Recommendation to adopt resolution requesting the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk to call, provide, and give notice of a General Municipal Election to be consolidated with the Statewide General Election to be held in the City of Long Beach (City) on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, and include the proposed Charter amendment to a vote of the qualified electors of the City to establish a Police Oversight Commission, which will replace the current Citizen Police Complaint Commission, and add a Director of Police Oversight position; directing City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis of the Charter amendment; and, providing for the filing of primary and rebuttal arguments and setting rules for the filing of written arguments regarding a proposed Charter amendment to be submitted at said election.  (Citywide)
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we do want to take the time today to really dove a little bit deeper into this issue. There's been a lot of discussion going back to reports that we did independently from consultants going out to the community. We did public safety meetings, we've done Charter Amendment Committee. But I want to wrap all that up today and really explain some of the differences between what we currently have and what we are proposing. We do believe that it is a stronger model, but it is a different model. And so with that, with change comes different approaches and things that we're trying to do to make this an even stronger model for oversight and transparency. So I will hand this over to our assistant city manager, Linda Tatum, who's been leading the charge in the past year on this effort. And we're supported by our PCC manager as well. Linda. Thank you, Tom. So I'd like to start the presentation by giving you an overview of the timeline that we've been involved in this effort. And it starts back in, in 2020 with the adoption, the City Council's adoption of the reconciliation report that called for this assessment, this independent assessment of the PCC. And as a result of that adoption, the City Council actually funded in the FSA 21 budget, this independent assessment. So staff then proceeded to go through an RFP process and we selected police change integration as the firm to actually conduct this study. And they have a we selected them because they have a depth of of experience in doing these kinds of studies nationwide. So their work took about ten months. During that ten months, they did extensive public outreach. As Tom mentioned, they did community listening sessions. They met did a presentation at the Public Safety Commission. They also actually went and presented before the charter amendment or I'm sorry, the PCC itself as a result of that in February of 2022, earlier this year, they did a very detailed report to this to the city council, pretty much outlining what they looked at in the study . They they surveyed the models that they were considering for the city's consideration, given the issues here in this community. And as a result of that presentation of the various models and their recommendations, City Council in February directed staff to go ahead and initiate that. The Charter amendment process. And those two initial steps in that process involved a starting the meeting confer process, which staff did and successfully completed the Phase one meeting confer. The second part of that process was to have the city attorney prepare draft language for the charter amendment. So those two steps were done in February. It was started in February and then in June, once the charter amendment process started this, the charter amendment body can conduct at two public hearings. And both of those were both in both of those hearings that the item was continued to move forward. So this is the third and final public hearing for the charter amendment process. And we are hoping that the result here is that the city council would refer this item to the November ballot. So I'd like to talk a little bit about what oversight of law enforcement is, what civilian oversight is. So in the police report, there was a pretty good definition of what a police oversight actually is. And it's essentially when one or more individuals outside of the sworn police chain of command whose work specifically focuses on holding that department, its officers and its employees are accountable. Now, any police oversight really is is critical, but they have several, several attributes. If you could go back to that former slide for a second. I just want to touch on those really briefly. There are seven attributes that any really effective model needs to consider. Number one is independence. And that is something that means that it's independent and it doesn't report to a line department in the city department, but rather an independent entity. It also looks at how much information and access to personnel in the department that the the oversight body has. So that's really critical to them being effective and doing the work that they need to do in terms of investigations, review or monitoring or whatever their role is. Transparency and transparency, meaning that the operations and the work of that oversight body are made available to the public freely and without any constraint. And also that there's a reporting component to the to the model. The other one is adequate funding. That is something that has been considered and was recommended in the police report community engagement. It's critical that the community input be a key part of any oversight process, as well as the legitimacy of the actual oversight body. And lastly, there ideally, there should be some kind of evaluation of the oversight body and the oversight process periodically. Okay. So the next thing I'd like to talk about is where police spent a lot of time, in addition to getting feedback from the public, they spent a lot of time looking at essentially three core models that exist nationwide for how police oversight is handled. The first of those is a review model, and the name in the title really suggests what their primary focus is. And that review model, the the oversight body, essentially focuses on reviewing the investigations that were independently done by the by the internal affairs within the police department. So that is one model, a review model. The second model is the auditor monitor model. And this model, it functions specifically to look at systemic operational policies, training and operations within a police department. And there it looks at those and makes recommendations for improvement. So that's the focus of the audit or monitor model. The third model is investigatory models. And those, as it's the name suggests, you have civilian professionals that are actually doing investigation of complete complaints against the police department. So those are fundamentally the three models where you could focus. Now, the fourth model is a hybrid, which means that you could pick and choose depending upon your community's needs, its objectives. You can pick and choose kind of these pieces of those three models and put together. So what you see on the right here is a really high level summary of what our current PCC model is, because it is an investigation model. Essentially, our PCC investigates civilian complaints. Those are external complaints against the police department from the public. The L b our police department, internal affairs investigates those complaints, and then they take the results of those complaints, go to the PCC and they make a finding or a determination on the complaint and they make a recommendation to the city manager. And the fourth and the fourth step of that process is for the city manager to make a finding on the complaint. And that's a determination as to whether or not the complaint was sustained overturn or if the officer was exonerated. So what I'd like to talk about at a very high level, and then I'll go into it and on a little bit more detail, just because there is some complexity associated with it is the proposed model. What the police report showed is that what they recommended to this city, based upon the feedback that they heard from the public, a review of the operation of the current CC KPCC model. They recommended that the auditor model, auditor monitor term model, but a hybrid, meaning that they wanted the focus to be on audit. Systematic review of policies, training and operations within the police department. But to support that, the hybrid comes in because they also recommended having an independent police oversight commission and the two of those bodies would work together systematically to address the issues and concerns that that arise in terms of police complaints in our community. So I'm going to give you a high level overview of that. Again, systematic review of internal investigations. And in this case, it would be both external community external complaints that came about from community complaints, but also internal complaints in the police department that arise within the organization. It also specifies that the director would have the authority to conduct investigations and a very limited set of circumstances. That's when there is great bodily injury resulting from a complaint. In that case, they would actually have the authority, the authority to investigate the complaint or review the the complaint. And I'll go into a little bit more detail on that. But the other case that was really important that they have the authority is to investigate complaints against the police command staff. And again, another key component of this, this model is that the police oversight director would have access to all of the police department records, all of their reports. They would also have access to to personnel as witnesses, to any complaint incidents. And again, I talked about the critical component of this model being the commission, which provides the opportunity for ongoing, ongoing public feedback. So that you're hearing from the community at all times in the process about issues or concerns that that that the public may have about police procedures or policies. And lastly, this model includes recommendations, specifically given their independence directly to city council. Okay. So what you see in this light is just a it's a much broader comparison of the different types of models. I talked about the investigation focused model earlier, and this just gives you a little bit of comparison about these models and how they're how they are represented throughout the nation. In terms of the investigation focus models, there's about 18% of the about 157 police oversight organization or activities throughout the nation. About 29 of those are investigation focused. And one of the the primary purpose, as I mentioned earlier, is that this model, they really focus on actually having the civilian commission do the investigations. Now, a strength of that model is that it can potentially reduce some of the perceived bias in how complaints are handled, but it also may increase community trust in the investigation if they feel that it's completely independent. But of course, a weakness of this process and the investigation model is that it's often procedurally quite complex and it's also pretty resource intensive. And there's also some level of community frustration in this model when broad or systemic change doesn't occur as a result of the focus strictly on only investigating complaints that arise in the community. The next model I talked about earlier is the review focused. That's the one, again, where the Oversight Commission is focused on reviewing complaints that occur within the police department. They don't undertake the investigation, but they review the investigation after it's been completed by the fire department. Now, this right now or currently this is the most popular or the most most communities have this oversight model, about 61% of all of the ones across the nation are this model. This is an older model, but right