Citizen Review Committee Meeting

December 4, 2024

DELEGATO: Okay. Welcome everybody. Tonight is Wednesday, December 4th. It’s 5:32, and this is the December Citizen Review Committee Metting for the City of Portland. I think we have almost everybody here this evening. We have just a slightly different format than usual. I’m gonna ask all of you to introduce yourselves in the chat, just so people know who you are, but I’m gonna hold off on callin’ everyone until we get into our agenda item for this evening, 'cause I want to do sort of a Round Robin with everyone and have you talk about kinda what you wanna see in the year ahead for CRC. So I’m gonna give you those questions now, and you can think about them while we do the Director’s Report and the Chairs’ Report and vote on minutes, and whatnot. So, when we get to New Business, please introduce yourself, tell us how long you’ve been on CRC, if you wanna tell us what you do for a living, just so the audience can know. And then I wanna hear from people about maybe some good things or some learnings that they’ve had from this year, and also maybe some challenges that they’ve had from this year, in terms of their service on the CRC, and then what you would like to see in the year ahead, whether that’s agenda items or changes to how we meet or facilitate these meetings. Let’s just have a conversation about what that looks like when we get to New Business. So, we won’t do introductions just yet, but we can do those when we hit that agenda item. So, I think our first item on the actual agenda is approval of minutes. I think we have one set of minutes, the October 2, 2024, meeting. So, I will entertain a motion, if someone would like to recommend that we approve those.

PIEKARSKI: I’ll move that we approve those.

DELEGATO: Okay.

PAPPAS: I second.

DELEGATO: Thank you CHRIS and KYRA. All right. So without further ado, we’ll go into voting. BRIAN?

BUTLER: I approve.

DELEGATO: DELEGATO? I approve. GREGG?

GRIFFIN: Abstain. I wasn’t here.

DELEGATO: Okay. NATE HOLTON?

HOLTON: I approve.

DELEGATO: JESSICA’S not here. NATE KUHN?

KUHN: I approve.

DELEGATO: Okay. And SHAWN?

OSAKI: Approve.

DELEGATO: KYRA?

PAPPAS: Approve.

DELEGATO: CHRIS?

PIEKARSKI: I approve.

DELEGATO: NOAH?

TRUESDALE: I only caught the last half of the meeting, so I don't know if I need to abstain. But I guess I would abstain just to be safe, out of caution.

DELEGATO: Okay. Sounds good. And MIKE?

WALSH: Approve.

DELEGATO: Okay. So the minutes are approved. And let’s move on then to the Director’s Report, and we are right on time.

LLOYD: Hi everyone, good evening. Thanks for bein’ here, as always. ROSS is still on paternity leave until next week, and so I’m fillin’ in for him tonight, and I have a terrible cold, so I’m gonna try to keep this as brief as possible to avoid any coughing fits. So for the Director’s Report, you know, I put an item on here about an update about Judge SIMONS’ decision to delay the effective dates for the recent amendment to the Settlement Agreement. Particularly of note to this would group would be that that delay in the amendments being effective was essentially in regarding to the appointment of members to the Nominating Committee that will then choose members to serve on the new Police Accountability Board. The City had asked Judge SIMONS to reconsider that decision, and he chose not to, so the effective date for those amendments will be next month, January 2025. I think with, you know, a bunch of new council members coming on board and a new mayor, there’s gonna be a lot of things they’re gonna be tryin’ to learn and do as they get familiar with their jobs, and so we kind of anticipate, you know, there might be additional delays as they’re getting familiar, and then being up to speed enough to do something like choosing members for this Nominating Committee. So, you know, I think for IPR purposes, what we’ve been tryin’ to do is just kinda keep the conversation going with people within the city and stakeholders that are kind of making decisions in this process. We are not setting up the new system, as we all know, but we are certainly concerned about IPR staff and our future, as well as the, you know, volunteers, you all and your time, and we wanna be considerate of, you know, being mindful about that planning and ensuring that we’re keeping that all at front of mind as we’re working towards this new system being put in place. So, any questions about that, I’m happy to entertain them. I don’t think there’s any major case updates to fill you all in on, but I’m happy to answer questions about the report, or any of that other stuff as well.

DELEGATO: Thanks KELSEY. I think a lot of people are getting the message that the City of Portland’s website is down for maintenance, so if you got in, congratulations. And if you didn’t -

NGUYEN: I’m looking for the PDF file right now, so I’ll post it.

LLOYD: Oh, the Director’s Report?

NGUYEN: Yeah.

LLOYD: Oh, that’s fun. Yeah, good timing.

DELEGATO: Appreciate that, IT. So -

LLOYD: Yeah.

DELEGATO: - thanks KELSEY.

LLOYD: Mm-hmm.

DELEGATO: And just making sure, you said that at this juncture we have no appeals that we’re anticipating for the immediate future, next two or three months?

LLOYD: Not that I anticipate, yeah. Mm-hmm. There is somebody who might be appealing, but they had new evidence, so that had to go back for additional investigation. So if they still wanna appeal at the end of that, it’ll still be a few months down the road before that would happen.

DELEGATO: Okay. Awesome. Any other questions about Director’s Report, which I’m sure is scintillating. Oh, here we go. Thank you, CHRIS. Okay. All right. Well Members, if you have any questions for KELSEY now, please feel free to bring them up. I will give you a chance to take a look at that attachment throughout today’s meeting, and we can always circle back at the end of New Business if anyone has any follow-up questions. All right, moving into the Chair’s Report. I don’t think we have a ton to report on since our last meeting. I have reached out to - we haven’t had another check-in with the mayor. Obviously this time of year is pretty busy for City Council as they get ready to wrap up and transition over to the new form of government, so have not had a chance to meet with Mayor WHEELER. Have reached out to his staff. They are sort of handling the transition right now, and we’ll see if this cadence of checking in with the Mayor’s Office is something that continues under Mayor WILSON’S tenure. I would assume that it would, but, you know, that’s up to the mayor when he gets into office. So, we’ll continue to keep you apprised of this, or on that front, and I would just echo what KELSEY said. Obviously we are waiting right now to see what happens. I think, you know, it places CRC in a difficult position, just in the sense that we have less staffing than the new advisory body would have. We have a fraction of the budget compared to what they’re entitled to under the charter. And obviously, we are doing a very high case load of police review boards with half of the volunteers that city council envisioned for the new body. So I wanna just take a moment to share my appreciation for all of you. For our long-time members, this is a marathon, not the sprint that maybe we anticipated it would be. And for our newer members, I know that you’re coming on at a time of real uncertainty, and so I appreciate you all for being willing to roll up your sleeves and just jump in. I know we threw you in off the deep end, and the fact that we are not getting emails from PPB saying that they can’t find volunteers for the PRBs tells me that we are doing well on that front. So really wanna share my appreciation to each and every one of you for continuing to show up and do this work. I think it is challenging, you know, when we have systems that say they don’t really care about that work load and they just want us to continue to do it. But that’s where we find ourselves, and so I appreciate all of you for being willing to continue in that process.

