A bill for an ordinance clarifying and amending the authority of the Office of the Independent Monitor. An ordinance clarifying and amending the authority of the Office of the Independent Monitor and expanding the appointment process for the Citizen Oversight Board to include City Council appointments. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 1-30-19.
President, thank you very much. We'll do a quick recap. Under resolutions, no items have been called out under bills for introduction, no items have been called out under bills for final consideration comes from each has called out council bill 29 for an amendment under pending. No items have been called out to miss anything. Doesn't look like it. All right. Madam Secretary, would you please put the first item on our screens? And, Councilman, can you please put Council Bill 29 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. I move that council bill 19, dash 29, be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded. Councilwoman Canet, your motion to amend. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 1929 be amended in the following particulars on page four, line 33 strike. Each appointment must be made and substitute for vacancies occurring on or after the effective date of this act. The vacancy must be filled and on page six, strike lines 24 through 29 and substitute the following. As of the effective date of this act, the seven members who are currently serving on the Citizen Oversight Board shall continue to serve the remaining portion of their respective terms. The two new members who will be appointed in accordance with and after the effective date of this Act, shall be appointed to serve an initial term of three years, except, as stated in subsection two below, after the initial term of three years, the succeeding term shall be for four years. Of the four members who are currently serving on the Citizen Oversight Board, whose terms expire in 2020. The appointing authority shall determined by law one of the four new terms for which the next appointment shall be for a term of three years rather than a term of four years. After that initial term of three years, the succeeding term shall be for four years. Thank you, counsel, which has been moved and seconded. Comments or questions by members of Council on the Amendment. Councilwoman, do you have anything to say on the amendment before we jump in? Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. President. The purpose of this amendment is to specify how the staggering occurs here, so that basically we have a number of folks expiring at different times rather than in big bunches. So the purpose will have two new members expiring after a term of three years, and then they will be on four year terms. And that will keep the staggering more consistent over time. Thank you, Councilwoman. And I'm assuming that as sponsors, you all would like to comment once we amend it. Not here. I will comment when it's amended. Yes. Okay. Are then seeing no other comments on the amendment. Madam Secretary, roll call on the amendment. Second. Can each I black eye brooks. Espinosa Gilmore by Cashman. By Lopez. All right. New Ortega, by Mr. President. All right. Madam Secretary, please. Because voting announced results. Nine Ice nine Ice Council Bill 29 has been amended. Now, Councilwoman, can you please vote council bill 29 on the floor for final passage? Yes, Mr. President. I move that council bill 19, dash 29, be placed upon final consideration and do pass as amended. It has been moved and seconded questions or comments by members of Council on Council Bill 29. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to thank Councilwoman Kennedy and Councilman Lopez for involving me in this wonderful discussion, along with a number of the our community partners, city agencies, the mayor's office. I think what we've come up with is, is an excellent bill that solidifies the authority of the Office of the Independent Monitor to oversee the actions of not just the rank and file officers on the street, but the chief of police, the the sheriff as well. This is truly as for those of you who heard our public comment session was certainly a community driven process. And I appreciate our partners from the community side as well. So I know my partner has had some comments as well. So again, thanks as well to the monitor, to the members of the Citizen's Oversight Board for everything they do. Thank you. Councilman Cashman. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I also just wanted to thank my colleagues, Kinesin Cashman and our administration. Folks in the police department and different organizations that have been part of this, and especially the community and our independent monitors office. You know, they're charged with the task that we gave them a long time ago as as is the public. And that's to make sure that we do have civilian oversight of our police force. We all do it every single level. And it's it'd be a misnomer to say that that they aren't civilians themselves. This is an opportunity for us to really make sure that public safety is paramount by sending a message and just reaffirming the message that safety, the public safety is the duty of all of us, not just folks who are in uniform. And and that kind of commitment, this kind of oversight is important. We want to make sure that folks are safe while out there doing their job. We want to make sure that