now it's still the most numerous around the country. It really does focus, as it says here on review of completed investigations, but it does have some strengths because of the civilian input into the complaint and the investigation process. There is there it increases public trust in the investigation process. But the potential weaknesses of the review focused model is that it has limited authority because the authority is focused on investigations or review of investigations rather than a systemic review of all of the policies and procedures. The focus, again, being on complaints. So let's go to the third model, which is the auditor monitoring model. Currently, only about 20% nationwide have this model. However, this is probably the most the most the newest model that in the world of police oversight, it's the newest and it's the most modern. And increasingly as as new oversight models come online and communities. This is the model that is is is becoming most popular. And there are some reasons for that. Its primary purpose is to look really broadly and examine systems in a systematic way or a systemic way. Broad patterns in police discipline, a review of police policies, training and operations. And that's one of the reasons that it's used more recently in the modern police oversight models. Some of the strengths of this model is that it gives more robust public reporting because of the systemic approach to looking at policies, procedures and operations. You get a much better picture of the operations, and it's actually more it's more effective ultimately in promoting long term change within the police department. And some of the weaknesses is that the community may be skeptical of that systemic approach, and it does require a staff with significant expertize. So let's talk in a little bit more detail about kind of what we found when we look at benchmarking our community against other communities, particularly those here in California and in similarly sized cities. So to get that information, we went there is a National Association of Civilian Oversight and they they have a rich database of different models within different communities. So the police study looked at 26 different communities here in California, not including our RC PCC here in Long Beach. And what we did in comparing ourselves to other similarly sized cities, we looked at the city of Anaheim and Anaheim. They have the auditor monitor model and it's a hybrid because they also have a commission, a police oversight commission. We found the same thing in the city of Fresno and the city of Oakland. Again, all three of these had a hybrid auditor model. More auditor model. That's a mouthful. Auditor monitor with a commission. And in Riverside, they had the city had a review model. And lastly, in the city of Sacramento, they likewise had a hybrid model that had the auditor monitor again, the auditor monitor being the. More systemic review of policies, operations and procedures along with the Commission. Okay. So in looking at police oversight, in terms of how you would implement in the city, there are some really important factors to keep in mind. When you start thinking about how you implement or how what model you use, it's really is critical that you realize that civilian oversight of police, it is really it's not a policy panacea. It won't address all of the problems of police misconduct or or organizational and operational changes. But it is one really significant piece of that puzzle. So it's important that we keep that in mind that this this that any model that we choose will will need to be practice along with other really important tools. There's also no perfect model. I think each city has to look at its objectives and what it wants to accomplish and what the issues are in their community and design a model that really is customized to their needs as much as possible. And lastly, it's so important that oversight programs be grounded in those attributes I talked about earlier. But the really important components are making sure that the model is is is collaboration, and that's collaboration between the oversight body or the oversight director. And the commission is in the city's police department. And it's also critical. That there be a high level of transparency. Okay. So I will talk a little bit in more detail about the oversight model that is proposed. That is. Earlier, I talked about the auditor monitor model. It's a hybrid because what is being proposed is a clearly and a very significantly independent model. Our current model is is underneath the city manager. This model would not be underneath a city department, but it would be independent and report directly to the city council. So the two components of the hybrid model are the the director of police oversight. This person is hired and fired by the city council. Currently under a model. Now we don't have a director. It is. The KPCC is managed by a manager within the city manager's office. This director would report directly to the city council. He would have direct access to the police department, records, data and personnel and witnesses, including police personnel. And currently, under our current model, there's limited KPCC access to police data. As I said earlier, a very critical component is that they would look at systematic issues, look at patterns, data and trends and deficiencies within operations, policy and training. And right now, there is no authority of the current model to look in a systemic way at police operations. And the second component is the Police Oversight Commission that would be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. They have their role would be to solicit or to get input from the community on areas of issues are concerned and they would provide feedback directly to the director regarding priorities for what areas need to be looked at based upon the feedback they get from the public. And they would also review the annual reports that the director would be required to provide to the City Council. So why did why did the art consultant recommend the auditor monitor model? We think that the basis for that recommendation is that this model gives us the best change, opportunity for systematic change within the organization because of the systemic approach to looking at the organization and the and a high level of community input and feedback and collaboration with the police department. And we we also saw that during that very extensive public hearing process, the community asked for independence. They wanted an independent body. They wanted more transparency and the need for oversight of internal affairs, as well as getting better a higher level of education about C.P.S. in the community. So again, I talked about some of these and I will I will go through these really quickly. Systemic issues addressed by the director. That does not occur now because the focus in the current model is on investigations rather than looking at systemic operations. There would be a timeline for when a recommendation is made by the director and a report to the City Council. This model includes a timeline for the police department to review the recommendation and respond and to ask for more time if they need it. I'd also like to just highlight that they can investigate major uses of force that result in great bodily injury upon the request of the city manager. That's a new authority that they do currently do not have. They also have the right to be on the scene of a critical incident, a critical incident being a a major use of force, a police shooting or something of that nature. They get to review all the complaints to ensure that all of the allegations included in the complaint are are appropriate. And they also are required to investigate specific types of incidents. And I mentioned earlier, if there is a complaint against the police chief or the command staff, it's appropriate that there be an independent investigation of that by the director. And lastly, provide an annual report to the City Council on their findings once they do the systemic reviews. So we feel that this model is a strengthened version of police oversight. I listed some of the bullets here that talk about what that role is. They get to review the commission itself. They get to review and provide feedback to the director, and they also play a role in hiring the director. So they have a very iterative process, working directly with the commissioner in terms of getting public feedback and then making recommendations to the director. Okay. Next. This I to. Here's how just in a really quick summary, how the director works with the Police Oversight Commission. It's essentially a feedback loop where the commission meets monthly and they get feedback from the community, they provide that feedback to the director. And I just give some examples of how that that could work. If there is a particular issue in the community that has occurred repeatedly based upon feedback, they can make a recommendation to the and to the director to investigate that particular area and prepare a report and recommendation to counsel. So there. The next one is I talked earlier about the systematic reviews or the systemic reviews. This involves the the director looking at operations, policies, procedures and training. And again, an example there could be if there's a number of calls for service in one particular area, they could ask the police department to look at the criteria for determining those calls for service and provide a report and a recommendation. Next slide. Again, I talked earlier about the comparison of those models, and I'll just focus here on the powers and duties, because I've talked about some of the other ones, both the PCC right now and the Internal Affairs Conduct investigations. We feel that that's redundant. So it's more efficient to go to a model where only the I.A., the Internal Affairs, is conducting investigation, but the director would have the authority to review those investigations that are completed. Next slide. Currently the P.C.C. Does have subpoena powers. However, under our current model, they rarely use that authority. But with a new oversight director, there would be no need for the subpoena power because the charter amendment would allow access to all of the police department records, to police personnel, to witnesses. They would allow them to be on the scene of a critical incident so they could observe it and make recommendations based upon their observations. And again, I talked about the community engagement. The proposal now bakes in that community input and engagement into the process, and that doesn't exist in the current model we have. Okay. So the director, they would have the authority in a use of force incident that results in great bodily injury. Here's a really quick rundown of what they get to do. They get to respond to the scene to observe how the investigation is being conducted. They get to review the complaint itself before it is investigated to ensure that the allegations are included. They get to audit the case to ensure thoroughness, timeliness and quality. And based upon the findings of the investigation, they can present recommendations to the police, to the to the city, the city council as a result of their investigation. Okay. Next slide. In the case of which which doesn't result in great bodily injury, say it's a police involved shooting, but it doesn't result in great bodily injury. They have the same authority there in terms of being on the scene, relying on their own observations. They can actually brief the they can request a briefing of the incident to the to the police commission or the oversight commission. And the director can actually review the investigation again for thoroughness, timeliness and quality. And if an officer involved shooting occurs, the director has the authority to investigate. If the city manager requests it. Again, the very specific role that the director is required to conduct the investigation is within is a case where