I think that actually is a great lead-in to our discussion topic tonight. So typically, at the end of the year we take a time to sort of reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going, which is all the more, you know, sort of pertinent this year. So I’m gonna open the floor. I don’t wanna go first. I wanna let all of you have a chance to talk. But I’m gonna open the floor to each of you. And for the audience’s sake, maybe just share a little bit about who you are and how long you’ve been on the CRC. And then the three questions that I would like all of us to consider in sort of a Round Robin fashion are just, you know, looking back on this year, are there things that you found challenging? Are there things that you wish we could change? Are there difficulties that you wanna talk about or put into the conversation? Are there things that you want us to tackle in the new year? That might be talking to somebody, you know, at the City. You know, it might be tryin’ to get a speaker to come and visit. It might be just a general goal that you wanna share, and part and parcel that would be if you have any ideas or suggestions or desires that you wanna see come out of this body. I think one of the things that we’re gonna - once we’ve had that opportunity, I’m gonna ask you is, you know, around sort of meeting cadence. Do we wanna continue to meet remotely? Do we wanna ever meet in person? Do we want to continue to meet, you know, on a scheduled monthly basis, or do we wanna look at reducing that meeting cadence to maybe what we’re obligated to do under the charter? So, giving you a sneak peek as to what comes after this exercise, that’s what we’ll be getting into. But first and foremost, I think I just wanna give everyone an opportunity to reflect on this past year, on what their experiences have been, and just do some brainstorming about maybe what we’d like to see going forward into the new year. No pressure.

OSAKI: I can go first.

DELEGATO: All right, SHAWN.

OSAKI: Good evening everyone. My name is SHAWN OSAKI. I’m the corporate director of sales and catering for McMenamins. Live in North Portland, St. John’s Cathedral Park area. Been here comin’ up on 22 years at this house, so let’s see. I am new to the board, came in on September, so yet to catch my first case. So, when I’m lookin’ back, can’t have anything to add to that. And new things to tackle, a good willing team to, you know, come together to look for the greater good. And the vision for CRC moving forward, I just need to get my feet a little bit more wet. I’m ankle-deep and would like to be knee-deep or waist-deep in it, so.

DELEGATO: Thank you, SHAWN.

BUTLER: I’m happy to go next, YUME. So hi everyone. My name is BRIAN BUTLER. I have just literally crossed over my two years of living in Portland. I originally lived in the UK for 31 years before I moved back to the US, and this is my first year on the CRC Committee. I have done my first case, which was very interesting, and a lot of information, but it was really exciting and really interesting, and it really gave me an insight into the procedures and how things are done, which I found really, really fascinating. Going forward for the new year, like SHAWN, because I’m new, I’m still sort of getting my feet wet and understanding everything, so I personally would like us to have some clarity around what we are going to do in the new year. As much as I enjoy this and all of our discussions about, you know, the new boards and everything, it seems fair that we get told something. And I would like to know something. So that’s pretty much me for the new year.

PIEKARSKI: I’ll go next. CHRIS PIEKARSKI, he/him pronouns. I’m in Southeast Portland. I’m a member of the CRC. I’m an attorney in my daytime world. In terms of kind of where the CRC is, I’ve enjoyed my time here. I’m getting onto three years, I think, with the CRC. I’ve enjoyed this year, in terms of my ability to take part in a lot of the Police Review Boards and hearings, which are by far my favorite part of being on the CRC, and they were primarily why I wanted to be a part of the CRC. With that said, I join BRIAN. I think a lot of the frustration I have, or I don't know if frustration’s the right word, but there’s just a fundamental question of what we are and what our plan is going forward, or what the plan is for us going forward. And so kind of what I understand us to be at this point is kind of a placeholder, holding down the fort until the new thing comes along that supplants us. And I’m very happy to do my part to hold down the fort and to do a good job, as good a job as I can with what we have to do. But, I’m looking forward to a sense of clarity about what the plan is going forward and what the expectations are of us, so that, you know, we feel that there is a purpose to our existence, as opposed to just being some names on a list.

TRUESDALE: I can speak. Hi everyone. My name is NOAH TRUESDALE, I use he/him pronouns. I’m a policy analyst with the Urban League of Portland. I’m also relatively new to the board, I think I started in April. And I think I’ve both enjoyed and been challenged by kind of the salinity of some of the Police Review Board Hearings. But I come from a police oversight background, and I’ve kind of enjoyed learning more about the process in Portland. To kind of echo the general sentiment that’s going around, I think the holding pattern that we’re in right now is kinda frustrating and daunting, and figuring out how to like stop hurry up and waiting is gonna be helpful. But I think if we’re looking for like vision or direction, I think finding ways that we can like lend ourselves to being useful to the next board, and I don't know what that would look like, but if we can help expedite their process to get them up and running in any kinda way we can, I think that’s gonna be useful. But I don't know what that looks like. I’m in Southeast Portland, by the way.

KUHN: I can hop in here super quickly. I apologize for not having my camera on, and I’m in the car right now on a work trip. But I’m from downtown Portland, and I’ve been there for about a year, and I work as an HR manager as my day job. I would say I’ve had a chance to be a part of four or five police review boards, and that, to echo CHRIS, is my absolute favorite part of being part of this board. I love doing that and serving in that capacity, so I’d love to continue to do that more. Looking into the new year, I’ve had the chance to have like coffee and sit down and talk with ROSS and some member of the Independent Police Department and learn more from them, so I would love to have like more guest speakers, learn more about how the different functions in government interact, and like our part in that. I think learning more about that and having more opportunities to talk to policemen and learn about their day-to-day job, but also do the (inaudible - 00:17:56).

