Citizen Review Committee Meeting

10/02/24

NGUYEN: Okay.

DELEGATO: All right. Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday, October 2nd, meeting of the Citizen Review Committee. I am Chair, YUME DELEGATO, and we have, I believe, a new member joining us tonight. Welcome SEAN. So I think before I get started, we’ll do a little bit of a modification to our normal intro. SEAN, why don’t you feel free to introduce yourself to us, your pronouns, where you’re callin’ in from, a little bit about yourself, and what chose you to join the CRC, and then we’ll go around the room and do some introductions as well.

OSAKI: Sure, SEAN OSAKI, Portland resident since 2001. I identify as he. What else? I just was an alternate a few months ago, and then somebody else left, and I just got fingerprinted yesterday, in a positive manner. I’m currently in McMenamins in Bend, Oregon, so I work for McMenamins. I’m their corporate director of sales and catering, so I receive all the catering and all the fun stuff for 12 properties between Oregon and Washington. So I’m out here visiting one of my stores today and through the rest of the week. And then I’ll hopefully be on the Metolius River fly fishing this weekend. You’re muted, YUME.

DELEGATO: I said, thanks Sean, we’re glad to have you with us, and appreciate you steppin’ up to be on the CRC. So just goin’ around the room with introductions here. Maybe in addition to your usual intro, we can all share how long we’ve been on the CRC, and if you wanna share what you do as a day job, feel free to do so. So, YUME DELEGATO, he/him. I’m the chair of the Citizen Review Committee, and I’ve been on here since April of 2021, which makes me one of the four longest tenured members of the CRC. And my day job is working in communications for Prosper Portland, which is the city’s economic development agency, and I am callin’ in from downtown Portland. And then, why don’t we go just in order here. I see NATE HOLTON and NATE KUHN, and then JESSICA KATZ.

HOLTON: Hey SEAN, NATE HOLTON. I’ve been at CRC for just a few months, and you and I, I think, joined together when you were an alternate. Welcome aboard. I am the director of labor relations for TriMet, and have been in Portland for a little over two years.

KUHN: Awesome. I will go ahead and go next. NATE HOLTON and I started at the same time, so been on the CRC for the past few months. I live in downtown Portland, and that’s where I’m calling in from today, and I’m a human resources business partner for Pepsi.

KATZ: Good evening everybody. My name is JESSICA KATZ. I use she/her pronouns. I don't know, YUME, two years I’ve been on CRC? Something like that.

DELEGATO: I think four now.

KATZ: Four now, wow. It was the whole pandemic. Apologies. So yeah, I am calling in from Northeast Portland, and by way of my day job, I am the founding director of the Family Preservation Project. Thanks.

DELEGATO: Excellent. And then CHRIS and MIKE, and then maybe ROSS and DAVID, if you wanna introduce yourselves?

PIEKARSKI: Sorry, I was having trouble hitting my button here. Uh, CHRIS PIEKARSKI, he/him pronouns. I’m in Southeast Portland. I have lost track of how long I’ve been on, but I feel like it was late 2022, or somethin’ like that. I could be wrong. By day I am a trial attorney all over the State of Oregon, although I’ve also practiced in Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska. And I have two beautiful kids, and a lovely wife, and a dog that I tolerate, and I’m very happy to be here today.

WALSH: That’s great, dog I can tolerate. MIKE WALSH, he/his/him pronouns, on the CRC. Actually, I can’t remember when I was appointed. It’s less than a year, but it’s comin’ up on a year, I think, maybe in a little bit, probably nine months is about that. I live on the border of North and Northeast Portland. My front yard is North Portland and my back yard is Northeast. I’ve been here in Portland for about 20-some odd years.

CALDWELL: Is that me next, I think? Hey, SEAN, nice to see you again. ROSS CALDWELL, IPR. I’ve been with the City for - I just passed my five-year mark a little while ago, which is kinda hard to believe. Yeah, I think that’s it for me. Nice to see ya, thank you for being willing to jump in.

NGUYEN: Well, hello everyone. I’m DAVID NGUYEN. I work for IPR for 12 years now. And part of my job is to support you guys, so, you know, whatever you need, feel free to, you know, email me and I’ll try my best to assist you as much as I can.

DELEGATO: All right, wonderful. And just in time, KYRA, if you wanna introduce yourself as well, feel free.

PAPPAS: Hey, my name’s KYRA PAPPAS. I am a CRC member. I’m one of the older members on the team with YUME and GREG, and I’m out here in East County.

DELEGATO: All right, thank you. All right, so, SEAN, again welcome. We’re lookin’ forward to havin’ you. I think we have maybe two members who are not with us tonight, but look forward to introducing you to the rest of the team here shortly. First item of business, we have no appeal tonight, as per usual, but we do have one set of minutes to approve. So if someone would like, please feel free to make a motion to accept.

PIEKARSKI: I’ll move to approve the minutes.

PAPPAS: Make a motion to accept.

DELEGATO: Okay.

PIEKARSKI: I’ll second.

DELEGATO: All right, and I’m sorry, was that KYRA that made the motion?

PAPPAS: Yes.

DELEGATO: Okay, thank you. All right. Perfect. Okay, so I’m going to go - we’re goin’ alphabetical by last name, so we’ll start with NATE HOLTON.

HOLTON: I approve.

DELEGATO: Okay. JESSICA?

KATZ: I abstain. I was not here for the duration of the meeting. Thank you.

DELEGATO: Okay. NATE KUHN?

KUHN: I approve.

DELEGATO: Okay. And SEAN, I’m assuming you’re gonna abstain since you -

OSAKI: I’m gonna abstain, yep.

