Last Thursday, April 17, the city auditor’s office held a
closed-door meeting with members of the cops’ Citizen Review Committee
(CRC) to discuss the group’s future.
The CRC is part of the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR)
division, which was criticized in a consultant’s report recently for
conducting too much of its business behind closed doors [“The Blame
Game,” News, Jan 31]. Copwatch activist Dan Handelman heard about the
meeting at a regular public meeting of the CRC last Tuesday, April
15.
“The auditor [Gary Blackmer] said he wanted to address issues that
were discussed when city council accepted the consultant’s report,”
says Handelman. “Once the auditor opened up this discussion, CRC Chair
Mike Bigham quickly told him that dialogue would take place ‘on
Thursday.'”
Another Portland Copwatch member asked for clarification about what
was going to happen on Thursday, April 17—and whether it should
be an open meeting.
“Bigham responded by smiling at a fellow CRC member, shrugging, and
calling Tuesday’s meeting to a close without so
much as a
response,” Handelman continues.
Blackmer met with four of the CRC’s nine members, according to
Bigham, who says the mayor’s public safety policy director, Maria
Rubio, was also present at the meeting. With only four CRC members
present, however, a quorum was avoided, which would have triggered
public meetings requirements under Oregon law.
“It really wasn’t a secret meeting,” says Bigham. “It was just very
preliminary, which is why we didn’t invite anyone else.”
Former CRC chair and current member Hank Miggins says he is
disappointed he wasn’t contacted by Bigham to be a part of the meeting.
“Just because I’m no longer the chair doesn’t mean I don’t want to know
what is going on,” he says.
Bigham says the group discussed several things including: the
possibility of hiring a full-time outreach coordinator; methods of
hearing appeals for so-called “service complaints,” which are currently
outside the appeals process; a way for the CRC to do more policy
investigations and recommendations; and which investigations the IPR
should be able to lead independently of the cops’ own internal affairs
division.
Bigham insists that the quartet will “get together with the CRC
later to discuss these issues.”
Meanwhile, Blackmer has not returned a call for comment on the
meeting since last week, when an assistant refused to divulge the
location or time of the meeting.