WALSH: Hi, I’ll hop in here. Hi, MIKE WALSH, he/him/his pronouns. And I live on the border of North and Northeast Portland, so I can never really say if I’m north or northeast. I think I’m north, but I go out in my back yard, I’m in northeast. Been on the CRC - I think I’ve been on here for a little over a year appointed, but I worked on a Work Group for a few years, and that was really a great experience. And one of the things I learned from that experience was just how effective this group can be, you know, when given a task, and the expertise and the experiences on this group are just fantastic. And at that time we created the report on crowd control, and it was a really great report, and so I learned a lot from that, it was fabulous. Oh, I forgot to say where I work. I work at Oregon Health and Science University. I’ve been a university administrator type for many, many years. Basically I’m like a Dean of Students as kind of my work. Let’s see, challenges. I think when I first got appointed here, it was a little rough because we had so few people on the CRC, and so that was a challenge, and now I think it’s great to have so many more people here, and the Police Review Boards are going much better, I think. There’s a lot of ‘em and it’s important to have people on them, so that’s great. And then what to see? I think some of it’s gonna echo what other people are saying. I would like to see us help with the transition. As the chair of the Transition Work Group it would be, you know, no surprise that I would like to be, you know, more involved with the city in doing that and have greater interaction with the city in doing that. And I think we have a lot to offer. You know, one of the challenges also is just transition between, you know, old city council, new city council, old form of government, new form of government, and so on. So I’m lookin’ forward to hopefully seeing that happen a little bit more. And then one little teeny thing, I don't even know if we’re able to do this, but I’d love to see minutes be like, you know, actual minutes and not a transcription of the meeting. I don’t mind reading the transcription, but frankly it’s almost impossible to read every single word in the transcription. But it would be nice to just have like minutes which are like, you know, this is what happened, and the decisions that were made. And usually minutes are, you know, considerably shorter than transcription. So if that’s allowed, that would be a little administrivia that I would love to see. And that’s me, thanks.

DELEGATO: Thanks, MIKE. NATE, you wanna go next?

HOLTON: Yeah, I could give it a shot. I apologize in advance if I cut out. NATE HOLTON. I’m pretty new, three years, and I think, you know, to echo a point made already, really helping as much as possible with the transition, and I’m comfortable with ambiguity. I suspect that it’s gonna be ambiguous for quite a while. It may be longer than what anyone said, and they may re-think some things. You know, there’s so much that’s up in the air, and I suspect that we’ll be needed in that kind of capacity, just in the in-between state for a while. And I’ve heard one case in PRB, I’m hearing another one in a couple of weeks. I’m, you know, happy to help with the opportunity, and just wanna see what we can do to be helpful during this time. I mean, this has been - I joined late, and so I, just on a personal level, haven’t had to share the frustration that so many others that’ve been kind of in this transition phase for so long. I do understand the frustrations, but it is what it is at this point, unfortunately, and it may get worse before it gets better. And so I suspect that we’re gonna be needed.

PAPPAS: I can go. Hi, my name’s KYRA PAPPAS. I’m out here in East County. I have been on the committee since 2021, I think. I’m looking at YUME. I’m like, that’s about I think when we came on, in the middle of the pandemic. And I think, echoing a little bit of what folks have been saying, is just a little bit more of a concrete timeline on what we’re wanting to do and some tangible mile markers. I think that would help some of our subcommittee work be a little bit more purposeful and allow us just to kind of feel successful at moments. I think there is a little bit where we’ve had some meetings where we’ve gone around the circle a few times, so I think some timelines would be nice. And I’m super excited that we have such new - I think it’s encouraging to see that in spite of, or despite of everything that’s been going on, we still have folks that are invested in and wanting to join our committee, and so I think it encourages me that the work that I know that we’re doing is purposeful, like other people see purpose in it too. So I think that that’s been encouraging to see all the new folks join the committee in the last year, year and a half.

DELEGATO: Thanks KYRA. I think we’re going by order of seniority at this point. So GREGG, I will let you have the penultimate word, and then I’ll take us home.

GRIFFIN: Okay. GREGG GRIFFIN, North Portland, he/him pronouns. I work with nonprofits right now. I work with a (inaudible - 00:24:02) called Go The Distance, where we take people who are actually in recovery out to exercise and get a feel of actually how to manage their recovery. With that said, my challenges, it’s off and on here, YUME and KYRA. I mean, KYRA and I have been trying to have a meeting about a part that actually hasn’t been happening yet. You know, it’s a slight confusing, in that challenging kind of way. I hope that we would actually get, as KYRA said earlier, more of a defined outline of what we’re doing, where we’re going, and what we’re supposed to be doing. How we’re supposed to interact with the new board? I don't know if anyone has either view or considering being on the new place, but I haven’t even entertained any kind of thoughts like that. I’m just tryin’ to figure out what are we doing here that actually is purposeful and that actually will get something done that makes us, like go out with something that we’ve done that actually we can put our names to that feels good, as KYRA said, and makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something. What I’d like to see new year, same thing. Basically, I would like to see more speakers, more people actually, even people in this new entity that’s coming on, coming and talking to us and actually having a real conversation about what it is they think they need or want to see. And other than that, I really appreciate all the new people. I appreciate KYRA and YUME for being here as long as I have. I think we all started together, so it’s probably somewhere the beginning of the pandemic, or the year before the pandemic, I’m not sure anymore. And it’s been a moment, so I wanna say thanks to everybody, but it’s been just kinda weird. Thanks.