DELEGATO: All right, KYRA? CHRIS?

PIEKARSKI: I approve.

DELEGATO: And MIKE?

WALSH: I approve.

DELEGATO: Okay. And then BRIAN? Oh, KYRA, are you on?

PAPPAS: Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.

DELEGATO: Okay, and -

PAPPAS: Yes, I approve.

DELEGATO: Approve. Okay. I vote aye. BRIAN, were you at the last meeting? I believe you were?

BUTLER: Yes, and I approve as well.

DELEGATO: All right, perfect. And while I’m recording the votes, if you would wanna go ahead and introduce yourself. SEAN is joining us for his first meeting as a new member.

BUTLER: Okay. Hi everybody, apologies for being late. Another meeting ran over. My name is BRIAN BUTLER. I think we’re all just kinda saying I’ve been here in Portland now for two years, having lived in the UK for 31 years. Background in marketing. Love being part of the CRC. Just did my first case, which was very interesting, and SEAN, welcome.

OSAKI: Thanks BRIAN.

DELEGATO: All right, wonderful. Thank you, BRIAN. Okay, so next item of business, I believe we have the Director’s Report.

CALDWELL: Thank you. Not a whole lot to report that has changed from last time. We are still kinda workin’ our way through body-worn cameras being kind of the bigger part of our investigation. I would say at this point the majority of our cases that come in are actually coming out of the After-Action review process. So any time that PPB uses force - and those of you that have done PRBs, on those you’ve seen the FDCR, Force Data Collection Reports, and then the AAR, the After-Action Reports. We do those kinda long, sort of hard-to-decipher reports about what was done, and then how it was reviewed by a sergeant, lieutenant, captain, all the way up the chain. So we get cases from the Force Inspector. They’ll say that there’s, you know, someone has force used on them, or they’re taken into custody, even if force isn’t used on them, and they say that they thought there was something inappropriate that the officers did, they will refer that over to IPR, and I kinda triage those out. And so that’s kind of where we’ve been getting a lot of our investigations most recently. So I think we’re starting to get a pretty good handle on, you know, using that evidence, which is a big change for us. And as we’ll start to see these come through when you do PBRs, you know, it’s interesting, because now we’re doing interviews with video to kind of go over with the officer, and that’s kind of a big change for us. You know, there have been times when we’ve had video in the past, but it’s kind of the - you know, it’s a minority of the cases, I would say, that we’ve actually got a video to look at with the officers when our investigators are conducting interviews. So that’s been a big change. We’ve done some training on it, and we, you know, we found some good tips and tricks out there in the world, because every other big city has had body cams for a long time, for the most part, so are far from the first one over the wall. But, you know, overall, as I’ve said in past meetings, it’s a huge change, and a really, really, really fantastic long-overdue change, I think for our work. So I think that’s kind of the big thing. I just wanted to mention thank you to everybody who’s done PRBs. I think BRIAN, you said you just did one. SEAN, you know, I know we did the training, but that was months ago. So SEAN if you wanna refresher or you wanna talk through anything, please let us know and we can make that happen. We can put you in touch with LIZ BOGEN (ph), who was at the training who also kind of signs people up for PRBs, so she’s constantly trying to harangue everyone to get them to sign up for these. So, you know, I also - I think - YUME, is this a good time to kinda ask questions about that? I just wanted to make sure that the PRB sign-up process is working for everyone kind of as well as it can, and if anybody - you know, you don’t have to say now if you don’t have any ideas, but if anybody has any ideas of how to kinda streamline scheduling those. I know it’s a lot, and gettin’ on the polls, and stuff like that. But if there’s ever anything you think we or the Police Bureau could do differently, please reach out and let us know. We’ve tweaked that a few times over the years, and we can always tweak it again. But we obviously can’t even proceed under this current system without you all. So thanks for doin’ it. I know it’s a ton of time.

DELEGATO: Thanks ROSS. Let me just look at the chat here. And ROSS, when was this report prepared?

CALDWELL: MOLLY had to do this one earlier because she’s out this week, so she did it sometime last week, but I’m not sure when. I think she probably did it on Wednesday, but I’m not sure. Wednesday or early Thursday would be my guess.

DELEGATO: Okay. So before the OIS on September 26th?

CALDWELL: Yeah, actually that’s a good thought. It’s probably before the most recent OIS, I believe it was Thursday night.

DELEGATO: Okay.

CALDWELL: Yeah.

DELEGATO: So maybe - oh, but you have to sign it. I see. Okay. All right, well, good catch, DAN. Thank you for putting that in the comments here. I think - not to put our members on the spot, I do think we have that listed on New Business, so if anyone has any immediate thoughts that they wanna bring forward about the PRBs, let’s discuss those, otherwise we’ll have an opportunity after the Chair’s Report here. So you have a few minutes to think about your questions before we get into them.

CALDWELL: Sorry I jumped ahead on that.

DELEGATO: No, that’s good. That’s good. We’re eager to get to work here. So moving into the Chair’s Report, if there are no other questions about the Director’s Report here, I think most of you know, as we discussed at the last meeting, we are sort of in a holding pattern here, waiting to see what happens with the transition to the new police oversight body. The city did file a Motion for Reconsideration with Judge SIMON, I believe it was about two weeks ago now. I, along with several members of the CRC, submitted letters of support in favor of that. And I believe, from what I’ve seen, the Department of Justice has indicated that they do not oppose the Motion of Reconsideration. We have seen some testimony from friends of the court, specifically I believe it was the Mental Health Alliance, speaking in favor of keeping the current ruling and opposing the reconsideration. So, really anyone’s question as to what will happen next. If nothing happens, then we are going to wait until January before we can start engaging with the city as to who their nominating body will be and what the process is gonna be for nominations. But again, I think it will take some time for them to stand up that process if we need to defer to the next council. So we will see. I think a curiosity that I will be transparent about having with this transition is whether or not it makes sense for us to continue to meet monthly, given that we have a tremendous number of Police Review Board cases that we are asking our members to do, and we are, you know, obviously slowly but surely moving towards the dissolution of this body. So, you know, clearly it does not seem to be a priority for the court system to move this process along, but we should be thinking about it. So I would obviously welcome our members’ input on this.