there is a complaint against the police chief or any member of the command staff. That's where the independence is, is actually required and mandated as a part of this this model. And again, they will report those findings to the city council, and they will have access to all department records and data in order to complete that investigation. Okay. So I just wanted to reiterate that as a part of the City Council's initial recommendation to move forward with this charter amendment, they did give staff the authority to look at the current PCC operation and to start implementing improvements in that current process. And those are in the areas of transparency, making sure that the results of the operation are more available to the public. They ask us to look at training for both the commission and for the staff, and also to look at operations for greater efficiency in the current CPC model. So this is just a recap. There were substantial opportunities for public engagement, and I mentioned some of those earlier, and that also includes the two public hearings we've had so far to date, as well as tonight's public hearing. And I will just highlight that any change in the proposed charter amendment and language that's already been published and circulate it would require a meeting confer with the affected labor organizations. And if that were to occur as a result of tonight's feedback, it would fundamentally defer the the proposed amendment to the to the 2024 election cycle because there were just not be physically time to complete the meet and confer and still make the ballot. So the staff recommendation in closing is that we ask the recommend that the city council refer the matter to be placed on the on the ballot. We think that the auditor monitor hybrid model is a superior, stronger and more modern model than the one we currently have. It's responsive to the public feedback that we heard during the outreach process, and we think that it provides the greatest potential for systemic change and reform based upon a high level of collaboration between the the Oversight Commission, the director and the police department. That concludes that presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Do have a motion by Councilmember Austin and Councilman Sara Johnson are awesome. Do you want to go to the public or you want me to comment first? I'd like to go public first. Okay. So, Madam Clerk, will you do the public comment, please? If there are any members of the public that would like to speak on item 19 and person, please line up at the podium in Zoom. Please use the raise hand feature or dial star nine now. Hello again. I am very, very encouraged by this. I am very excited to hear something about this. I'm a strong advocate of we, the people. The people are the actual government up here. You folks, with all due respect, you're the representatives and the public servants. So when the people are empowered to have oversight, I'm extremely, extremely encouraged. And I appreciate this this being brought forth. I'm reading here. Forgive me. I am encouraged by the fact that it's independent. It's independent and as transparent as possible. I call it a win. And when I speak transparency, I mean as transparent as possible. Say, when someone goes to court, they are even if just accused and not found guilty, the public knows what's going on with who, where they are in the investigation, what things have gone on rather investigation. But in the case. So so transparency as much as possible is very encouraging. I'm not sure how deep it goes. I would like. I would actually like to read for the details. But I want to make sure that there is no absolutely no red tape from the police to state that, hey, there's an investigation going on and we can't share this information. This has to be, again, as public as possible with no red tape, or they must be compelled legally or face consequences. One or two people behind the whole thing is fantastic. However, again, being that it's public would be would be best. So that way they any sort of steps that they take the public know exactly where they are, who's involved, what steps are taking. So to people is great, but so long as their work is entirely public I believe would be would be best placed to say we should consider maybe termed employment for these individuals. That way they don't become entrenched and and shake hands with folks behind doors, possibly, possibly an elected type of type of position again. So that again. So it could be termed and and avoid entrenchment. No hiding behind a public investigation. Excuse. Excuse me. Writing. I wrote a lot of notes. This. I'll just. I'll just end with this. I guess we can be a model as as the presentation showed, others are doing it. But I think we can be a model to be the perfection of what it is. There is no perfect, but we can be as close as possible to perfection if we need to hold it off a little bit till 2024. I'm not saying we do. If in case I would rather we do it quality before quickly, because something like this is absolutely fantastic. And I'm again, I'm very encouraged. Last quick, quick note. Very, very on this on the side here, just a quick request on decorum. If the council members can maybe shut off their videos when they're eating big mouthfuls with noodles, hanging out of their mouths is very distracting. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just 1/2, sir. Everyone that's going to speak, if you can, please just line up at the podium, please. Is anyone else speaking on this item? I'm going to close the speakers list. Okay. And then is there anyone on? Okay. Did you do the count? Okay. Great. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Tom Beck. I'm an attorney. And I've done a great deal of litigation with the police department of your city over the years. In fact, I was instrumental in in seeing that the first CPPCC came into existence. And my concern then, and it continues to be today is whether or not a complaint by an or an aggrieved citizen reaches a fair conclusion and objective conclusion. The weakness in the current system notwithstanding what you've just heard. Is that although now the proposed oversight lacks the ability to investigate. It also opens the door for investigations at the discretion of the city manager. If it's a GBI, great bodily injury case or shooting or. Yes. By an officer, that that that's a hybrid to me the office that they're either going to have the powers to investigate especially those high profile incidents or they're not. And this is where the subpoena power becomes so important, because under the present system, the power exists. And if you've just been told that power is being taken away, if an investigation is being commanded by the city manager into a high profile incident, they shouldn't be confined to the parameters of the department's investigation into that incident because they may discover, for example, a very simple one, that if they can't subpoena the medical records of the person that was injured, to know the gravity of those injuries, whether they can be called GBI or not, GBI makes a difference. And that, to me, emasculated the power of the investigative oversight body. It's really at the discretion of the city manager to do it. And and the model that's being proposed patterns itself after the war, the way the United States Department of Justice overtakes the the administration of police departments, as it did in L.A., as it's done in Seattle and Ferguson, Missouri, where those persons reported to a federal judge, not to a city manager, and who had the authority to the cloud, so to speak, to do things that the city and its employees, its agency, were unwilling to undertake. So I think that those are weaknesses you all must consider before you decide to bump this to to the electorate, because the electorate electorate really won't know any of the things we're talking about. Thank you. They can expect police. Good evening. I want to thank you for a very thorough presentation. I do have I am in support of this commission, but I did have a couple concerns. First, I was just wondering how the community will continue to be engaged with this commission. I know that a part of why this commission was created in the first place was to ensure that the community has that direct line of communication with the Commission. And so I'm hoping that that is further clarified to ensure that that still does happen. Also, my other concern is that how this committee is selected. I know it's stating that the city council members and the mayor will be the ones selecting the committee, and there's really no input from the community itself. And I'm wondering if there's a possibility of opening the door that perhaps the community can have influence on selecting those committee members or maybe even voting those members into this commission? Because, again, this is about that line of communication with the community. And I'm sorry I may hurt some feelings right now, but as we talk about the criticisms of the city council and the police department, there's really no response to those criticisms, but instead continued praise for the Long Beach Police Department. So I'm just questioning if they're going to select people on that commission that will truly have oversight over the police department. I know in the presentation it was included that a potential weakness is that you need a staff with significant expertize to have truly true oversight. And so that's again, echoing my concern about who might be selected on this committee. And I think it's important to have people that have expertize in systemic racism and systemic issues within communities. So that's looking at, again, systemic racism, specifically issues of policing, the history of policing, not just in Long Beach, but in the United States as a whole. So I think that's really important for the commission and even the director specifically. My other concern was that it was mentioned that only the internal affairs would be investigating and that the Commission didn't necessarily have to. So again, I'm questioning how do we ensure that the Commission will be investigating the issues that are coming forward? And again, I think that's important through that ongoing communication with the community and full transparency, as someone else also stated earlier. Again, I've read the language in the recommendation prior to coming in and it just seemed very vague in terms of how much community input would be in this commission. And I'm hoping I'm hoping that we can really strengthen the language or just at least clarify community input. And again, I want to emphasize community input on the commission members and the expertize that is needed for those positions. Thank you. Thank you next week or please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and counsel. And my name is David Clement and I'm a resident of the second district, Cyndie. And I had the honor of serving on the PCC a few years ago and I was chair one year and I was appointed by Mayor Foster, reappointed by Mayor Garcia and then supported by our Councilwoman Susie Price . Susie and I also served with Sully Sara one on one of the commissions and I Patrick Patrick Weathers over there. He's one of our investigators. In any case, I have always had the greatest respect for our officers, men and women in uniform. And I believe that the entirety of the CPC felt the same way. We have a great police department. I think the vast majority of our officers are of the highest caliber professionalism and integrity. But my position on this is I don't think that we should of I don't think you should vote on this. I don't think it should be passed. I don't think it should go to a to the ballot and for the following reasons. So I ask you to vote no on it. I believe that the proposed changes to the Charter will weaken the PCC, see PCC rather than strengthen the Commission. I think that will hurt. I think it's ironic, I think will hurt some of our most vulnerable, vulnerable