DELEGATO: Thanks GREGG. Thanks everybody. So I will probably add to some of the sentiments that we’ve expressed tonight. YUME DELEGATO, he/him. I am the current chair of the CRC. MIKE and I, I think, started out as Work Group Volunteers back in 2020, so almost four and a half years ago. Like KYRA and GREGG, I’ve been on the CRC since 2021, so for about three and a half years. And I have been the chair of the CRC since fall of last year when now counselor elect, CANDACE AVALOS resigned to run for City Council. So, I would say the good parts about this job are A, being able to hopefully lead and be an advocate for this wonderful group of people. And getting to work with all of you, I think has been the real highlight for me of this year. As we alluded to, you know, 99 percent of what the CRC is not what we do on camera, right? It is the, I think, historic work load that we are being given in terms of Police Review Boards. And I’ll be frank, like those typically with less review time than we’ve had in the past, and with a lot more to review, right, as we move into a world with body-worn camera footage, with drone footage, with robot footage, with all of that kind of stuff, there is a lot more to take in. And I think for officer-involved shootings, there is a lot more to process, and I think that that can be a real burden for our membership. So what you see here represents a very small fraction of the work of this body, and I wanna reiterate my gratitude to all of you. I’m grateful for the work you do, but I’m grateful for you individually for stepping up and doing this work. My frustration is the same as yours, and perhaps a little bit more pronounced, having, you know, worked with our leaders in City Hall to try and move this work forward. Over four years ago, voters voted to get rid of this system of police oversight. All 11 of us signed up to be part of that process, and some of us have been here for, you know, going on four years now, some of us have been here for going on four months now. But all of us signed up for an ephemeral task, and one that we thought had a definitive end date. And I think what we are seeing right now, and part of the reason that we’re spinning our wheels is because we did put pressure on Council, on our elected leaders, on the City Attorney’s Office to deliver a timeline and to deliver an exit strategy. And for reasons outside of their control, right, that strategy has been abrogated. And so we are now at the mercy of the courts and the new City Council in terms of when this new system will come into place, so we don’t have a due date for that. So I think that’s a real existential crisis, and I think more than that, being frank, I think it, at this point, not honoring the will of the voters, or the commitments that like we have made to our volunteers and to our city staff. But we don’t have control over that. The current City Council does not have control over that. And unfortunately the new City Council does not have control over that until they get into office. And so we’re stuck in this liminal space at the end of the year where we all know what we want, and there is no one who can give it to us until January.

So, I think I will use that as a jumping off point for talking a little bit about what we wanna do in 2025. I almost said 2024, but time marches on. So, you know, I’ve heard people say that there’s a desire for more certainty, for more clarity. Some people talked about a desire to deepen their understanding in engagement with, you know, sort of our partners in this process, be that the Bureau, the City, the City Attorney’s Office, whoever, just talking to some of those stakeholders. And those are definitely things that we can do from a programming standpoint. I think it will be easier to start having those conversations in January when we can actually put those asks out to Council. We can put those asks out to the Mayor’s Office. I should say the Incoming Mayor’s Office. We’ll be able to find out. I don't know if they’re going to form a Public Safety Subcommittee, but I think that’s been discussed, and so maybe we can invite those members of Council to come and speak with us. We can definitely invite the Mayor.

But I also wanna talk a little bit about meeting cadence. So we have, I think for the better part of this year, been sort of nibbling around the idea that we meet monthly. And part of the reason that we meet monthly is to just sort of keep that muscle active and be able to show up here if we need to hear an appeal. It has been - well, I’ve been on CRC for almost four years. It’s been almost four years since we’ve had an appeal, so I don't know if we need to keep gaveling in for that purpose. So one of the questions I would ask you all is if you wanna keep meeting monthly, or if we wanna talk about maybe changing that cadence to every month or quarterly. We’re obligated to meet quarterly according to our, I think it’s the charter that obligates us to do that, but we’re not obligated to gavel in every month, and I wanna be sensitive to your time. I think a lot of us have talked about, you know, we have these meetings, and then we say, well we don’t know what’s going on, and then we adjourn. So I wanna be thoughtful about how we use our time. If we do reduce that cadence, I think the trade-off is that we still need you all to keep your first Wednesday free so that if we do get an appeal, we can call ya.

So I think that’s one question that I wanna put on the floor. I think we can talk about, you know, are there other ways that we can engage with elected officials and stakeholders. Like ROSS and KELSEY and I are always happy to go to our partners and ask them to come and speak to us. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no. I think we got lucky this fall, we did talk to the City Attorney’s Office. We talked to, you know, Chief DAY. You know, we can ask to talk to the DCA, the Deputy City Administrator. Like we can continue to do that engagement, and if there are maybe some names that you wanna put forward or people that you wanna talk to. We also have the opportunity to potentially meet off line and do, you know, a retreat for members if maybe there are training things that they wanna go over, or if we wanna have non-deliberative sessions. So those are some of the opportunities that are available to us. We also have the opportunity to do hybrid meetings if people have a desire to meet in person. So, I think I would open the floor to members if they have any preferences. I would definitely like us to consider the meeting cadence as one of the things that we look at going into the new year, just out of respect for your time. But also if people say, “No, I think we have a long list of people that we wanna call to come talk to us,” then we can continue to meet monthly. So I’m gonna open the floor up or any other actionable items if people wanna make a suggestion.

OSAKI: I’d go for it. In respect to the meetings, I like bi-monthly, would be great. ‘Cause otherwise, three months, I’d lose a lot of touch, and I wanna see your faces. So it would be good for me. And then if we started it in January, so if we did it January and then March, and if every other month we did a meeting, if one of those could be an in-person meeting, that is a suggestion that I’m bringing to the table. So within each quarter, you would have an in-person meeting and one Zoom or remote. That’s just a suggestion.

BUTLER: YUME, so for me, I’m happy to go with whatever the group says. I will be honest and say too, there is a part of me that because we are I service to the public, I’d be quite curious to hear what the public or our audience thinks. I mean, do they find that having us here once a month is really helpful for them and they enjoy coming to it. Or if they would be okay if we were to go bi-monthly. I think I’m kind of in SHAWN’S camp too, if we were gonna change it to be bi-monthly, 'cause I think, you know, once every three months could, yeah, make us all a little bit out of touch as well.

DELEGATO: Anyone else have anything they wanna add to the discussion? Oh, go ahead GREGG.

GRIFFIN: No, I’d say, I think bi-monthly is good. As long as we are available for that month that we might come up with an appeal, I think that’s really kind of a good idea, I mean. So there.

DELEGATO: To speak to BRIAN’S suggestion - so thank you all three of you for weighing in, and some people in the chat. To speak to BRIAN’S suggestion, I think we could put this forward for a vote, in which case we would allow public comment on it, so if someone wants to move. And then what I’m gonna suggest we do, if we do move to meet bi-monthly, we should talk about meeting cadence when we get to MIKE’S update for the Work Groups, just because what work we are giving to the Work Group may influence whether or not we wanna meet in January or in February. So, does someone want to move that we - well I’ll do it. I’ll move that we move to bi-monthly meetings in 2025.

TRUSEDALE: Seconded.

MEMBER: Second.