I do think traditionally towards the end of the year we take some time off for the holidays, and I would definitely recommend it next month, given that it’ll be immediately following the election, and I think a lot of city attention will be towards public safety, and then also just finding out who gets elected. I don’t think we’re gonna have those results necessarily by Tuesday night, and so I think a lotta people on Wednesday will be elsewhere and focused on other things. So I think we will most likely cancel the November meeting, but we can potentially have one in December, depending on work load and if there’s any business to be addressed. But following that, we are only obligated to meet quarterly, and I think I would raise the question as to whether or not even that is necessary, you know, now that the Settlement Agreement, you know, the Amendments to the Settlement Agreement are signed. So I will do some research and report back. But I do want members to be thinking about whether or not a monthly cadence or a quarterly cadence makes sense going forward, given that we have not had any appeals, and we are sort of approaching the end here. And given that I know all of you are being asked to do PRBs, some of which seem to be as early as 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning, so much appreciation to those of you who are having to pick up those cases. I know that that works for the Bureau, but I can’t imagine that it always works super-well for us. So I wanna acknowledge that and thank you for that work. And like I said, if anyone has any immediate thoughts, we can definitely discuss that. Otherwise look for that to be an item of discussion at our next meeting, whenever that is. Any questions about the Director’s Report or the Chair’s Report before we move into New Business? Okay. All right. So, first item of new business that’s on the agenda is Police Review Board Check-In, so I think Ross and I touched on this in both of our reports, but I do wanna open the floor if people have concerns about the PRB process, if they have questions about it, or any feedback about what is or isn’t working. MIKE, based on your expression, did you end up having to pull the 6:30 one that just came up?

WALSH: I had a really early one. I don’t think it was a 6:30 one. I think I had a 7:00 a.m. one, but I’ve been on a couple that were really early, yeah. That doesn’t bother me at all. I actually kinda like it so I don’t have to take up too much work time.

DELEGATO: I think our number one priority is making sure are members are supported, right? So if you’re having issues getting any of the necessary trainings done, obviously ROSS and DAVID are here to assist you. If you feel like you have concerns about, you know, the process or the cadence of these, feel free to let us know and we can get that feedback over to I guess it’s technically the Bureau. That’s where these are headquartered out of. So please let us know, but like I said, I’ll open the floor if anyone has anything that they wanna share. MIKE.

WALSH: Yeah, I think what might be useful for a person in their first one is a little more help understanding when we get all the information, what is the most crucial thing to make sure to go through. ‘Cause you know, we get - some of them are, I don't know, a thousand pages, you know, depending on how you look at it. And yes, technically we should look at all 1000 pages, but there’s an Investigation Report obviously, which is the heart of the matter. So that was just one small thing. And I think I sent that feedback to LIZ. I managed to figure it out. It’s not a big deal. And it’s quite possible LIZ told me and I managed to miss it. So anyway, maybe a reminder to brand new people about what to look for and what the file said.

DELEGATO: Yeah. I think one benefit to - or one thing that I’ve noticed in the last couple of Review Boards that I’ve done is that they are now starting to break up - instead of a 3000-page PDF, it’s broken up based on what you’re looking at, and I think that’s very helpful.

WALSH: Yeah, that helps. Yeah, yeah.

DELEGATO: Definitely, yeah, the 500 pages of emails back and forth scheduling the interviews, I would encourage you to look through them, but I think they definitely require a slightly lesser degree of scrutiny than the transcripts and the Investigator’s Report. So that is definitely gonna help. It also helps make sure that we don’t have too many duplicates in here. But I always encourage the folks - I don’t think that LIZ covers this, but I always tell folks, you know, the best thing to do is start with the Investigator’s Report and the Findings Memo, just to really get a sense of like what the case is and where those points of disagreement are. ROSS, and then I think JESSICA, you had your hand up as well.

CALDWELL: Yeah, so, you know, that’s something that we mention in the training. But I think part of the problem is we do this training, and then months later people might start doin’ PRBs, and there’s no way you can take in and digest all that information. And we haven’t really figured out a good way to do those trainings over and over again. I think if we recorded them it would be an incredibly boring listen. I think if it’s somethin’ you had to read, I don’t think that would work either. So again, we’re open to suggestions. But yeah, ideally, you know, just like MIKE and YUME said, the Investigation Report, whether it’s IPR or IA, should really be the key to all the rest of the file. And, you know, if you’re having a hard time finding things in the file, which I still have a hard time findings things in the file, that’s something we can try to work on. So please let me know if that’s somethin’ that you’re having trouble with, and we can talk to the Police Bureau about how that all gets out to you. So yeah, I would start with the Investigation Report and then just, you know, go out from there. But that’s just my way of doin’ it, so whatever works for you. But, you know, you could always also talk to a lot of advisory members - Internal Affairs before some PRBs, it’s not uncommon for Internal Affairs Captain and a voting member who has a question to jump into a chat room and kind of a separate room, and be like, “Hey, I’m tryin’ to make sure I understand this or this or this.” But they’re an advisory member, they’re not a voting member, so that’s often an appropriate thing to do, or maybe the City Attorney’s Office. It could be, you know, Training. It could whoever’s relevant, but, you know, sometimes it’s a little tricky for us to do 'cause we’re also a voting member, and so we don’t want someone to be able to say, “Well, you know, IPR got in there and talked to the volunteers about this case specifically and tried to influence their vote.” So if we ever seem like we’re reluctant to talk about something or send you to somebody else, it’s not that we don’t wanna talk to you. It’s just 'cause we’re tryin’ to sort of protect the process, so sorry for that. It is clunky.