people, people of color. Because because if we have this person, this person called the oversight director having to be somewhat subservient to our city manager, it seems like that kind of a conflict of interest, and I don't support that . I think that and it's ironic because these people are the same people who vote for the majority of our council members. So so I don't support this this amendment. I think that the CPPCC should be able to interview police officers if there's a complaint directly interview those officers. And I think that I think that the current CPPCC should be able to. I think that the fact that the city manager can overturn and review findings of the CPPCC, I think that that should. I think that's a little bit of a conflict of interest as well. So please vote no on this amendment. Thank you. Speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Stephen Downing. I'm a resident of Council District three. This is a pre-paid package. From a so-called consultant who did not compete. But rather got the job through a purchase order and then went through the motions to deliver. What we see tonight is a preordained package that works for the way it works for City Hall, but it doesn't work for the people. The proposed charter amendment guts every possibility. The people of this city ever had for true civilian oversight of their police department. What we have now in the PCC charter could have been improved, but clearly even that is made to work by eliminating the false barriers that have traditionally been put up to ensure that it did not work. Like interview of officers. Interview of witness officers obviously posed too great a danger. To City Hall image makers. And so tonight, the curtain will fall on the third act of one more firm performance of Long Beach political theater. This one billed as part of a framework or reconciliation. I fully expect the performance will receive rave reviews from behind the rail. We've all been able to rationalize their praise by pointing to the dishonest polling of 896 potential audience members. Made to believe that the $53,000 reconciliation bill. And that they read will actually result in a performance that delivers true civilian oversight. Well, those of us who are interested enough to attend the actual performance and all of the rehearsals leading up to it to know what a turkey. The oversight performance will really be so as a last appeal. All we can ask of those of you who will vote tonight is that you abandon the 63% crutch offered from that poll. Of those falsely led to believe a great performance will be delivered. Thank you. Your time is an individual thought. Thank you, sir. To the quality of the script. Time is in play. Thank you very much. Relationship. Sir. I'm so sorry, sir. Time is up next. Speaker, please. And votes. Thank you very much. Will these over the microphones? OFFICER So, sir. You mean that. Your time is up? All right, sir. Thank you, sir. Time is up. Next speaker, please. I would give Mr. Downing most of my time. My name is Richard Lindeman. I was with Julie Shiro on the Ship Commission and my share, but it's been pretty much a fraudulent commission since its inception. You know, it has no real bearing because it didn't matter what we decided. On any case, sometimes the city manager agreed with us. Usually when we said no, sometimes she agreed. A couple of times when we said yes. But it's still up to the city managers. Discretion. And that's where the problem lies. If we have something that has been. Recommended here. This should not stand at this point and it should go into actual. Election. And be a real independent. Organization because the ship she she is not. And this derivation of it is not. Again. Thank you. You'd expect a police. I carelessly here. I did appreciate the professional report. I learned a lot from watching that. Um, and. I didn't have time to really digest it. It wasn't in the staff report, um, information. But my first question would be why would we choose the model. That is least. Likely to have public confidence? And that's on those charts. It said in there that you had to be you had to it was critical to have a high level of transparency with this chosen model. And, you know, Long Beach isn't famous for transparency. But when I read the documents on this, it talked more about confidentiality. So it would be very difficult to get transparency along with confidentiality. Those are two opposing things to me. Um. But my, my real question is, what is the problem we're solving? I can't figure that out. I mean, I hear it doesn't work, but it sounds like we're throwing out the baby. With the bathwater. We haven't gone through and picked out what doesn't work and what can we do to fix it. Right now, we have a citizen commission that has a lot of rights. They can initiate an investigation, hold hearings, subpoena witnesses, documented disposition. Those are big responsibilities. All of those authorities have been removed. So it sounds like we thought that was a failed model. And I think we're going to have to take out. The word. Citizen commission if we go with the choice that's being made here, because this is not a citizen's commission. This is a professional model. You're looking at bringing in a professional. To do the. Things that you had citizens doing anyway. Anyway, the investigative reports are. Those. Causing the city problems in court. I mean, I, I wonder I keep looking at this and saying, what is the problem we're fixing? Who benefits from it? And I just heard the last speaker say the peel away and city hall benefit. I'll tell you how I don't feel. We benefit. This is going to cost more. We're going to. Have to hire people to do this. So if if. We were really. Getting something better, perhaps that'd be worth it. But I just heard all those other speakers tell you that we're not financing the basics of running the city. I mean, we have a whole department that's working hours and hours of overtime, and we're talking about bringing. In more high level. Executives. That doesn't make sense to me. Thank you. They can expect place. Good evening. Your presentation was very informative and I too learned a lot. But it still leaves me with some questions. And I know that we need to do something. We got to do something quick and fast because we cannot continue down the path that we've been traveling historically with policing and what it brings to the community, especially for black and brown communities. There needs to be transparency. There needs to be accountability. And there's none of that. So when we look at an oversight committee, a committee, I do believe that maybe this instilled need to be involved with that as well, as well as having it brought to the attention and maybe put on the ballot so that citizens can vote on that to have a say in what's going on or who's chosen for that job position. With that being said, anybody that you've made a mention about having an expert, being expert in that in that field, for somebody to be an expert in the field for this director position, I question what does that actually mean? What are they are expert in? And what concerns me is that that now brings in another law enforcement mindset. And again, how do we screen out? Those potential risk. That is still a risk and they're still working hand in hand with police officers again. So with that being said, clearing those things up, making sure that we do have a community input in that, that's very crucial in there. If we're going to have accountability and trust to build community trust, the only way we're going to do that is if there's transparency and we're actually involved in that. So with that said, again, making sure that we clear out what are those expertize you're looking for involving the community in that? Yeah. Building up some trust and transparency. We need it all the way around. How do we work together? We can't continue down this path. The reality is people are still dying on the streets. And they look like me. Something's got to change. If you want law enforcement to have respect, they must have respect to the first and foremost accountability. How about we get rid of qualified immunity to black lives do matter. Thank you. That concludes another public comment that's here lined up. I think we have a one that's going to be online and control. Your time begins. Now. I had my hand up for. A previous comment. I did not have my hand. Up with this. Thank you. Okay. That concludes public comment. We have a motion by customer Austin customer in Austin. And I thank you all as the mayor and I really want to thank the people who came out and provided public comment and provided input throughout this process to get us to this point of. I would just say that I had the privilege of serving on the Citizen Complaint Commission from 20003 to 27. I served as chair of the Commission and it certainly is not a perfect commission. And there were a lot of frustrations with the commissioners about, you know, sometimes a lack of power, lack of transparency, lack of authority to really make a difference. But I've learned a lot over the course of my time personally on the city council as well. I just want to give everybody a little bit of background. No. One Citizen Police Complaint Commission was put in place with 30 years ago, 1992. I believe the first executive director had a law enforcement background and the second executive director had a law enforcement background and the third executive director had a law enforcement background. And it wasn't until recently, maybe the last ten years or so, that the civilian kind of got the position of the executive director. But during the course of that period of time, we also saw the staff in that commission significantly reduced. Right. That's what the city council. That's what the city manager. And the effectiveness of that condition was was impacted as a result of that. The culture was set up early with the executive directors and the managers of that commission. And I can go into even more detail on that recently, just within the last couple of years. And I'll ask the city attorney, when do we find that that the City PCC had subpoena authority? Maybe you can help me out with that. Somebody. That's a request. Yeah. This is Don Macintosh. We'd have to look into when exactly that happened and get back to you. Councilman Ralston, I believe it was recently. Within the last couple of years. Right. It was actually the CPC does have subpoena authority. And for all these years, they did utilize this, this, this, this authority or this tool that they had. We had because we were told we couldn't ask certain questions and we couldn't get certain information. Well, I think that was a game changer. The opinion from the city attorney's office to give the city c. C. Subpoena authority. I'm I'm I mean, I like the fact that we've gone through this exercise and looked at other models. And even as I mentioned earlier, every model was meant to be changed. But I think this model can be actually changed and we can achieve this hybrid model that we're looking to achieve through a administrative action. Through two actions that our city manager already has the tools at his disposal to empower to commission even further the the proposed commission. To me, he values the citizens. Right. It takes the citizen component and assists an oversight component away from the model. And and and there's somebody, I think astutely mentioned it makes it a professional model. Right? It creates another IP manager with with the with the direct accountability to city council. But I mean, where's the citizen involvement? I think that's that's really what's missing here. And so I'm troubled. I want to and certainly I really want to make some similar reforms to our city PCC. I've always said that I think there are administrative tools and we can we can do one. One thing that was actually missed missing from tonight's presentation that we received a couple of weeks ago was actually the the the cost difference of of this is the