DELEGATO: All right. Thanks NOAH. Okay, so I feel like we can probably do a voice vote. But before we do that, we will give the opportunity for public comment. So if you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand. While you’re doing that, I see we have a question in the Q&A. So ROB asked, “What is the relationship, if any, between this group and PCCEP, the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Voicing?” So the CRC, the Citizen Review Committee, and the Independent Police Review, I’m going off of memory here, so this is a very rough history. But, those things are impaneled by City Code, in the Charter and in City Code, as our city’s current police oversight system, right? So those are things that Council has enacted. The Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, I think was put forward by the Mayor’s Office and is part of the current Settlement Agreement. That is, you know, much more explicitly a community engagement channel for the community to speak to city leadership and to city volunteers about their experiences with policing and their desires. So we have separate roles, and I think traditionally, we have both sort of flexed our muscles in terms of being conduits for both community feedback, and also maybe different perspectives on policing. But CRC is, you know, in many ways at its heart, a oversight body and a deliberative body. PCCEP is a community body, right? And I think those are two good distinctions. So sorry, that was a long-winded answer. I think we have, I’m gonna assume DAN HANDELMAN. DAN, feel free to talk. Yeah.

HANDELMAN: Well thank you. Hi, this is DAN HANDELMAN. I use he/him pronouns. I’m the group Portland Cop Watch, and thank you for having this discussion. Somebody asked about what did the audience think, and we’re not going to Police Review Board meetings. We’re not allowed into Police Review Board meetings. The Police Review Board puts out two reports a year. The first one came out in September. That means they have to put the other one out this month, and we’re usually the first people in the city to read those. So I think it would be really great, just in terms of having a public forum where people are talking about police accountability and police oversight, for you to meet, you know, as frequently as you can. And I know it’s frustrating, and I know you go to these long PRBs, but it’s probably only two or three of you in a month are going to those other meetings. So I’m hoping that you’ll consider that you might need to meet on a monthly basis, especially with the transitioning come up. There’s a lot of stuff to think about, and some of you are already signed up to be on the Nominating Committee. Some of you might sign up to be on the new board. So I think there might be a lot of questions that the public has before there’s any other venue to discuss what’s going on with the new system. And that’s one of the reasons I enjoy coming to these meetings. You know a lotta times you’re not hearing cases or discussing deeply substantive matters. I think it’s really important to have the space for the community. Thank you.

DELEGATO: Thanks DAN. DEBBIE. Okay, DEBBIE AIONA.

AIONA: Okay. So hi, DEBBIE AIONA.

WALSH: We lost DEBBIE. I think it went on mute.

AIONA: Now?

DELEGATO: Sorry, DEBBIE.

AIONA: Can you hear me?

DELEGATO: That was my fault. I hit the wrong button.

AIONA: Okay, it did say the host muted me. Okay, good, I’m glad I didn’t mess up. So, again, if you didn’t hear my name, I’m DEBBIE AIONA. I’m with the League of Women Voters of Portland, and I’ve been attending these meetings since the beginning. I do think that since you don’t have a lot on your hands right now, and there’s a lot of uncertainty, I think you could use these meetings for more educational purposes. One of your functions is to gather community concerns, and one of the ways to do that is to - like you could have the head of Internal Affairs come and talk about what it is they do. Or, as Mr. HANDELMAN pointed out, the whole Police Review Board system is a bit of a mystery, and perhaps there would d be some way to shed some light on what goes on with those without breaking any confidentiality. So, you know, I think that would give the meetings a purpose and really be great for people like me who are really interested in this to learn more about all the innerworkings of our police oversight system. So thank you very much.

DELEGATO: Thanks DEBBIE. Thank you, DAN. I will do last call for public comment, and then I think I’m gonna kick this discussion back to the group before we vote. So, I mean, I think we have a couple of options, right? One is we can vote no, we can vote yes. Like those are obviously the two, I mean, options. We also can table this discussion if people feel that, you know, that’s something that they wish to do until the new council convenes. I mean, I think I would be more willing to continue to meet monthly if I felt like we had a timetable, right? And I’m gonna be frank with our community members, we have made our concerns known to Judge SIMONS, and Judge SIMONS has basically said he doesn’t care. So at this point I’m not sure what like our capacity as an advisory body means if there’s no one to listen to it, right? So, if council, you know, wants to say, “Hey, this is the timetable. This is what we’re doing,” then I think our ability to be advisory body is more salient, personally. So we can make a change and revisit that in the new year. We can choose not to make a change. Or we can table this and see what council does. And I think that’s gonna be the theme of a couple of the decisions that we need to make tonight. But, you know, the 11 of us make up this body. SHAWN?

OSAKI: So we’re not gonna know anything more in January, right? ‘Cause it’s what, the 4th of January? So that kind of seems not worth it, not the investment, because we’re not gonna be able to bring anything new to the table, unless we can formulate questions to be able to present to the new charter of how we - questions or how to be able to get face-to-face with them on what their overall goals are and how they see us being implemented into the society or system. Then maybe it starts with February, and then you alternate months, and we have a little bit more understanding and clarity. But again, I’m new to it, so I’m spit-ballin’ here.

DELEGATO: Yeah. So I will, I guess, cheat a little bit and a give you a flavor of what’s comin’ up next in this meeting. Sort of the next question would be, our January meeting would actually be the 1st of the month, because Wednesday is I believe New Year’s Day. So if we meet in January, we would have to kinda go off-schedule anyways and postpone it to the 8th, which is not a problem. SHAWN is correct though, Council I think will have just gaveled in for their first session, and I think it’s anticipated that that will just be administrative. You know, that they need to elect a council president and vice president. They need to, yeah, find out where their desks are, etc. So, one option that we have is I think it would potentially make sense to look at cancelling the January meeting, regardless of what we are doing for cadence. And so we can either choose to cancel that meeting and take up this discussion in February, or we can just adopt a bi-monthly schedule, and we can always revisit that. So those are, I think, two of probably the more likely options in my mind. Generally speaking, we have a annual meeting in April when we elect officers. So if we were to meet in February, and then again in April, and then again in, I guess, June and August, right, that would meet our quarterly requirement. It would also allow us to kinda keep our normal cadence on officer elections, which is important, because I think a lot of us were appointed in April as well. So if we have new members, they’ll probably be filling in based on those terms. So, if someone wants to make - I’ll just put it to the group. Like you can say, “No, I wanna keep meeting monthly.” “Yes, I want to switch to bi-monthlies, and starting in February.” Or, “I wanna just cancel the January meeting, and we can take up this discussion in February or in March.”