DELEGATO: JESSICA, I think you had your hand up as well?

KATZ: Yeah, this is fresh in my mind. I just did a PRB, and I think - and I apologize, I stepped away for a moment, so if this is duplicative, I apologize. But I think if there was a way to name the files for ease of finding things in a different way, that would be super helpful. ‘Cause I know I read through everything and I wanted to reference a certain thing, and I was like where did that thing live, and how do I know, because the files aren’t named in a way that is totally evident. So I think that would be really helpful.

CALDWELL: I’ll talk to them about that. Thank you.

DELEGATO: NATE HOLTON.

HOLTON: This is probably a losing fight, but just, they don’t let us print stuff, and I’m the sorta guy that reads stuff on paper, especially large files like sitting in PDF makes my eyes hurt, and is less convenient and just more challenging. I believe we signed a confidentiality agreement. I’d love to be able to print this stuff.

DELEGATO: Well I think back in the day you actually had to drive down to the precinct and read the file in a room, so those days might’ve actually been good from that perspective. But yeah, this has definitely been an evolving thing. I mean, we only got digital access to the stuff I think back in 2020. So we are definitely working with them to figure out what the best option is. But I think that’s an interesting one. I bet you that if you asked for that printed file they would let you read it at the precinct, but I don’t think that’s necessarily what people wanna do, so.

HOLTON: That was offered. Yeah, if you sit there, you know, with a proctor or something and read the file. It’s like, okay.

DELEGATO: Maybe not the answer we’re lookin’ for. But yeah, it’s a good one. I think based on like how much of a lift it was to get electronic access, I’m not confident that that would be something that we could get movement on any time soon, but it’s definitely somethin’ to think about.

CALDWELL: Yeah, we worked on that for years to get that done. And it was really - I think not to discredit our efforts, but it was, I think, the pandemic that made it happen, or that was kind of the final straw. But I will talk to ‘em about that and just see if there’s anything else we can do, 'cause it’s worth tryin'.

DELEGATO: There’s a question in the Q&A, and I know that there are some questions in the chat. I’m gonna answer the Q&A one now, and we can answer the others in public comment and give people an opportunity to speak what they have on their mind. Someone asked how you can get involved in the PRB process. So CRC members, obviously by virtue of our volunteer role, are required to participate in certain Police Review Boards involving the use of force or an officer-involved shooting. The Bureau also maintains a separate pool of volunteers that review those cases, as well as some other cases that are of lesser nature. Those recruitings are open periodically when they have vacancies on the PRB panel. It does not look like they have one currently, but you can always check the city jobs page to find out when those vacancies occur. I believe the Office of Community and Civic Life also does external communications around those recruitments, so always something that you can avail yourself of, and they definitely need volunteers. We have some people that were on the CRC now servin’ that pool. And I think we’ve had people that came from that pool and have sort of - expanding their service to be on the CRC. So it’s a valuable service for sure. All right, any other questions about the Police Review Board process from our members, or any feedback? ROSS, do you know how many people are in the pool? Is it 12? Or 11? Something like that?

CALDWELL: For PRB?

DELEGATO: For PRB.

CALDWELL: Strictly PRB volunteers? DAVID, do you know the answer to that? I wanna say we got it back up to around eight or something.

NGUYEN: Yeah, I’m lookin’ at the spreadsheet right now. So we have eight people are PRB right now.

CALDWELL: Oh, is that it?

NGUYEN: Yeah.

CALDWELL: Okay.

DELEGATO: Does that look like - I mean, staffing and transition are obviously issues, but does not look like they’re running a recruitment currently, but I know that they ran one for an extended period this year, and I imagine we’ll see them run another one in future here. I think right now we are as well-staffed as we have been in my tenure, because we have a fully-staffed CRC, and then the other pool is also pretty well-staffed. Eight is pretty good compared to what it’s been, so we’re doin’ good. That bein’ said, there are a lot of PRBs, and so we appreciate all of you for steppin’ up and doin’ them, and that makes sure that, you know, many hands makes light work, as they say. Okay. So, I think that covers - ROSS, does that cover the sort of input and just check-in that you were lookin’ for with regards to the Police Review Boards? Okay.

CALDWELL: Yeah, and if anything, you know, comes to mind later, you know, we don’t control the process. We are a little part of it, but we can try to make it easier if possible. Sometimes it works.

DELEGATO: Yeah. Right. Okay, so I think I will put out a call for other New Business, but I know we also have Work Group Updates, and so I’m actually suggest that MIKE, if you wanna do your Work Group Update now, if anyone has New Business we can bring that after MIKE’S update.