folks are not afraid to trust a person in uniform, whether they are a police officer, a firefighter, or somebody that every once, once a week comes and picks up your trash and throws it in the back of a truck on a cold January day at night. So I think it's it's important. These are all public servants. And I think, you know, when we when we think about the necessary functions of municipal and county government, we think of things like potholes and asphalt and public works. And we think of parks. We also should think of independent civilian oversight as being a necessary function as well, too. And it makes us better as a city if we are able to look at the best practices across the country to make sure that we are using every tool in the toolbox to make sure that public safety is built on trust. And public safety is built on doing the right thing. And, you know, the office is just, you know, as as the community, you know, had been really looking at this and asking questions about the office. And, you know, it's the office of the Independent has been in these chambers a few times, you know, just tinkering with the first ordinance that came through charter izing in making sure that the office is taken seriously and making sure that there's trust. You know, people in the community, they think. That we speak to each other in a manner that it's a team. You don't see the difference. And that these different divisions and these different agencies work together and they expect us to that our public safety depends on it. So our monitor. Nick Mitchell, thank you for your thought. Gee, folks in the off in the office and especially our community, the Denver Justice Project, folks who are who care about this and care about public safety and care about the folks who are behind the badge and also the folks who happen to be in our custody temporarily . Right. And entrusted with making sure that they return to a life that is who enjoy their freedom and do so in a way that that is that that is filled with integrity, but an opportunity to do so. So thank you, Councilwoman Kenny. Councilman Cashman, it's good to be able to do this with you. And we got to give a shout out to the sheriff and the police chief for being at the table as well. So I look forward to this becoming the norm and I can't wait to see what the result is. So. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilman Kasich. Thank you, Mr. President. I, too, want to thank my colleagues for their deep, deep partnership on this bill. And I'm going to talk about all the other folks I want to thank in a minute. Tonight's legislation is really about trust and the trust in our police department and our sheriff's department. It comes in many forms. So one example we heard about a little bit earlier from the proclamation that we had. It comes about having an inclusive department that looks like the community it serves, that helps to foster trust when folks can see officers or deputies that look like them or grew up in neighborhoods like theirs. Sometimes it's about the rules that they have to follow. Many of our community members and some of my colleagues and I participated in the revisions to the use of force process, the policy that the police department uses to determine whether or not force is justified or not. And having the right rules in place helps to create that feeling of trust that we all agree. You don't use force unless these circumstances are present, and it's necessary. And then this idea that if and when there is an accusation of wrongdoing, that there's an independent set of eyes that's looking at it and making sure that there's accountability. That's that third piece. And I think that that's what this bill here is is about tonight, is about making sure that there's trust and following those rules and accountability under those rules. And I don't think that the system we had was broken, but I do think it was outdated. And I do think that there were pieces of it that weren't working as well as intended, and there was confusion about it. And so tonight's process and tonight's bill is about building that trust back, closing those confusion points and strengthening that system so that it can last long into the future. So so that's the what for tonight. But the who is really important. And both my colleagues have mentioned the who this like almost everything I work on, I'm terribly uncreative. It comes to me because someone walks in my door and says, Did you know? And for me, that person was Katina Banks. And as the chair of the Citizen Oversight Board, she said, Did you know that there are these questions and did you know that we had some dialog and couldn't quite figure this piece out on our own? And a volunteer board of Citizen Oversight Board members really worked hard to figure out if there was a way to kind of figure this all out and without maybe legislation. Because, you know, we often ask folks, have you tried talking about it? Have you figured this out? And they had they'd worked, you know, both with the independent monitor and the safety agencies. And so, you know, we heard from other community members who had been sharing their feedback through the Citizen Oversight Board. I consider them like the funnel that that helps you to tell the story to me. But it wasn't their story. They were telling the story of the votes they heard from, many of whom are here. And they spoke to us during the open public comment period. It wasn't