GRIFFIN: Okay, I’ll tell you where I’m at. I’d add, just cancelling January’s meeting and waiting until February to see what’s happening, and tabling this for a moment.

BUTLER: YUME, I would say I have to agree with GREGG, because I think, as we’ve all been discussing tonight, we don’t even know where we’re gonna be on the priority list. So even if we continue having our meetings bi-monthly, every month, whatever, we’re still, you know, the poor stepchild, or somethin’ like that, you know, in terms of them having to look at us and give us a decision. So I agree with GREGG. I say let’s cancel January and go with February.

DELEGATO: MIKE?

WALSH: Well, you know, you’re gonna call on me in a moment probably to talk about Transition Work Group, our Work Product. And so I’d actually be in favor of meeting in January, depending on how our discussion goes next. But if we decide we wanna vote on our letter, or whatever we decide to do, we would do that in January so we can get that to the city council in January. So it’s a little bit of a chicken before the egg thing. You know, I’m not sure how to vote on this, but I would advocate January. And part of me thinks we do monthly from January. We do January, February, March, April, and then we elect officers, and then we decide in April, do we go quarterly at that point 'cause we’ll have a lot of information. I recognize that’s a totally different way of looking at it, but that keeps us meeting regularly while City Council’s getting new, or is getting used to their work. So throwin’ that out. But January I’d like to meet, if possible, depending on how the next conversation goes.

DELEGATO: Okay. Well, I’m gonna move that we table this.

WALSH: Okay.

DELEGATO: It’s clear we were not ready to make a decision. I’m looking up Roberts here. So I think we need a second, and then if everyone just nods, we’ll consider that affirmation.

MEMBER: Second.

DELEGATO: Are we all in favor of tabling? Okay. So the motion is tabled. Before we get into MIKE’S update for the Transition Work Group, I will say I think it seems likely to me that one of the first things that we need to do in the new year is to try and meet with city leadership. And so, in addition to CRC leadership, tryin’ to continue our tradition of meeting with the Mayor’s Office, I’m gonna make the executive decision that we, as in KELSEY, and ROSS, and I, will reach out to the Mayor’s Office and Public Safety and Council, and probably the City Attorney’s Office and just see like who is available and able to come meet with us in the new year. And that, I guess, will be a little bit determined based on when we decide to meet. But we will put that at the top of the agenda. They can all tell us no, which is always a possibility. But I suspect that, if nothing else, the city attorney would be willing to come and give us an update, 'cause they’ll actually know something by that point. BRIAN? BRIAN, you’re muted.

MEMBER: BRIAN, unmute.

BUTLER: Sorry. I’m just wondering, if we’re going to reach out to city administrators and stuff about them coming to see us, would it be smart for us to wait to see who is available before we actually plan the next meeting? Just with the new council comin’ in, it might be worth givin’ them a chance to actually get in. You know, because, I mean, even if they did come in January, are they gonna really be able to give us any clear information because they’re also gonna be so new? So, I mean, you know, if we are gonna meet in January, could we, you know, just sort of meet in accordance with how they, you know - what availability they have?

DELEGATO: Yeah, I think we’ll have to make that ask for February or March. But in a second here we’ll move into MIKE’S discussion about whether we need to review anything from the Work Group. But I would say probably January would be too early to meet with incoming City staff, just because we don’t have anybody to email just yet. NOAH.

TRUESDALE: Do we need to do anything to formalize not having our January meeting on the 1st then? Or we can just say it’s on the 8th?

DELEGATO: Yeah, I think we can do consensus on that. Generally speaking, it’s the chair’s discretion as to, you know, if we have to cancel a meeting for lack of quorum or agenda, so. Okay, before we move into Work Group Reports, I just wanna hold on sort of intention setting for the year. So the two other things that, you know, we should talk about are if there are any other people that you wanna sorta put on our wish list, or our witness list, depending on how you wanna look at it, whether that’s subject matter experts. You know, you could say, “Hey, like this has been coming up, I wanna really hear from somebody in the Training Division.” We have talked with the Independent Monitor in the past, and I think we will continue to have those discussions. KELSEY, I’m assuming that we don’t have any other reports coming out in Q1 that we need to be aware of, right? Okay. So, are we done with OAR?

LLOYD: No, they’re still working on a report. They’ve got some cases to review, and they’re under contract with us to produce the report in 2025, but it’s gonna be later in the year.

DELEGATO: Okay. So if there’s, you know, any requests that people have for, you know, sort of subject matter experts or the usual suspects of a speaker, the Mayor, City Attorney’s Office, City Council, and probably the Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety, those are the people that I would be talking to about the transition. But if there’s anyone within the ecosystem that you want to put forward as somebody that we should be talking to, you can let us know now, or you can always bring it up at a future meeting. But just in terms of kinda planning some agendas for the upcoming year, we wanna make sure that we’re talking to people that you wanna talk to. SHAWN.

OSAKI: Yeah, would like a Field Training Officer from the Bureau be a viable candidate to speak, in the respect of tryin’ to get baseline training and what the officers are trained to do in the various scenarios because you can’t plan for them all, so what is the underlying ethos that they’re trying to teach their officers while they’re out there on their own.

DELEGATO: I think that’s a possibility. So we can ask anyone, right? Whether or not they say yes, or whether or not they feel like they have something to add to that conversation, you know, is always the questions. Obviously, the Bureau does provide, you know, Citizen Academy, or I should say Community Academy now, and, you know, the ride-along opportunities. So I think some of that perspective or content is intended to be encapsulated in those. Has everyone done their Community Academy at this point? Okay. So making sure that we get all of you matriculated through that process is really important. I think if we were to make an ask of Training, it would probably need to be a little bit more sort of directed. But I might suggest that we make sure that everyone’s gone through Community Academy, 'cause that may answer some of those questions. KELSEY, did you have something to add to that? Okay. Okay, so this is an open topic. We can continue to add to that list as we go throughout the year. Before we move on, any other sort of wish list items or goals that people wanna set for the coming year? Okay. NOAH.

TRUESDALE: Sorry, it’s gonna be late in the process, but presumably the next director of the next board. It’d be good to have them come and hear from us or talk to them. Just something to think about.