WALSH: Yeah, sounds good. Thanks YUME. So I am leading the Transition Work Group, and our charge - wow, I’m not sure what’s goin’ on there. I didn’t share my screen, so that’s not me. Our charge for the last couple of months from the CRC has been to consider writing a statement essentially that would come from the CRC regarding the transition, and that would be, you know, a statement of what we think our role should be, our stake in the matter, and those kinds of things. And for the last couple meetings I’ve talked to you about six of the items that came up that were to be considered, and at the last meeting you all asked us to put four of those in a letter. We met like three or four weeks ago, and then over the last couple weeks transitioned to Work Group Members who’ve been workin’ on that. So I put together a draft of a letter that we could consider. I’m not pulling it forward to be considered necessarily. What I’m doing is just showing you the product of our work. And I think DAVID just put in a link to the draft. So I’ll just quickly say - and you may be reading it as I’m talking, but really the purpose, as I said, is to help the city and anybody else involved to understand our role, the stake that we have, the expertise that we have. And in it I used three examples of things that have happened in the past, that had we been consulted we might have been able to, you know, help that process out a little more. The purpose of those three examples is not to change anybody’s mind. Those things have all kind of happened, and they’re in the past. But they’re used as examples of how we could be more involved. An essentially, it’s a plea to involve us more in the transition. And that’s pretty much it. It’s a little long. I tried to pull together everybody’s work. Maybe YUME should just give people a little time to read it. I’ll just say one more thing real quick. I’m just interested in feedback, does it meet that kind of goal of explaining our plea to be more involved, and we can have a discussion about whether we want to consider it.

DELEGATO: Thanks MIKE.

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: So yeah, I think I will sort of poll the room here. Obviously, I personally did not see this letter until just a few minutes before we started the meeting, but recognizing that people sometimes need to process stuff, we can take this up at tonight’s meeting, if that’s what people wish to do. We can also, you know, table it and put it on the agenda for our next meeting, which will probably be in December. Or if people have immediate feedback and say, “Well, I don’t really wanna vote for this thing tonight, but I do have feedback on what should be in it,” that is also an option. I think those are really the three realms of discussion. So, I’m gonna give us all maybe, let’s say two minutes here to take a look at this thing. And then at 6:08, which might be a little less than two minutes, I’m gonna check in, and we can decide if we want to continue that conversation tonight, table it, or table it with some direction. So I’m gonna go off camera for a second while I take a look at this, and let’s plan on reconvening here in about two minutes. Oh, somebody has their hand up here. NATE.

HOLTON: It’s me. I can’t see it. Is this supposed to be on the screen?

NGUYEN: Oh.

DELEGATO: I think DAVD put it in the chat, but -

HOLTON: Oh, in the chat.

WALSH: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I thought it might be easier for you to just read it as a link.

HOLTON: Oh, okay. Thanks.

DELEGATO: All right. I’m gonna make it 6:09, just to give us a little bit of extra time, but we’ll see you back here in a few. Okay.

OSAKI: I have a question.

DELEGATO: Yeah. And SEAN, I apologize. You’re comin’ in deep in the middle of this, so -

OSAKI: Oh yeah, no, I can read between the lines and pick up quick. But who’s the recipient of this draft, or this letter?

WALSH: Well, I think we’d have to determine that. I mean, it’s the city, the mayor, the city council, the attorney’s office. Those people who are in decision-making areas, yeah.

OSAKI: Okay.

WALSH: I’m very interested in, you know, thoughts about what could be taken out. There’s a large paragraph that starts with, “At present, the City stands ready” that may not be needed. It describes, you know, what has happened in the last month, and it was intended to kind of give a sense of the importance of the timeline. It may be too much information. I will say, you know, our job was to produce something, and that’s what we did. I mean, I think the letter’s good. I think there’s lots of really good information here. I can see us going one way or the other. And by putting it forward here, I’m not necessarily saying, this is, you know, what we should or should not do. But it is our work product, and I think it’s good. So feedback about it would be super helpful. You could do that by email. Let’s say we don’t wanna consider it tonight. We could consider it in a separate meeting, either in December, or we could also do it by email potentially, or a separate short meeting if we wanted to.

DELEGATO: Okay.

PIEKARSKI: I think it’s a good letter. And I also think that there’s a need to take out that paragraph. I think in drafting the letter, it’s important that it kinda stand alone as a document that talks about what the letter is there for, why the letter was created, and was considered in creating the letter, since we don’t have a lot of communication into this process, and it serves, I think, as someone a historical document as well.

WALSH: Mm-hmm.

PIEKARSKI: So I like the letter as written. I did see a tiny typo that I called out in the chat.

WALSH: Oh thank you.

PIEKARSKI: Yeah, but otherwise, I think it’s a fine letter. And I’d be happy to have it represent my view.

WALSH: Thanks for that. Appreciate that typo thing. And yeah, I’m very cognizant of that large paragraph that began with “At present.” It’s probably not needed, but I did put it in there, thinking it might be helpful. I’m actually happy to take that out. The shorter, the better, to the point is always good.

DELEGATO: I have some thoughts, but SEAN, why don’t you go first?

OSAKI: In my writing, I kinda find that people get lost in the words, and if we were just to be able to make some task points or bullet points to just highlight the issues and take away some of the opinion, it could hit a little bit more succinctly. It’s the one paragraph where weren’t asked for our comments in the development of the job description, and then we go to explain what we think, but what we think doesn’t necessarily need to be there, because the fact is that we just weren’t consulted, and we wanna just nail that point home and not say that maybe our feelings were hurt because of we weren’t included. Just my two cents.

WALSH: Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate that. It’s a good point.

DELEGATO: Yeah, I think the two things that I personally struggle with on this, MIKE, and I think we talked very briefly before this meeting started.