current model versus what is being proposed is going to be significant. We're going to add several staff members to be able to support this this new auditor. Auditor model, but. The current motto is deficient with stealth. We have to ask yourself, how much better could this model be if we added a couple of investigators and we added the administrative staff to allow them to at least do their reports on time? I understand our reports. We haven't had a report. What was the last time the city council voted on a key report? Right. They're delayed. They're late because it's a staffing challenge. And I would challenge that to try to challenge me on that. This this stuff this model goes from 11 commissioners to seven commissioners with less responsibilities. This model doesn't apply for our commissioners, too, to investigate the small things that really impact people's engagement. It's not just the officer involved shootings and and great bodily injuries and use of force issues. It's this respect. It's the engagement that people have with police officers. This officer called me in a racial slur. This person, you know, mentioned my sexuality. You know, those are complaints that that the PCC deals with that won't be dealt with under this model at all. As I can tell today. And so Jasmyne asked, is your time is up? I'm just there. My time is up. I'll recruit. But I'm having a tough time justifying moving forward with this model and taking it to the voters because I think it needs some work. Thank you. Thank you. So I can comment on some of that. I'm assuming that was not set in motion. So my motion would be to not approve staff to make a recommendation tonight and continue to work on our own civilian oversight model. Okay. So is there a second on that motion? I'll second. Okay, Councilman, give any comment on that. No. Just open to hearing from my colleagues. I have no one else queued up right now. I have a motion in a second. Anyone else have any comments? I guess I'd like to ask a couple of quick questions. Councilmember Austin, I hear a ton of passion in your voice, and I know you have a lot of experience in this and. I guess I would ask what a timeline would be, because I think that. It's moving in the right direction. I do agree there are some challenges. I also know that the community. Is looking for change now. And I heard you say that you think within the scope of the city manager's authority, we could make some of those changes. What would that timeline look like and how will we involve the community in that? Well, I'll just put forward my my recommendations based on what I've heard from them. People want independent commission. What? They want a commission with teeth. Well, the training for commissioners should be done independently about that, right? But the training of four police commissioners and maybe is that professional of auditor or investigator that comes in and provides that training improve the communication. The budget allows this commission to communicate with the public. The public gallery improve the public trust. Right. As it stands right now, it doesn't matter if it's a C, P, C, C, existing model or a a new model. If we don't we don't build a communication and. A way to engage the public. We're never going to have the public trust. We're going to have the same problem that we have today. Right. And so that that I don't even see that in this new model. And I think we need to staff this insurance, because you see with civilians, investigators and administrative staff, individuals that don't have conflicts necessarily. Those would be just initial. And I think one of my initial hesitations as one of the public speakers came forward today and said. Who is selecting these commissioners. And I think that that's a big question. And the integrity of the body. I think that having community input in the selection of the commissioners could be a an important factor. And so I'm open to seeing where this motion goes. And also open to letting it go to the voters and them saying that they feel the same way you do. Councilmember Alston So thank you for your passion about this important matter. Thank you, Councilwoman Ciro. Um. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm. I'm really curious. Why? What is it you know about? Because we have a from 11 commissioners to seven, which will still be part of representative, that there's still going to be city resident commissioners. So so the question I wonder I have is how is it are residents still able to make complaints to I.A. as they normally would? So people who have concerns still everyday people about the police would still be able to do that, right? That is correct. There is no change in that process in terms of them being able to go to the police department, because right now, the majority of the complaints that we receive to see PCC come directly through the police department so that process would not change. And as far as my understanding, having also served as the chair of the Citizen Police Complaints Commission, I have heard loud and clear from many of my colleagues here about I mean, one of my colleagues who I serve here shared that he feels this is a much more independent process that will allow the that that residents voices who made the complaint would be heard even more because it's not going to be going through the concerns. I've heard a lot from my colleagues who served on the commission with the concern about it going through the city manager versus now it's going to be investigated by an independent individual, will be able to look be able to review numerous materials that we don't have access to. But they will also this director would also have the ability to report to the commission on his that person's finding as well. Right. That is correct. The any report that's prepared by the director would go to the commission on and wrote to the city council. Okay. So I felt that there was a thorough process in getting feedback from our consultants and really felt like this is a redesign based on what people have asked for. Obviously, the next steps will be determined by the voters in order for us to determine how the next process will be. So I like to make a substitute motion and go back to supporting our original item on the agenda right now. Now, second, that. There's a substitute motion to go back to. I believe the the staff recommendation is that if that's the way to phrase it, to move to the charter amendment, to move to the ballot. There's a second one. Councilman Allen. Uh, let me keep going on the less councilman knowledgeably comment on the second. Okay. Councilman Austin. Thank you so much. Well, I want to be clear. I support civilian oversight very much. I was very much involved in the process. I'm just not sure that and nothing convinces me that this is going to change or add the public confidence that we're looking to of this deal. I would ask the city manager, can you do a comparison in terms of what our existing model is right now and what it what you propose to be? I thought it was $1.4 million and an additional was five staff or civilian oversight versus our current model and 2.5 full time employees. Is that correct? The current model is 2.5 employees. And the the recommendation is for an additional four employees. The net additional cost under this new model is point just shy of 1 million as point nine. 900,000 to add the additional employees and the support for the Commission. And. Well, I mean, I think, you know, obviously, you know, we want to make sure that we are a quality city when that's all we can. We're in our budget process right now, and we heard a lot of public comment about employees and workforce challenges. I would just venture to say that we have a lot of other priorities right now that we should be putting additional an additional million dollars toward right now. Or we could bolster the existing PCC with staffing. Right. And get a stronger result out of the existing model that we have today. And that's that's that's the whole my my and my only that that that's a that that's something that I think is you to taking the strong consideration. You know I understand yes we went through a a great process and doesn't mean that that that at the end of the day, we come in we're walking out with a perfect model because this is certainly what is proposed, not a perfect model. And you heard that from staff as well. You heard this. You're going to have the same criticism. There's going to have confusion. You're going to have citizens who are confused with the model and don't know who to put a report to or how to even access it. Those are challenges with the existing model that will continue to be the situation if we are all forward with what is recommended recommended today. And I would just just say to you, ultimately, the accountability for civilian oversight rests with this body at city council. Right. We are the responsible people for this. We we set the priorities. We set the tone for our city. We set the budget. We are the people that are accountable for failures in our systems. If our city manager is oversee PCC and the PCC is not functioning, then that's on us because we hire the city manager and he hires the manager for the city CC. I honestly believe that we have the ability to have a strong hybrid model, to build the model that we have with the tools that we have today. And and what we heard earlier from our police department should have been encouraging because there's a there's a culture shift within policing as well. So with that, I mean, that's fine. There's been a subsequent blessed motion. You know, we can play this game and go back and forth. I will offer to substitute. Substitute motion. Right. To. To consider to to further study this matter. Right. And and it has to come back to the city council at a later date with three options for civilian oversight that that will help meet our needs of the public trust, accountability and transparency. That's my most. Thank you. There's a substitute motion to substitute. Substitute motion? Is there a second on the substitute? Substitute motion, please. Okay. So there's a I believe there was a council on bongos. Did I hear that correctly? I'm happy to do it. I thought it was Roberto, but. I could be wrong. I'm happy to be the second. I also have a question now. Yes, it was. There was no no one's done the second yet. I heard someone from the video. I thought it was on second. Okay. There's a there's a substitute substitute motion which I think we've heard. Did you have comments come forward, Marco? I do. I'd like to ask the makers of all motions on the floor to consider a friendly amendment that. Immediately, regardless of if this passes the voters or goes to the voters, depending on which motion passes that the city manager is instructed to include the additional staffing effective October one with the passage of the new budget year . I'm comfortable with both options on the floor, but I do strongly feel that both Councilman Zorro and Councilman Austin, who served on this commission, feel that it is significantly understaffed. While we all agree that there are lots of needs in the city and that are important and we have heard from the community that they would like additional oversight. And I think that an immediate way to do that, regardless of which method we choose, is to staff the commission appropriately. So, Councilmember Austin, are you open to that friendly amendment? Absolutely. And I know that I cannot make a friendly amendment to a motion that is not currently on the floor. But should this motion fail, I ask that any subsequent motion. Consider my friendly. Thank you. I would just. Just ask. Yes? What would you think is appropriate staffing? Right. Currently we have a manager, maybe an investigator and a kind of admin or half time academy of. I think at least two investigators need to be added to this and a full time admin of. So point from 2.5 to 2 to four or five is to me would be appropriate to have. As chair of Budget Oversight Committee. I. I'm going to yield that to you and say yes. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. I have Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a few thoughts on this. And it's been a while since we had a substitute substitute conversation. So I'm actually kind of excited about this. Just real quick, just in terms of process, if this doesn't move forward tonight, it can't happen for the this election. It has to be reconsidered for future election. Right, 2024. I don't know that I want to pass this discussion on to a future council. I won't be a part of that council. So I would like to, you know, take some action. I will say a few things. One, I appreciate the history that was given to my you know, about how sort of the staffing had changed. And at one point it was law enforcement focused and it was more civilian. And I appreciate that. But I think that actually underscores the flaw with the PCC is that any given council or city manager with a different style or leader can have a deep have a significant impact on how effective it is. And it's largely outside of the, you know, one paragraph or so the small, you know, the description within the charter. Most of it is programmatic. And program can be powerful, certainly, but policy is progress. And I think what I like about the hybrid model is that it acknowledges that we live in systems. The police department is a system guided by policies made by people. And times change and standards evolve. But if the charter if your system isn't evolving, it's difficult to make sure that we are always getting better. And I believe that systems should always get better. Looking at a system that evaluates both the ability to go in because it's a hybrid going and review investigations. With citizens, but also to have an auditor who's like keeps a lens on trends and systems. I think that's interesting and I think that is a more modern model. I would ask that staff just pull up that slide. That compares the three models because I really I think that was really telling and I hadn't seen that slide before. No. The one that said the positives and the negatives. As I said. Okay. So, yeah, so I thought this was good. If you take review focused and auditor focused and you compare the positives, the strengths and weaknesses, I think these are some of the things that people have been asking for. So if you look at review focused because we're moving away from investigation focused because there's right now there's two investigations, there's an internal investigation and a citizen investigation. This model allows you under review to review the internal investigation and to audit trends. So here's what I think is great under potential strengths provides civilians inputs and input into the complaint. Invest into complaint investigations. That's a good thing. May increase public trust in the investigation process. That's a good thing. Then when you look at auditor monitor focused, often more robust public reporting, that's transparency. That's something people want to see. That's something I'd like to see. That's a good thing. May be more effective in promoting long term systems change in policing. That's something that's a priority for me, that we continue to have a better police department and a better city in the long term. So I actually like that long term view. I also like the slide that that highlighted that we're looking at best practices across cities that are our size. Fresno, Oakland, Riverside, Sacramento, Anaheim, when we think about policy, is always good to look at other agencies that are similar in size because as they evolve, we should evolve as well and learn from their best practices and improve on it. We should be a leader and help improve those areas as well. I also like this presentation, provide examples on how because that had that wasn't there before you provided examples on how this could be used. And you know, before I run out of time, I'm going to ask you to go over those examples again now. Not right now, but I'm gonna make a point, I think often. The discussion when things happened is what happened. I think there's not enough discussion about why it happened and how we keep it from happening in the future. And that's what's interesting to me about looking at the systems model by including the auditor controller. That's what's interesting to me. So I know that the PCC is not perfect and I know that it hasn't been funded the way it needs to be funded and that needs to be corrected. I also know there's a transition in place should this be adopted by voters, and we should fund that immediately to make sure that we don't miss a beat. But I think we have a responsibility to take what's been presented, and I like the timeline that is presented today from reconciliation, all the discussion two years ago to today. We have a responsibility to put this in front of the voters and let the voters decide. So I support moving forward with staff recommendations tonight with also adding what Councilmember Mongeau mentioned in terms of let's make some recommendations to improve CPC staffing, staffing today. And that's where I am on this. Thank you. Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I want to say that the thing that I'm frustrated with is. The. I followed this all along and I know the staff member who was leading this is no longer with the city, but. This is a. When you talk about a city as large as the Titanic and you take a step like this, this is a titanic turning decision. And I am just disappointed in the staff that this is happening at the 11th hour because I feel like the items being brought forward have put us as a council in a really tight sort of a I hope that the city brings back alternatives that are better, which I know there are some or a accept this and put it towards the voters. And if the voters feel, as some have stated today, that they're frustrated with this, I worry about the additional lack of public trust that can come from putting forward something that they don't the community doesn't feel heard their needs. I do really appreciate the points brought up by Councilmember Richardson, and I appreciate that the proposal is ambitious and says this may happen or that may happen. But I think what I heard from the community is. There's not a system to guarantee it. And I get it. We're all people. And and the system is based on the people within it and that they do the right thing and we select the right people. And I again, that's why I've been torn tonight. But I do want to appreciate the staff and the work that they've done so far to get us to where we are and to help us have a option and option. And I would just ask that. We look back at this in two years and say that items like this should be coming before the council with at least 120 days of deliberation where all presentations have been brought forward appropriately. With that, I support both the substitute substitute motion and the substitute motion, and I appreciate the staff and all the work they've done. And I think we've learned some good lessons today, and I appreciate the community for coming forward with some really good input and feedback. And I applaud Councilmember Austin for trying to make those steps to make the the resolutions and changes that he hears from the community. And I also appreciate Councilwoman Zoro and her pursuit of a solution for the the voters to consider. So thank you. Okay. Back to basically Richardson. Just one thing that I left off on. I didn't actually allow you to finish the question. I asked you to just review one time those examples that you gave, because I thought that was very compelling to help explain to the public. What we can do now that we couldn't do before. If you could just do that. That would be helpful. Thank you. The three specific different examples. So scenario number one, this is a case where the director it's it's outlining the director's authority when there is a use of force incident that's resulting in great bodily injury. The director can respond to the scene and observe the investigation and how it's being handled. They do not have the authority to do that now. They can review the complaint before it's investigated to ensure that all of the appropriate allegations surrounding that particular case are included in the investigation. There is no opportunity to do that under the current model. They can audit the case to ensure that the investigation is thorough, that it's done in a timely manner, and that it's done with the highest level of quality. Again, there is no opportunity right now for the PCC to actually audit an investigation and make recommendations based on the findings from the investigation. The director can present the recommendations for the police department. Any thing regarding policy practice or changes, those can come to the City Council under this model. That is not an authority that the see the current C PCC has where any of their recommendations come to the City Council. The director has the authority to investigate the use of force incident when it results in great bodily injury. If it's requested by the city manager, again, that is not that is not a current authority that the PCC has. So that there's example number one, that was one, there was a great bodily injury. Scenario number two, the director has the ability to respond to the scene, to observe the investigation and how it's being handled. They can rely, obviously, on their own observations of the scene when considering the evidence that's being collected and the witnesses being interviewed . Again, that's not an authority that they have currently. The commission can receive a briefing from the the police department and the director on the specific incident where it's an officer involved shooting so that they can understand how the event will be reviewed and how it will be processed by the department when the department conducts their investigation. The director can review the investigation for thoroughness, timeliness and quality. They can, based on the findings from the investigation when it's completed by the the I.A. and the the their review of the part of the investigation. They can present recommendations for the the department regarding policy or practices. And again, those recommendations will come directly to the city council for consideration. And lastly, if an officer involved shooting occurs, the Director has the authority to investigate that officer involved shooting if it's requested by the city manager. And just to go back on that one case, if you could go back 1/2 and on this one, the city manager's role here is to request that they investigate. They would not be actually conducting the investigation. The the Internal Affairs Department would continue to investigate. That is always their role. But the city manager can request a specific investigation for this type of incident. Lastly, the third is a case where there is a complaint against the command staff. The director has the authority to investigate a complaint against this, the police chief or the any of the command staff. If he's requested by the city manager, the director would conduct that investigation and provide a report of their findings directly to the city council. As I mentioned earlier, just want to point out that in this case, we talked about the communication directly with the commission. Any report that's prepared by the director would come to the commission so that there is a public review of that report when prior to its being forwarded to the City Council. Thank you very much. Lastly, the director has access to all police department records, reports, personnel and witnesses. And again, that is an authority that the the current model does not provide. Thank you, Mr. May. Go back a councilmember Superman and then come from here. Austin. Thank you. So on the slides, Linda Tatum could reiterate there. I think I heard at least on two of the bullet points. There is a. Caveat of if you. Know, asked by the city manager, my understanding was this whole