DELEGATO: Yeah, I think that would be amazing, and unfortunately, quite a ways in the future. So, I know that under the current transition plan, the Nominating Committee was supposed to meet and nominate the new board. And then I think that same Nominating Committee was envisioned to also interview the applicants for the first director. I don't know if that will change at all under the new Council. I think that’s a question that we’d have to pose to the City Attorney’s Office. So, I think to that end, one of the things that we can do in the new year is circle back with the City Attorney and just say, “Hey, you know, is this process changing because there’s the new council and if they’re gonna have to ratify that? Or is this something that’s gonna stay the same?” You know, that’s an open question in my mind at this point. Okay, so moving on to Work Group reports. MIKE, I’m going to turn the floor over to you, and we can talk a little bit. I think we had tabled the Work Group letter at the last meeting.

WALSH: Mm-hmm.

DELEGATO: So gonna let you take it from here.

WALSH: Yeah, thank you. Thanks, YUME. Yeah, and DAVID just put the letter draft in the chat there, so you can follow along. So at the last meeting, just a quick recap, we discussed the Transition Work Group draft of a letter that would be from us as the CRC to the City, to the Mayor and City Council, mostly with respect to our role in the transition. And at that meeting, we discussed it for a pretty good amount of time and decided to make - actually, YUME, I realized I actually did make the edit, take one big paragraph out that everybody seemed to think was not necessary, and then leave as it is now, as you see it. So to table it and come back to decide whether this is something we thought would be useful as a communication to the new City Council and the new Mayor. So essentially, if you have a chance, you can take a look at it. Hopefully the link works. And I think what we’d like to do, you know, as a Transition Work Group, is have a discussion here, maybe even a decision about ratifying it, you know, voting on it, and sending it or not. That’s essentially the decision to be made. Share the document on the - I don't know if I can share. Can I share? YUME, what do you want me to do? Is that how you would rather have it done? Or maybe DAVID can share it?

DELEGATO: I think you’re a co-host, MIKE.

WALSH: Oh, okay, so I can do it. Let’s see. I use Webex at work, so Zoom is very mysterious to me, so you’ll have to just bear with me as I just do this. All right.

DELEGATO: So MIKE, as we review this, I just wanna ask, is your feeling that this letter is ready for sort of an up or down vote? Or is there more editing that you’d like to see happen at this point?

WALSH: I don’t see any more substantial editing, in terms of content. I mean, there could be quibbling about various ways of sentence construction and that kind of stuff, but I don’t see anything that would be substantial in terms of the content and the meaning. If I’m goin’ too fast, please let me know. I’m tryin’ to give you time to read through it, obviously.

DELEGATO: MIKE, when we started this letter, it was obviously with the prior Council.

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: And with pre-ruling, or final rulings from Judge SIMONS.

WALSH: Pre Judge SIMONS, yeah.

DELEGATO: Do you think that anything in this tone should change or be adjusted for the new Council, or do you think the sentiment still remains the same?

WALSH: Well I think the sentiment still remains the same. I think the point is - and if the language isn’t clear enough. The point, I think, that we’re tryin’ to make is that here are some examples of how, if we had been consulted, we might have been able to provide better, you know, information - to provide maybe different decisions, or maybe the same decisions were made, but they’d be better informed. So I think that’s the tone we were tryin’ to bring about. If you see some language in there - like, for instance, I’m just gonna scroll up, for those of you who are reading, I’m sorry. But one of the things I write in here is that “however, the CRC expertise has not been sought by the City in resolving difficult transition issues.” So that’s a pretty strong statement, and that might be, you know, modified a little bit. But that’s going with the spirit of, here are three examples of where we probably could have provided you some information, and so our appeal to you is to please, let’s involve us more. You’re new now. We’re new - I mean, we’re not new, we have our expertise, and we can really help you in your transition as new City Council and Mayor. But, other Work Group members, feel welcome to, you know, pop in if you have different opinions, or if you wanna support that, either way.

DELEGATO: So I will open the floor to our members. I think I’m gonna frame this, just in terms of maybe outlining some options for membership here. So, we’ve kinda gone back and forth on this for quite some time, although I think not without good reason, since things have been in flux.

WALSH: Mm-hmm.

DELEGATO: I think there are potentially some edits that we might wanna make, just to update the tone.

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: You know, I think it would be nice to say, “Welcome, new Council Members.”

WALSH: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

DELEGATO: I think there are three options here. I don’t think this requires a vote at this stage, but we can step away from this, and either just say, “Hey, we’re not gonna do a letter at this time. We’re gonna wait and see what happens with the new council.” We can choose to move forward with this, in which case we can either do some edits right now, tonight. Or we can sort of, you know, send this back to the Work Group for a final draft and vote on it in January. Which I think gets to the point of whether or not we need to gavel in in January, given that obviously Council will still be getting their feet. KELSEY, as a point of procedure, if we decide to forward this letter to the new Council, would we need to do so in January, or could we say, “We’re directing IPR to forward this to Council as soon as their emails are set up.”

LLOYD: You know, that’s a good question that I don’t have an answer for. You know, I think we certainly can take that directive. I don’t think there’s anything that says that sending it to us now would mean we can’t hold it for the new Council. But yeah, certainly, they don’t even have their staff yet or anything, and I think they’re just doing orientation this week for some of their very basic things. So yeah, we wouldn’t be able to get anything to them likely until they’re sworn in in January. Yeah.

DELEGATO: Okay. So that’s the world that we’re operating in. CHRIS?

PIEKARSKI: Of the options that you’ve raised, I think last time I said I didn’t feel like we should be editing this in this group context. I continue to think it makes sense to let the Work Group create a product that’s ready to go, but I also do agree, YUME, that the product as-is, I think, reflects a tone that might need some adjustment. So I’d be happy to come back to see another revision that we can vote on in a future meeting.

DELEGATO: MIKE.

WALSH: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I appreciate that, CHRIS. I agree. What I would propose is that we take it back to the Work Group and we change that tone, we add some things, like “Welcome,” and certainly would take suggestions on tone here now. And then the Transition Work Group meet before the January meeting, even if briefly just to go over that draft and say, “Yeah, we agree, this is our final product,” and then give it to you all well before the January meeting. So essentially, I would try to get our Work Group together probably next week to do that. And then I could send it to you all, and then we could vote on it, if we decided to do that in January.