a hearing on this bill, but some of them came and spoke and some of them spoke at committee. So one of the things that I've learned doing big complex litigation or not litigation sorry, legislation, I am not a litigating lawyer. I'm a legislative lawyer. But one of the things I've learned is that, you know, like any cook in the kitchen, you can spend so much time on your staff, you get fatigued, you may not even feel like eating it at the end. We have worked really hard. I have never quite worked on a bill that has been so detail oriented as this one, and that includes, you know, that agency, the safety agencies that Councilman Lopez mentioned, how carefully they read it. And we had to rethink everything from a different perspective, see if we all read it the same way. Different attorneys giving us perspectives, different count, you know, community members. Every line in this bill went through so much discussion and it's hard. You know, at the end, you do you get fatigued. And I know that there are people in our community who are here tonight who feel fatigued because they were talking about and asking about these changes and they feel like it took a long time. And what I got to say is it's still a really good thing we're doing tonight. Even though you get tired during the process, we are not great sometimes that celebrating as a community to say, wow, the people came forward, the people had a set of concerns and we worked through them and we kicked the tires. And the truth is that we made some some slight changes in wording with the safety agency's input, but we actually came out with almost every fundamental piece that was important that we set out to put in this bill. And that's pretty amazing. And we did it in a way that earned the neutrality or the support of the mayor and the agencies. Right. So that they were saying, we make this work when, you know. And that to me is really powerful. So as we go forward, the one thing I pointed out in committee is how much natural tension is built into this system. It is designed to be in tension where you have someone looking over the shoulder of a department every day and trying to find out what they did wrong and advising them and. How to do it better. That is always going to be tense. But I'm proud of the fact that in this process we also identified a number of areas outside the language of the law where there's going to be more dialog going forward and what's, you know, confidential or not. On the policies, what does it mean to give prompt notice? Folks in these areas, both the independent monitors, office and safety agencies are going to have to do more work after this bill passes and they're going to have to stay in dialog on those details. And that's going to be hard because there's tension in that system. But it is, I think, a tension that helps us all to keep those officers safe is the community to trust them and to keep our community safe as they are following the best practices they can and that they know there's a high degree of independent oversight and holding up the integrity of the whole system. So with that, I just want to wish you the best as you go forward to implement these pieces and stay in dialog and to just say how appreciative I am of how much work everyone put into it to get us here to a really strong bill. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman Kennedy. Councilman Espinosa. No, I withdrew because Councilman Kennedy touched on the things I wanted to touch about. Thank you. Councilman Lopez, you back up? I would be absolutely remiss if I did not think Catena and the Citizen Oversight Board. You all work hard and people don't understand. And thank you, Robin, for bringing that up because that's what this revolves around, is that citizen oversight. You all spend so many volunteer hours hearing things that are very stressful and seeing stressful situations and having such weight right. And taking criticism from the public and from all around. And you're volunteers, right? So I have to you know that that's important. That's a key part of the original ordinance and and what we have here. So I make sure, you know. Katina Absolutely. But, but make sure that the other members of the board hear these words tonight, okay? And make sure that they understand how much we appreciate the position that they are in, the thought fulness that they put into their role. And and they have a city behind them. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Calcium can eat you back up. And cursing Crawford. She writes all our legislation, but she doesn't write it all like she wrote this one. She really, really, really wrote this one and rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it. Thank you, Kirsten. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. Each seeing no other questions or comments. I'll just think Councilman Lopez, Councilman Cashman and Councilman Canete for all your hard work in bringing this forward. Happy to support it this evening, Madam Secretary. Roll call. Can each high black high. Brooks High. Espinosa High. Gilmore High. Cashmere High. Lopez. I knew. Ortega High. Mr. President. I Madam Secretary, please close voting and announce the results tonight. 1080 Council Bill 29 has passed as amended, and that does conclude the items to be called out. All bills for introduction are ordered published and we are now ready for the black vote on resolutions and bills on final consideration.