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: One, like I was one of the first people that, you know, voiced a concern about the bias language in the current version. That being said, I think it has become abundantly clear that there is no appetite from Judge SIMON, from the DOJ, or from the city to revisit that provision. And I find it interesting that Judge SIMON was willing to delay the implementation of the system, which really does nothing, but was not willing to take up some of those issues, which are substantive, but they are also things that like would see that the intervening parties in this matter are in agreement on. So, you know, we can continue to bring that up. I also kinda feel, I kinda echo SEAN’S thing. The takeaway from me is like, what are we asking, and what is the city in the position to give, right? Like, if we want them to come to every Work Group Meeting, I’m sure we could make that ask. I’m not sure what we would, you know - I think that’s the part that I found myself wanting a little bit more clarity on, is like what would that look like? Are we saying we should get to review a transition plan? We should write a transition plan, etc. And then also, just being frank, tempering that against my pessimism about that actually doing something. Partially because of the City’s capacity, and also partially because they are now in a holding pattern. There’s not a ton that they can do -

WALSH: Mm-hmm.

DELEGATO: - without knowing how this nomination process is going. So those are the two things that I am struggling with. You do not need my vote or my acquiescence to sign the letter though, if that’s the will of the CRC. So I think, as DAVID pointed out, if we do send a letter, it has to be voted on in public session.

WALSH: Yeah, in a public, yeah.

DELEGATO: So there are I guess four outcomes, technically. So one is we can continue this conversation, and I’m willing - let me see what we published on our agenda. I’m willing to hold this another maybe 10 or 15 minutes on this topic if that’s what people wanna do. We can send it back to Committee with feedback and ask them to bring a letter at our November or December meeting. Or we can continue the conversation with a view towards providing additional feedback. Or we can spike it, right? I’m just sayin’ that because MIKE, you brought that up. So those are the four options.

WALSH: Yeah (inaudible - 00:42:41).

DELEGATO: I would like to hear from people, or someone also can make a motion, I supposed. But I think we can just do this by consensus. What do people wanna do? Do they wanna try and continue reviewing this document right now and get to yes tonight? Or do we want to table this, or table it permanently? CHRIS.

PIEKARSKI: The one thought I have is when you bring a product like this to a group that meets in this format, it’s not easily dealt with. I think we’re gonna have a lot of trouble kind of coming to a consensus about particular edits to make, not being people involved in the creation of the document. You know, there are preferences that each of us have of our own in terms of what a document like this should look like, or how this sort of document should communicate. I have my thoughts. SEAN has his thoughts, and YUME, you have your thoughts. And I think every one of us could look at this document and have a different idea of what it could say, or how it could say it. To me, I think probably the best use of our time, unless we wanna table this and have some sort of - I don't know some sort of other meeting, is to, you know, look at the Work Group’s product and decide if we accept the Work Group’s product or if we don’t accept the Work Group’s product. So my thought - and I’m not gonna make a motion at this point, 'cause I think there’s more discussion to be had, is that we should consider whether we feel like this document says how we feel, and not be so worried about, you know, the format or the grammar or the kind of the preferences about how it says how we feel. To me, the document is an accurate statement. It is a good presentation of the CRC as a whole, created by a Work Group of the CRC, and I don’t think that we’re going to accomplish a meaningful edit in a meaningful way in a meaningful time period if we kind of kick it back and forth.

DELEGATO: NATE?

HOLTON: I like all CHRIS’S comments, pretty much entirely. Group editing, documents. It’s just one of my least favorite things in the world to do. And I would fully support just going forward with the letter today.

DELEGATO: Okay. So I’m gonna ask for a motion here in a second, and we can decide. And obviously, if anyone else has comments, please, this would be a great time to weigh in. So I think there are three options. I’m gonna narrow it down for us. Obviously, if someone has a comment, let’s continue the discussion. We can accept it as is and ask it be forwarded on to the city. We can send it back for edits and go that route. Or, and I will throw this out here, the other option, I supposed, is we can address this letter to the next City Council, who I assume would be the recipient, and that would give us a decent amount of time to make any fix we want, based on the fact that I don’t think this City Council’s gonna do much if they’re not the ones in charge of implementing it in this timeframe. Like, if they have to wait until January, I think there’s a limited amount that the city’s gonna feel like they’re in a capacity to do. I don’t wanna speak for the city attorney, but I think, you know, they can hire a transition person, and they can sort of game out what it would look like to run a recruitment, but they won’t actually be able to run that recruitment, and they won’t really know what that recruitment’s gonna look like because we are going to need to wait for City Council to determine a process by which they will pick their designees to the nomination. MIKE?

WALSH: Yeah, I mean, as the Chair of the Transition Work Group, you know, I’d probably feel a little more comfortable with a motion to kind of approve further work by the Work Group and to have a November meeting. And maybe that’s our one agenda item, besides the stuff that we always have to do, and it doesn’t have to be a real long meeting. There was some information about recruitment that we, you know, weren’t quite able to get written that I could also add. And I’d have to say, I wrote this rather rapidly. I’m a fast writer, but it’s not my best writing. Trying to pull together a lot of, you know, different people’s ideas. So I don’t think I should make the motion, but essentially I’m sayin’ - it’s kind of what CHRIS is sayin’ a little bit, maybe not vote to send today, but to send back to the committee for - we approved the idea, and the point is well made in the letter, but we need some further drafting by the Work Group with input from the CRC via email to MIKE, would be my idea.

DELEGATO: Okay. Yeah, I think I would prefer that, just from the perspective of I don’t really like askin’ us to vote on somethin’ cold. ‘Cause no one has read this.

WALSH: Yeah, it just came to you. Yeah, I literally wrote it today. I mean, it was like, I gotta do this thing.

DELEGATO: Well, it was very well-written. It was very well-written.