idea was to give the director autonomy in the city manager. So my question is, are we just following some other cities. Model and we've or was. Is there a is there some rationale for why that. Caveat is in there on a couple of bullet points? The point of including that language in there is to stress that because this is not an investigative model, it really is designed to ensure that in some cases that are of great concern to the community that the city manager has a role or a role in asking to ensure that those incidents of interest to the community, that there is a path so that the investigator can then review those. I'm sorry, the director can then review the investigations are conducted by the police in those specific incidents. Again, it's just highlighting and encouraging greater transparency to the community in those incidents because otherwise. Well. Maybe I didn't frame my question. Right, but I'm. Unclear on. Why. The city manager has a. Role here. We're hiring a director, paying him a lot of money. Why does the director have that authority. Without without. Approval from the city manager? I see. And I understand your question again. I think the interest there was because this is not an investigative model. The idea is to try to to to not have this body or this director be consumed with investigations, because their primary role is to look at the whole process policies, procedures and operations much more systemically and to minimize the incidents in which they would need to actually go directly into reviewing a particular case. And this is well, this is. Time. I just it from comment that what I've heard generally over the years is that. The city manager did. Not act when there was an expectation that the city manager acts. I see the flaw here that we would be back. To square one. Possibly, but we spent a lot more money for the process. So in that regard, I'm tending to want to support the steps up by Councilman Brosnan. Thank you. And if I can help clarify, this is done. This really is designed where the city manager will not have authority over the director. They don't report to me, which is currently the CBC staff report to me. They report to you. So you will hire them. You will fire them. All the things that Linda mentioned, the ability to review, the ability to be on site. None of that requires city manager involvement. There was a provision, though, to say in the event that we say we want them to be more involved in an investigation, that's when the city manager could request that they be more involved in those lives, their duties. But all the reviews, what they pick, what they choose to look at, how they make the recommendations. The city manager has no involvement in that. I can't direct them and I don't want to I want them to be completely independent from me. So I just wanted to make that clarification. Thank you. I'm going to go back to actually Councilman Austin. Councilman Price, I want to make some comments and then we'll go through the votes count on behalf of our outfit. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Listen, I understand we have an election coming up in November. Right. And, you know, there are there are those on this council who are enthusiastic about, you know, making change and and getting something done right. I'm I want to get something done, but I want it to be done right. I would. Our charter gives the city council the authority to direct the city manager. Because we we are elected by the legislative body. We can direct the city manager. We don't do that. Direct any other personnel in the city. A city manager. Right. Since then, almost every council item one before the council. Right. We hired a city manager. We fired a city manager. Some wonder what's being proposed here. Is in order. Model that. The City Council would hire. Right. But nowhere in this does it say that the city council has any sort of authority to direct that individual. Two votes. Right. But you hear now is that the city manager has the ability to do that. Right. And so I think there's a there's a flaw here that that is one that that. Needs to be considered strongly. Again, I support civilian oversight. I work on one of what are the civilian oversight process to have achieved and be well versed. But I want to be thorough with it and I want they good policy. And I think, you know, there's a lot to be desired here. I'm really concerned about the excess cost. And and there's no guarantee that we're going to get the return award on this. Why are voters and by the way, you can send anything related to civilian oversight to the voters. They're probably going to pass it. Right. We understand that. We understand that. Just like, you know, there's a there's a number of other things that you just put before the voters. They're going to vote for it because in theory, they support it. Everybody supports oversight, but I think they want good policy and they want us and they're looking to us to bring forward good policy. Sound policy. But we are being fiscally responsible. Are we are we are we checking the boxes? And again, to Councilmember Michael's point, this does feel a bit bit rushed. You know, and again, we should not put something on the ballot just to say that we did it to check the box. Let's make sure we get it right. Thank you. Councilman Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I did want to highlight what the city manager just reiterated, that allowing the city manager to initiate an investigation or review does not mean that the director is precluded from doing so. Is that correct? Leicester City manager. No. Can you rephrase that? I wasn't quite following the question. Can you say that again? Sure. So. So the language that Councilman Super not talked about with the provisions that allow the city manager to request an investigation or a review does not preclude the director from being able to look into matters. It's just that if they don't and the city manager wants them to or thinks that they should, they can direct them to. So I think the issue is the review versus investigation. The investigation is is conducting a specific investigation. And since that's not their role anymore, that would be with the police department, unless it was specifically requested by the city manager in certain instances as like an extra step on top of what police is doing for the reviews or anything. They want to ask questions about if they want to know about a specific complaint and what happened. They have no, they don't have to ask me. They don't have to do anything. They have the full authority to do and review at anything and everything. All policies, even specific investigations they're allowed to pull and say, I want to see 10% of all investigations that are done and review every single one of those and have all access. And they don't need city manager approval at all for that. It is just if we ask them to go into an investigative mode where, for example, if the chief of police comes under a complaint, I need to do that separately. Then in the police department, we would have the ability to request this commission to do that for us, and they would look at it completely independently. Okay. You know, I understand. I appreciate everyone's comments and I definitely do understand where everyone's coming from. But, you know, I what I don't understand is the reference to this as being this 11th hour kind of decision. We've been talking about this charter amendment for a very long time. We've taken input. We've offered comments and. And I think there's been a lot of. Input into this process already. And I think that. The voters and the residents of the city want to see us move forward with a model that's better than what we currently have. It may not be the perfect model. It may need adjustments down the road. It may need us to make further modifications in the form of additional amendments by vote of the people in the future. But I think that we've been working towards progress and my thoughts and I completely hear what you're saying, Councilman Austin, but my thoughts are if we were to go with the substitute substitute. Where does that leave us in terms of any major modifications to the commission? Does that then put us in a situation where we're looking at additional recommendations by consultants for additional models for the next election cycle? Because if that's the case, then I don't know that that's fair to the voters who have been engaged in this process up to this point. So maybe if I can have some clarification on that, because, you know, we've we've been engaged. We've all been asking questions. We've been talking to people. Some of us have talked about this, the community meetings. And so I think the process that we've we've arrived at today, to me, does not seem like an 11th hour. But that that could just be to me. But I'd like to hear your thoughts. Well, what you haven't heard is the city manager say that that he doesn't know or they lack the authority to create a hybrid model that actually can implement some of these recommendations without going to the ballot. And maybe that's a question for the city manager. Is that possible? And what can you do to create a hybrid body model that goes beyond the investigative model of potentially includes some of the review and potential maybe auditor authority? Can we create a position? I mean, without going to a ballot? I mean, is that possible? Can we tweak this this model under our current with our current model? So this is time to take your time. But that's a that's a question for. I think those are very fair questions. So I don't view it as taking my time at all. I love the answers to those questions as well. Yes, this time. So we didn't cover it tonight, but there were recommendations in the police report on how to improve the current CBC model. And if you remember back when we presented that to you back in February, when we made this decision, do we move down this road or not? We gave the option. If we don't, we would still recommend that you make improvements to the CBC. There are things, though, that we're not able to change in the charter. It specifies what they do and what they're not allowed to do. And so those we would not be able to change without going back to a charter amendment. But in terms of adding investigative staff, in terms of improving the way that we report on things, you know, there's a number of those that we can review with you that are in the report that we think are good ideas. So one way or the other, whether you support this tonight or if we don't support it tonight, we would be making changes to the CBC. And let me let me go back to Councilman Price and kind of wrap up this debate. Councilman Price, you have any additional comments or questions? The only thing that I wanted to comment on is a lot of the frustration for me is the lack of structure right now for this auditor position, for this director position. And I know that we I asked about it last week and we said that at some point once the charter amendment goes to the voters, then we would sit down and we would talk about the structure. But my concern about the position is it sounds great in theory, but I'm worried that the position could be politicized by virtue of the fact that it reports to the city council. And I mean, you know, no offense to our current structure, but, you know, people count the votes and they see where the majority is and priorities shift based on where the votes are. And that's a to me, that's a fundamental flaw with just our current process right now that we have with our city manager structure. And I don't want to see that structure. And that that's that's that's not to criticize anyone. I'm just saying it's a flaw in the process. And I would hate to see that floor carried over to an important role like this, because what we don't want is a role like this to be politicized. But I understand the structure of this position is not something that would be formed prior to being approved by the voters. But that is a concern