigations. In other words, if the PAC reads the report by the IAD on the investigation of the complaint, it may not be apparent where or whether there are shortcomings in the review process. Only a second investigation may reveal key questions that are not asked or consider witnesses not interviewed or other facts not discovered. It does not appear that the PAC would have the authority to conduct such secondary investigations. This is the same problem that the current system has—the City Manager currently possesses the ability to review the investigation of complaints. What none of these bodies have is the ability to conduct investigations on their own to determine that the investigation was thorough and complete. And, none of these bodies has the ability to be the primary investigator of complaints, which again leaves tremendous power in the hands of IAD. This leaves few true checks and balances in a system funded by taxpayers.
   
   
4. This body is to meet four times a year. (Although they suggested it could meet more often). Again, with the charge that this body should have, they would need to meet much more frequently to perform any kind of meaningful duties. To my knowledge they have met approximately two times to discuss the protocol and training needs so that they are all on the same page. They have not met in any sort of review capacity to this point in time.

My sense after reading the description of this position, that despite Dunning’s assertion that these people would not choose to serve on a committee that was a rubber-stamp, that the charge of the PAC is very weak. Some PAC members have at times privately expressed frustration about this body and its charge, since they know they can bring more to the table. In the ideal, a group like this could serve as a replacement for the IAD. That would give professionals—all three of these guys have law enforcement or legal experience—who are independent of the police department primary jurisdiction over internal investigations.

Short of that admittedly radical step, it would appear that one could give the group much more teeth including the power to audit and conduct investigations of complaints and the process by which complaints are themselves investigated. Moreover, they along with the Police Ombudsman could be the primary body to hear complaints and determine who investigates these complaints.

Once again this appears to be the case of the City Council and City Staff lacking the commitment to put into place actual positions and bodies that have teeth in their ability to investigate police operations. Some have interpreted this critique as a criticism of the police. On the contrary, if these measures are put into place, the police will be much more effective as they will have a much greater amount of trust within the Davis Community.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Part III: Assessing Weaknesses in the Davis Ombudsman Model

This is part three of the seven part series examining the Davis Police Ombudsman and Police Oversight system.

The following is from the Davis City Staff’s report to council on the function of the ombudsman:

• Development of a police ombudsman function is in addition, not in lieu of, existing processes – We must be clear that the police ombudsman provides a complementary level of oversight to police actions; the position does not replace them. The police ombudsman is not meant to circumvent the Police Department. The position does not normally do investigations in lieu of the police doing them. Rather, the position reviews, audits and provides response to investigations. In addition, the position would communicate with the Police Department concerning citizen complaints. The only time a police ombudsman might actually do a formal investigation is if the original investigation was deemed to be flawed and/or if it falls into a specific category (i.e. excessive use of force, etc.) where the police ombudsman believes that the nature of a complaint warrants an independent investigation. In these cases, the ombudsman shall receive direction by the City Manager.

• Whenever possible, the police ombudsman should be contacted only after exhausting other opportunities. The police ombudsman should not be a citizen’s first stop if they have a complaint about city services/employees. Every department has a complaint system in place and attempts should be made to resolve the issue through the existing system. If the complainant does not feel that the issue has been resolved or if the complainant believes that the process was somehow flawed, s/he should turn to the police ombudsman.

The basic weakness of the Davis Ombudsman Model is that all complaints go the Police Internal Affairs Department first. Only when that avenue is exhausted may the complainant seek the aid of the Ombudsman.

There are several reasons that this is a problem:

1. As yesterday’s report indicates, there is a fundamental problem with Internal Affairs departments investigating themselves. The IAD’s generally give the word of police officers the benefit of the doubt and the vast majority of complaints are not sustained.
   