WALSH: It was a really quick first draft, yeah.

DELEGATO: ROSS, as a point of clarity, I know we had not committed definitely to meeting or not meeting. Do we have the staffing capacity to have the assistant director at the November meeting?

CALDWELL: I think so. I mean, it is maybe the day after the election, right?

DELEGATO: Yeah.

CALDWELL: I would think. I mean, if she - yeah, I would think so.

DELEGATO: Okay.

CALDWELL: And if not, (inaudible - 00:48:51), and if DAVID is able to be here, you know, we could do it that way too.

WALSH: Could we do it the week following? Or does it always have to be the --

CALDWELL: You could change it if you want. I mean, you could do it in December, depending on - I mean, if you decided it was gonna go to the new council and you wanna do it in December, you can do kinda whatever you want. I think we just usually have the meetings at this time because people are kinda used to reservin’ out their calendar, and so -

WALSH: Yeah.

CALDWELL: - (inaudible - 00:49:16) gettin’ people to show up.

WALSH: Uh-huh.

CALDWELL: But you can always have a meeting at a different time if you want. We are all a little bit nervous, depending on what’s happening around the election -

WALSH: Yeah.

CALDWELL: - that we might be real busy at that time.

WALSH: Oh yeah, I get it. No, I hundred percent agree.

CALDWELL: Yeah, that’s the only reason I’m hesitant about KELSEY bein’ here. But I would think she’d be able to come.

DELEGATO: Yeah, and that’s kind of where I was going with the suggesting if we were addressing to the future council, then obviously a December meeting.

WALSH: Yeah, December’s fine, yeah.

DELEGATO: If we want it to go to this council, we do need to get it out in November, I think. Although, truly, they’re gonna be - what is it, senioritis, as they say, right?

WALSH: Lame duck.

DELEGATO: Yeah, after the first Tuesday, I think they’re not gonna be payin’ close attention. CHRIS?

PIEKARSKI: Well it sounded like to me MIKE had an idea of how he wants to approach this, so it seems to me like maybe he should make a motion, which since he’s kind of the owner of the product, I’d be happy to support.

WALSH: Yeah, so thanks CHRIS. All right. Yeah, I guess I would make a motion then that we take the product for further editing, based on feedback from the CRC members -

DELEGATO: Okay.

WALSH: - via email. And then we’ll consider it at our next meeting.

DELEGATO: Okay. I don’t think we need to take a vote on that, if you’re pullin’ it back to your committee. I think we would only need to vote on it if we’re gonna accept it or (inaudible - 00:50:48).

WALSH: Okay. I guess, yeah, I should’ve added, I mean, essentially accepting the basic idea that we would go forward, but yes. So maybe it’s not a motion. But that’s what we’ll do. We’ll take it back to the Work Group.

DELEGATO: Okay.

WALSH: If you don’t wanna have it as a vote.

DELEGATO: I think we will then plan on having a November meeting. And I think the only caveat to that is if things get real gnarly -

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: - and there’s a safety issue, I am cancelling this thing for everyone’s wellbeing.

WALSH: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah.

DELEGATO: Okay. All right. Well then, we will plan on havin’ a November meeting. I think just on the sixth we’ll just roll with it and see what happens.

WALSH: Okay. One really quick thing, so hopefully everybody has my email. You have the document. I’ve already pulled out the large paragraph that I had talked about, so that edit’s already taken place. But any feedback, please send via email to me, and I think CC probably DAVID for sure, and YUME, if you want that, YUME, but definitely DAVID for the records.

DELEGATO: And I would add to that that I think in a perfect world we would have this when the agenda goes out, and so -

WALSH: Yeah, well I’ll have it done a week or two before, whenever the agenda goes out, yeah. I agree.

DELEGATO: Okay. All right. Perfect. Any other discussion on that front? Okay. Any New Business that anyone wishes to bring forward, aside from what we just talked about? Okay. Hearing none, I think that takes us to Public Comment. I know that we had a couple people who wanted to make public comment, so as always, you will have three minutes for public comment. Please raise your hands if you would like to talk, and I think if you are ready, BARB, I will go to you first since you had a question in the chat. Or actually, I think BARB put her question in the chat, so ROSS, you wanna answer it?

CALDWELL: Yeah, thank you. So let me just jump onto that question. Let’s see BARB had asked - she said the BHUAC, which I think is the Behavioral Health Unit Advisory Committee, I’m assuming, recommended including someone with behavioral health experience, or maybe professional experience. Is that happening? So BARB, correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I assume you’re referring to the PRB, maybe an advisory member. So I did a little texting while we were talking, and the only thing I could figure out is that is under consideration. I think Lieutenant CHRIS BURLEY, you might be familiar with him, I believe he forwarded that recommendation on and said he was going to check on it. So if that’s somebody you know how to get in touch with, you might wanna follow with him. Or if you want, I’ll send you my email address. You can email me, and I can put you in touch with Lieutenant BURLEY or somebody else to get you an answer. So sorry I don’t have a better answer than that. I don't know much about that firsthand. And please, if I’m not answering your question, please let me know.

DELEGATO: All right. And yeah, BARB, feel free to raise your hand if you wanna add to that or ask a follow-up. All right, going now to the audience. DEBBIE, you actually got the first hand raised today, so congratulations. Feel free to -

AIONA: Okay, can you hear me already? Can you hear me?