that I have that I want to make sure that I articulate. They could count on. I think that any other I don't see any other council comments on the on the board. I want to make some comment and then we'll go to our series of votes. So I'm just going to just say a few broad comments. I do appreciate all the comments we heard today, and I especially appreciate what I'm sorry, Councilman Mungo, additional comments. Thank you. I would just amend my from the amendment to say not only should we consider the stopping, but regardless of whether or not this goes on the ballot, I think that Mr. Votacao should start a process of implementing those things that were recommended. Or at least bring back a list of those things that were recommended by the consultant that we can implement immediately. October one with the resources and that would be my modified friendly. Councilmember Austin's okay with it and I. Regardless of what happens, I proposed the same to Councilwoman Sorrell. Thank you. To that end, that's what we want to hear. So I certainly accept that from the can. Thank you. That's for the motion that's on the floor. So let me go back and save a few a few comments. So I want to just first say that I do appreciate the different opinions of the council and the community. This is a really important topic, and I think the reason why folks are struggling is because we have a system currently in place that does not work. I think we gotta be very clear about what's happened over the last couple of years. We started out this endeavor with this idea that we believe the PCC needed to have reform. And in talking to folks that currently serve, that have served in the past, it's no question that many of the folks that currently serving have served also believe that it needs to be reform more broadly speaking. We have to remember that we've been working within the confines of something that the public has passed, and it's been in place now for decades. At the end of the day, the idea of a reformed and reformed commission is to provide more police accountability for there to be more direct accountability from the public to our police department and to build trust. The current system we have and we've had incredible people serving on it, including two members of our city council, is not providing the level of oversight that I believe this moment and the public have demanded. And so we can choose to continue doing what we've been doing in the past. That, in my opinion, has not worked. But there have been there have been good efforts. And the people that serve on these commissions have done really, really great work and have worked really hard to be the best possible commissioners that they can be . So this is not on them. It's a system that we have in place or we can actually try to make some reforms and created more a system that is more accountable, which I believe the public has been demanding in protests and letters in coming before us and asking us to do more in in this area personally, particularly during the George Floyd protests that happened and all the actions around Black Lives Matter that were happening. I personally made a commitment to many community members that we would look at the PCC as a place that needed reform. To me, I think at the center of what makes this proposal strong is the auditor system that is appointed accountable to. The City Council. And in a democracy, any time you make a position more accountable or directly accountable to the body, which is accountable to the public, I think it's a stronger system. The the city council only appoints a not even a handful of physicians. You appoint a city manager and you appoint a city clerk. Those are the two positions that actually this body actually hires. This would create a third direct report. Where you would have an auditor system but is also accountable to the council. And the council is the democratic representative of the public. And if the public demands change are going to go through the council, they go to the mayor and sort of create a system where you don't have a layer of bureaucracy which currently exists within the system we have now. And the city manager, you're actually creating a position that is as close to the public as possible, in my opinion, in a representative government, which is why I think this model is so unique. It has, and I think the potential is really strong. I also want to add, as far as it concerned, some of the concerns that were brought up and I respect all of them. I'm not concerned with costs. This is a incredibly important issue. And you know what? We're talking about 100 hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars. We're talking about ensuring that people feel that their law enforcement is accountable to the public. And so I think the cost is worth the investment that the city should make. And I think we think that the public has demanded us to invest in ways that bring transparency. And I think this this reform commission is able to do so. I will also just note that. This initial proposal was brought to the Council in February, I believe it was February, January, February, and the staff have been working at the direction and input of the Council to actually present what it actually is in front of us. So this has been a a build building block on building block of different types of suggestions from from the public. And I will also say, see this and I disagree some I actually trust voters. I believe that that people can go to the ballot and make decisions on what's in front of them. And I do believe that we either choose to continue the system we have now for another couple of years because this would not be able to be on the ballot. It's a charter amendment, I believe, until 2024. Or we put a different model in front of the voters for them to decide. But this other additional model could be better. I personally believe this model that that is being proposed by staff and the consultants and the community input is a better model. Is it the exact model that I personally would have written or designed myself? I think it would have been something that I may have made different, but it's a consensus that staff and folks that you guys consulted, including current commissioners, former commissioners in the community developed. And so I do support moving forward with this recommendation of putting this on the ballot. I understand that other folks may not support that, and that's okay. And we have different opinions on that. But I will add that there are very few things that are stronger than a new direct report to this body. One which I will not serve on you will all of you will still be here, and that the public can hold this council accountable to the actions of the auditor and how the auditor is monitoring and investigating any issues that relates to law enforcement, the police department, which is which is why I support bringing this forward. But to the public to vote on it. I believe, Councilman, I'll see you cued up again. Councilmember Austin. Yes. Mr. Mayor, you said a lot there. I won't respond to everything, but I will just say that I will remind everybody here that I was the city council member about for the initial motion to request for reform of the P.C.C. So I still very strongly support reforming the PCC. I think I've talked about starving thought PCC for many years. And with all due respect, Mr. Mayor, you have 14 years to care about funding PCC and civilian oversight. We haven't gotten to that point yet. And so we could throw we could have we could have put a lot of resources into the existing model that we have to to to build that public confidence, to build the public trust, to to to ingratiate that that that commission with the voters and with the residents of the city. We failed. And I would say as a collective body, the city council has failed in that regard and we need to eat it. So if my motion fails tonight, that's fine. I mean, you've weighed in, Mr. Mayor. That's great. I will support the subsequent motion to put this on the ballot, if that's the case. But I can't guarantee you that that I will I will recommend people vote for this, because I see some inherent flaws in the policy. And and I think we can do a lot better without going to the ballot. I think we could we could we could fix this internally. Everything doesn't need to go to the ballot. And and when go to a constitutional amendment right, the only way to fix it is going back to the ballot. Okay. That's that's if we've learned anything from from this this exercise 30 years ago when Alan Lowenthal brought the PCC, the existing model to the city of Long Beach, a city council member, and he championed this as a as a model. We are now, 30 years later, looking to amend it because the only way we can do that is go into the ballot. Right. But I also say that there are there are tools that we can employ as a city council and with our city manager to fix the model. There were a number of recommendations in that study that we're well aware of, and obviously that wasn't part of the presentation. There are a number of recommendations in this study that could be employed and put forward tomorrow to fix the PCC and make it a more robust commission and more responsive to the residents. So with that, I'm done. I'm happy to take the vote getting a vote now in the end of the session. Thank you. We're going to go to a vote. I accept. I heard Councilman Price's additional comment. I just have one clarifying question, Mr. Mayor. If we wanted to have additional changes and we didn't put it on the ballot tonight or approve this, would it be 2024? Would that be the next time or would it be 2020 when one would be the next opportunity? Mr. America. Charter changes are only allowed on the general election, so every two years you can do a charter change. Got it. Okay. Thank you. 2024. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion by Councilmember Austin and second by Councilwoman Mango. That is a sub substitute motion. Please roll call and cast your votes, please. Councilwoman Cindy has. You may. Catwoman? Allen No. Councilwoman Price. Nay. Councilman. So. But now. I. Councilwoman Mangum. I. Councilwoman Sarah. Ney. Council member TURANGA. They. Councilman Austin. I. Face May Richardson. Now. Motion fail. We have the substitute motion, which I believe was by Councilwoman Sato and I believe the second with the Councilwoman Allen. And we'll do a roll call vote, please, on the Councilman Sato's motion. Excuse me, Mayor. I don't. Know that. I think. Councilmember Mongo asked that her friendlies be. Considered on this motion if it was going to be heard. And I don't know that there's been an acceptance of those. I haven't heard. You. I haven't heard an acceptance of the friendlies. Is there. Would you want to repeat those really quickly? Councilman Mongo? Yes, thank you. I would like to request a friendly amendment to the motion on the floor that. Regardless of if the voters approve or don't approve the ballot initiative in November that effective in October through our budget process, we allocate funds to step up the DCC and work and ask the city manager to bring back a list of the recommendations that were provided by the consultant that he plans to implement. Immediately. Thank you. I will accept your initial friendly to look to supporting the CPC, but not the additional second part of the friendly that was added later to looking at a list of stuff that additional additional. I just. Well, let's take the part about looking into supporting CPC, looking at the funding source. Additionally. Okay. So that part of the family's been accepted and comes in. Councilman Allen, you accept? Okay, so roll call vote, please. Councilwoman Cindy has. Hi. Councilman Allen. I Councilwoman Price. I know Councilman Spano. I can tell you in mango. I. Councilwoman Sarah. I can't. Member Ranka. I. Councilman Austin. I. Vice Mayor Richardson, I. The motion is carried. Thank you. That concludes that item. We're going to be going to item 26, please, Madam Clerk.