   
2. The Ombudsman does not generally do formal investigations. “The only time a police ombudsman might actually do a formal investigation is if the original investigation was deemed to be flawed and/or if it falls into a specific category (i.e. excessive use of force, etc.) where the police ombudsman believes that the nature of a complaint warrants an independent investigation.” Thus in general, the Ombudsman acts as the city manager does now—simply reviewing the investigation done by the IAD. It is unclear under what conditions or under whose direction the Ombudsman could act as primary investigator, but given that this is a part-time position (more on that shortly), it seems unlikely this would be a frequent occurrence. And it does not seem to provide for the ability of the Ombudsman to do the primary investigation.
   
   
3. The IAD’s findings may bias future investigations. If the IAD already clears the officer that may tend to taint future investigative efforts. Whereas if the Ombudsman and the IAD performed their investigations simultaneously that bias may be averted.
   
   
4. There have been charges by members of the public that the IAD itself has harassed and intimidated witnesses and complainants. If that is true, then allowing the IAD to run the first investigation may contaminate future efforts.
   
   
5. Some citizens are reluctant to file complaints with the police because of fear of reprisals—and would be much more comfortable talking to an Ombudsman who is independent of the police department and their chain of command.
   
   
6. Time considerations. The ombudsman would get the complaints 60 to 90 days after an incident, thus dragging out the process, and potentially hindering additional investigations. The longer an investigation takes—the harder it is to find witnesses and the witnesses will likely remember less about the incident.
   
   
7. Moreover, this is advertised as a part time position. There were 34 citizen complaints in the year of 2005 and likely at least as many this year, it does not seem likely that a part time Ombudsman will be able to adequately review this many complaints.
   
   
8. Along the same lines, there is a question of the quality of individual that a part-time position will attract. Some on the council have suggested that the lack of budget led to the decision for a part-time Ombudsman. That lack of budget will rule out some higher quality options. On the other hand, there has been the suggestion that this decision was intentional, because the police department wanted the Ombudsman to play a lesser role in overseeing the operations of the police. In either case, it seems very unfortunate that the decision was made to potentially weaken this position.

It should be noted that this was not even the original suggestion by the City Council. In their discussion on February 21, 2006, the Davis City Council and Police Chief both suggested that citizens could take their complaints directly to the ombudsman, however, the May 2, 2006 ordinance that was passed only provides for that possibility under very limited conditions.

The goal of a transparent and independent investigation would be better served by allowing citizens to file their complaints directly with the ombudsman and allowing that office to have original jurisdiction of all police complaints. A future report will more thoroughly discuss alternatives; however, briefly there are two alternative approaches that keep this basic structure in place. In one alternative, the IAD still performs the primary role of investigating complaints, but the Ombudsman monitors the investigation throughout the process. This ensures fairness and thoroughness. The other alternative suggests that the Ombudsman have the primary responsibility for deciding who can investigate the complaint. The complainant can request that the Ombudsman conduct that investigation or the Ombudsman can assign the investigation to the IAD or even another law enforcement agency.

A more radical suggestion comes from John Burris, an Oakland Civil Rights Attorney who specializes in police misconduct cases. He recommends in his book Blue vs. Black (1999) that police departments “replace Internal Affairs with an independent review board.” Part II of this series demonstrated some of the flaws of IADs not just in Davis, but nationwide. The structure of this independent review board could be similar to that of the current Police Advisory Board where three individuals with legal and law enforcement experience may be used to review the complaint process. Burris’ suggestion would give them primary authority to investigate all complaints against the police department.

Yesterday, I was told that Bill Emlen, the City Manager, has had difficulty finding an individual to be the Ombudsman. It seems that no one wants to take that position. There are likely a variety of reasons for this difficulty, but it all seems to come back to the fact that this is a part-time position, with part-time pay. If the Davis City Council is serious about oversight, I would suggest strongly that they make the position full-time. At least then we would have someone in that position, even if the position itself is far weaker than it needs to be.

Part IV in this series will discuss the support organizations, most importantly the Police Advisory Committee (PAC).

---Doug Paul Davis Reporting