(CROSSTALK)

AIONA: Okay, good. All right, thanks. I didn’t know what to do next. All right, so I’m DEBBIE AIONA. I’m with the League of Women’s Voters of Portland, and I attended MIKE’S Work Group meeting, so have been, you know, paying attention to what’s going on. So I’m glad that you’re going to come back in November, assuming everything’s okay in November, and think about what to do about this letter, make a decision I hope. ‘Cause we do not know what the judge is gonna do about the Motion to Reconsider, so it’s possible that, you know, things will start moving fast if he does change his mind. And I think this is the one place where the community can find out what’s going on with the new oversight system. And if we had somebody from the mayor’s staff or the city attorney’s office, or, you know, one of the, you know, the people who actually know what’s going on to come and brief you briefly, I mean, it could just be a 15-minute discussion, then at least the public would able to kinda keep track of where things stand, and what’s going on. And maybe we can find out like if they’ve hired a project manager. So again, I’m grateful to you for, you know, keeping this front and center, and hope that you will decide to send the letter at your meeting in November. Thank you very much.

DELEGATO: Thanks DEBBIE. And I’ll just note, obviously we are meeting in November. I think what we have to weigh on CRC is just how much longer we wanna keep bangin’ our heads against the wall, right? And I wanna be sensitive to the I would say substantially enlarged workloads that we have put on our CRC members in the last couple of years, just vis-à-vis, caseload, and weigh that against the fact that like we are not meeting with much reception from, you know, from any of the stakeholders. So, I mean, I’m not just gonna gavel us in just so that we can sit and talk about how we don’t have information, or how nothing is moving. I think the city attorney’s office has been happy to come give updates as they are pertinent, but, you know, I think we have hit the point, we have actually long passed the point where like this duty needs to go to someone else, and I’m getting less patient about, you know, carrying water for that, to a certain extent, if that makes sense. So just my two cents on that. We will meet in November, all things, you know, going appropriately. But after that point, I do wanna start talking about what our obligations are and what our obligations are to the Settlement Agreement, because we need to start planning for a transition, even if Judge SIMON is not making that convenient. All right, DAN, let me make sure I’ve got -

HANDELMAN: Oh, hello, good evening. Can you hear me okay?

DELEGATO: Good to go.

HANDELMAN: This is DAN HANDELMAN. I use he/him pronouns. I’m with Portland Copwatch. Last month I told you we had just published the 93rd issue of our newsletter, The People’s Police Report. I am going to paste it to the chat where you can find it online now. There’s always an article about the CRC, and for the last couple years there was also an article about the new system. I tried to find that job listing for the transition manager online, and I couldn’t find it anywhere, so if you know more about it than I do, I’d be happy to take a look at that. But I do agree that you should send this letter as soon as you can. I mean, regardless of the old council or the new council, maybe you can be part of picking who the project manager’s gonna be. Because, in theory, that job should have been opened for 30 days, and that would’ve been sometime in September. And once you have the letter done, you can forward it again to the new city council just to help - and that’s one of the great things about you all don’t have to change over who you are between now and January, so you can help be the continuity between what’s going on now and what’s going on then. I would like the opportunity, I’m not sure if there’s gonna be a Work Group meeting, to make some comments about the letter, just briefly. I’m a little confused about the paragraph about ride-alongs. I thought that the CRC’s comments about ride-alongs would help them come up with alternatives for the people who don’t wanna do ride-alongs, rather than comfort people into thinking they should go on a ride-along, 'cause I don’t think you can convince some people to do that, and you’re gonna lose good volunteers that way. I’m also a little confused about the paragraph about bias. There’s a word in there, a rubric, which is kind of a $50 word. I think that paragraph should end with something about we think you should define what bias is, and I offered a definition of bias at some meeting or another. But you don’t have to necessarily offer that definition, but you should say it happened. I was also member of the Police Accountability Commission, and our transition plan included that --

PAPPAS: One minute.

HANDELMAN: Thank you. That cases that go through this system but aren’t finished by the one-year timeline should possibly go to the new system, and they have to use the old system, the old idea of voting on it, like CRC Appeals, using members of the old board, but using the old rules. And that way you don’t have to stay around forever, but there’s a way to deal with that and clear those old cases out. So I’m glad, I see Ms. PAPPAS was the one that interrupted me. I had a question too, 'cause last month there was the Recurring Audit Work Group said they were gonna meet to talk about something that wasn’t necessarily an audit of the IPR or Internal Affairs, but I can’t remember what it was, and I didn’t hear anything about a meeting, and I wanted to hear an update about that. So I’ll follow up with other questions and comments if need be. Thank you.

DELEGATO: Thanks DAN. And very slick timer, KYRA. I like that. That’s awesome. Yeah, if you wanna give an update about Recurring Audit, feel free. And then one thing I will not to DAN’S question, the city did, I wanna say at the end of August, post the job posting for the transition manager. I believe it was up for 30 days, and I think it was set to close in late September. Whether or not they are continuing with that recruitment based on the timeline, I’m not sure if that’s on hold or not, but it was up there for quite some time, because it was out there up until recently. So we can definitely try and find out some more on that front by our next. KYRA, did you have anything to add about Recurrent Audit?

PAPPAS: No, our Audit Group didn’t meet this month. We’re doin’ some independent like brainstorming here, and then we’re gonna come back together here in October.

DELEGATO: Okay. Awesome. All right. Any other comments or curiosities from our members before we adjourn for the evening? All right. Well, thank you all for bein’ here. SEAN, thank you for sittin’ through your first meeting with us. We’re glad to have you.

OSAKI: Thank you.

DELEGATO: And we will plan on reconvening in November. Hopefully by then we’ll have some updates as to what to expect and what the timeline is going to be. The time is 6:35 p.m. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Have a wonderful October, and we’ll see you next month.

WALSH: Thanks YUME.

(CROSSTALK)