[CPRB] Champaign rejects the plan to police the police

[Ricky Baldwin]

Thanks, Karen!

I would add that once again almost everyone who spoke
up from the public was in favor of police review,
including some very well spoken and thoughtful
speeches, but the elected officials not only rejected
the idea of a board - not one spoke in favor of it -
but they voted 5-4 to stop ant further discussion of
it!  Democracy in action.

It seems that a few politicians would like to see
further discussions/meetings of the police advisory
committee that recommended a review board but they
reject the findings of said committee.  (As John
pointed out, this was the third Council-established
commission in Champaign that has recommended police
review.)

In my opinion, it's back to square one in Champaign.

I now look forward to Monday's Urbana City Council
meeting with renewed enthusiasm.  

I think that if we try, (1) we can set up an effective
board in Urbana despite the limitations, (2) we can
work on fixing the problems once the Urbana board has
operated for a short time, and (3) we can revisit the
issue in Champaign with the example of a workable
model across the tracks in Urbana, where the world can
be seen not to come to an ignoble end as a result. 

It will be up to us.

Ricky


--- Karen Medina <kmedina at uiuc.edu> wrote:

> 
> Last night, at the Champaign City Council meeting,
> the Lawyer for the Fellowship of Police stood before
> a large audience and lied. He did not need to. Did
> he think the room was full of people who would not
> recognize mistruths? The FOP should be looking for a
> new lawyer soon.
> 
> The mayor himself gave us a great example of why we
> need an external review board when he conveniently
> forgot to set the 5 minute timer on the speaker who
> was backing the mayor's own opinion. 
> 
> And Tom Bruno seems to forget that only 16% of the
> public turned out for the last election that
> returned him to the council. Oddly enough, several
> of the people who campaigned for Bruno were under
> the mistaken impression that Bruno was solidly for
> the smoking ban. 
> 
> I urge people to watch last night's city council
> meeting for themselves, and in the next election,
> get out and vote. Someone more like Stan Levy would
> make a wonderful mayor for Champaign.
> 
> 7/31/2007 Champaign City Council Meeting 
> ShowID 1202
> Length: 01:55:00
> Scheduled showing on CGTV (cable channel 5):
> 8/1/2007 at 12:00 PM
> 8/1/2007 at 7:00 PM
> 8/2/2007 at 1:00 AM
> 8/2/2007 at 12:00 PM
> 8/2/2007 at 7:00 PM
> 8/3/2007 at 1:00 AM
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> 8/4/2007 at 1:00 AM
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> 8/4/2007 at 7:00 PM
> 8/5/2007 at 1:00 AM
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> 8/6/2007 at 1:00 AM
> 8/6/2007 at 12:00 PM
> 8/6/2007 at 7:00 PM
> 8/7/2007 at 1:00 AM
> 8/7/2007 at 12:00 PM
> 
>  
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>
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> 



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