[CPRB] CPRB questions from Brandon Bowersox for discussion

[John Wason]

At 11:48 PM 02/03/05 -0600, jwalling at uiuc.edu wrote:

>Hi Everyone,
>
>So I talked to Brandon Bowersox, City Council Candidate for 
>Ward 4 tonight and he brought up a couple of very good 
>questions.  I'm copying Brandon on this as well.

I didn't see Brandon Bowersox' e-mail address on this, so feel free to
forward my reply to Brandon should you deem in appropriate.


>The first question that needs more research was... Could the 
>duties that we'd give the Police Review Board simply be given 
>to the Human Rights Commission so that a new board wouldn't 
>need to be created?  I'm not sure if I can answer that 
>question, so I'm going to e-mail Cope Cumpston, but if anyone 
>has any insight on this suggestion, I'd appreciate it.  I'm 
>not sure how I feel about this yet; I'd, of course, like to 
>see a separate board, especially if the human rights 
>commission is overwhelmed as is, but I don't know much about 
>the human rights commission.

This has been discussed in some detail.  The ordinance that creates the
Human Rights Commission would have to be amended to spell out its duties
and powers as a Citizen Police Review Board.  Just about all the literature
out there pertaining to CPRB's says that it's not a good idea to mix the
functions of a CPRB and a Human Rights Commission, but I've never
understood why that is necessarily so if the thing is set up correctly.
The important thing, in any event, is to give the CPRB teeth by maintaining
its independence, giving it subpoena power and the authority to conduct
independent investigations, giving it a budget for such things, etc. 


>Second, I asked a question in the survey about whether the 
>candidate supports that the board "is selected from a pool of 
>applicants chosen by the city council members in order for 
>the board to reflect the political makeup of the city?"
>
>Brandon wondered if that was even possible because the mayor 
>does all of the appointments.  

Yes, and Mayor Todd absolutely bristled at the suggestion that this power
of his be diluted in any way.


>I looked up the relevant language in the Illinois Municipal 
>Code and I see two ways in which a council selected board 
>might be accomplished.  The code, copied below, allows that a 
>candidate must satisfy qualifications provided by the city 
>council.
>
>In our model ordinance, we suggested that each council member 
>select three applicants from his or her ward and then the 
>mayor would pick one.  It seems to me that if the council 
>could require the qualification that the mayor select an 
>applicant from each ward or an applicant from a pool of 
>applicants chosen by the council members that those 
>qualifications would satisfy the statute.
>
>But, hey, I'm no lawyer!  Just a law student.  :)

I'm no lawyer either, but I play a convincing one at cocktail parties.  :-)

There's nothing to legally prevent the mayor from selecting from a pool of
candidates supplied by each council member.  We structured it that way in
order to give the council members greater power vis-a-vis the mayor, and to
ensure that each ward would be represented, much like the school board
issue of a few years ago.  Tom - I'm blanking on his last name; he's on the
County Board, an ACLU member, and an attorney for Student Legal Services,
and was very briefly a member of our little coalition - merely said that
the mayor had to be included in the process for what he called "separation
of powers" reasons.  Otherwise we would have eliminated the mayor from our
proposal altogether.  :-)

In this case, the city council would pass the ordinance, which would
establish the "qualifications" referred to in the statute below.

John W.


>Here's the code.
>
>(2) To appoint and remove his administrative assistants, 
>budget and finance director, heads of all departments, and to 
>appoint and remove all other officers of the municipality, 
>commissions, boards and agencies, except those covered by the 
>civil service act in municipalities which have adopted said 
>act and except as provided in Section 6-4-14 [65 ILCS 5/6-4-
>14]. No appointment shall be made upon any basis other than 
>that of merit and fitness and in compliance with provisions 
>of this act and with qualifications established by the city 
>council.
>
>65 ILCS 5/6-4-7
>
>If anyone has any other insights, please share.
>
>Thanks so much!
>
>-Jen Walling