DELEGATO: So, I think I would - given that we don’t have a final product, I don’t think we need to vote on this, but I would just poll the group, in terms of do we wanna send this back to the Work Group and ask them to make some revisions? Or do we wanna spike it? I think those are the two options. If we send it back to the Work Group we are meeting in January, most likely on the 8th, to vote on this thing. So don’t let that discourage you from voting one direction or the other, but just be aware that that would be the next step then, is that we would come back in January, we’d vote on it, and we’d forward it to Council at that juncture. So I saw a couple of head nods for vote in January? Does anyone feel differently? Seein’ thumbs up. Okay. If you wanna be done with this, speak now or forever hold your peace. Otherwise, we’re comin’ back in January.

WALSH: Well, I’d like to be done, but no, I’m just kiddin’.

DELEGATO: Okay.

WALSH: So then DAVID, real quick, we’ll schedule a Work Group meeting for next week, and I’ll connect with you by email about that date and time.

DELEGATO: Okay. And I think, just sort of capturing for the record here, MIKE. I think the directive, at least what we’ve heard, and obviously the Work Group can make whatever adjustments they need, but I do think we should welcome the new Council.

WALSH: Mm-hmm.

DELEGATO: I think you are correct. Current Council did listen to us on some topics, right?

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: I think we could’ve been consulted early and often, and I would say the same about the Police Accountability Commission, in terms of like some of their recommendations. They didn’t have a ton of time to meet with CRC. But we asked for a timeline, we were given a timeline. That timeline was abrogated, right?

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: So, I think -

WALSH: Yeah. Yeah.

DELEGATO: - that’s not an entirely fair statement for the current Council.

WALSH: Right.

DELEGATO: And it’s definitely not a useful statement for the new Council.

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: But I think the ask at this juncture, based on what we heard in our session here, is, you know, that we need a timeline, right?

WALSH: Yeah.

DELEGATO: And I think we can draw a finer point on that, right? Like people have made commitments to this organization, both on the staff side, and on the volunteer side, and City Council now has the authority over like when we get to go home, right? And so, I don’t think there’s anyone on City Council who doesn’t want to, you know, see a resolution to this process, but we are going to be asking their indulgence to make sure that it is a priority in a year that has a lot of priorities and a lotta challenges for Council. And I think that would be, you know, maybe the other framing is like, “Welcome,” and also, “Please, please help us.”

WALSH: Yeah. I heard that. Okay, got it. Yep.

DELEGATO: All right. Okay. So any other business from the Transition Work Group?

WALSH: Nope.

DELEGATO: Okay.

WALSH: We’re all set now. Thank you.

DELEGATO: All right. GREGG and KYRA, I know that there’s been some work behind the scenes. I don't know if you feel ready to give an update tonight, or if you wanna table that, but welcome to the floor.

PAPPAS: No, we can table that. And GREGG and I are hoping to also meet this month before January so we can have some more work to be able to share with everybody.

DELEGATO: Okay, awesome. All right, so that concludes our Work Group updates. So just recapping, before we get into public comment. Are we all in agreement, but does Wednesday, the 8th, work for everyone as our reconvening dates since that’s not our scheduled date? Okay. So we will meet on Wednesday the 8th. Presumably, we will also plan on meeting in February, and that’s when we’re gonna try and get some guests to come talk to us and maybe respond to our beautiful and lovingly crafted Welcome Letter. And then at that point, you know, I think maybe we’ll have greater context as to what we need to do. One of the things I could like to see the Transition Work Group shift into is actual transition, which we’ve been somewhat stymied on. So hopefully in 2025, we can start talking about what is our exit date? You know, are there gonna be Council remedies that need to take place? You know, I would point out, I’m not in it for the money, by any means, but, you know, the new board is entitled to stipends. They’re entitled to staff support. They’re entitled to a much bigger budget than we currently have. And I think Council did not choose to make any of those things available to this body, I think partially because they assumed that we would be wrapping up by now. But if we’re gonna be stuck here for a while longer, like those are things that we can discuss. Like, are there asks that we wanna make of Council? Are there resources that we need? Are there resources that IPR needs? Obviously we’re in a difficult budget cycle, but like the City has made commitments to its citizens, and I think that’s an area that we have a stake in in determining. So as we move into a period of implementation, what that implementation looks like, what best practices are, and how we can assist with that, I think is super relevant, once we can actually figure out what the timeline is. So, all right.

WALSH: Yeah, I’ve got that in my notes now. Thanks.

DELEGATO: Any other new or old business before we move into Public Comment? Going once? Okay. So we will open it up to public comment. As always, members of the public can give public comment for up to three minutes on a topic relevant to the CRC’s scope. So I will ask you to raise your hand if you’d like to give public comment, and we’ll move on from there. DAN, go ahead.

HANDELMAN: Oh, hi. DAN HANDELMAN again, he/him pronouns, Portland Cop Watch. Appreciate your discussion tonight. I’m not sure if you’re planning to send the letter that you’re sending to City Council also to the Mayor and to - the Deputy Administrator’s not only in charge of public safety, but I heard somebody mention the Deputy Administrator in front of Operations, which is where the new board’s gonna be housed, so I think all those folks should get it too. The Police Review Board, I was reminded that the DOJ agreement says that CRC members can only serve three-year terms on there, and I know there was one member of the CRC that was on there - she was on CRC for nine years, and think was at PRBs the whole time. So I don’t think that’s enforced, but I think that is a problematic phrase that’s in there, and the Monitor highlighted that in their plans. I think that the Director’s Report, as usual, didn’t go into the details about the deadly force cases, which is one of the most important things for people following police accountability issues, and there are eight listed there, and I still don’t understand all the listings of what the stages are, where those are in terms of their investigation, and so forth. I found out today that the new City Council members actually have their own emails now for the City of Portland. You know, I know you acknowledged they’re getting orientation, but they actually have their own emails now. Talked about the Crowd Control Policies you recommended. I don't know if you looked at the Independent Monitor, LLC, which is the people who were looking at the Crowd Control Policies for the City of Portland, but they went before City Council a couple weeks ago. It’s worth watching that video. The new system, you remember that two of you are now, you know, going to be on the Nominating Committee, you’ve already decided who those are gonna be. And the rest of you could theoretically apply to be on the new board, which I think would be helpful. I think the biggest question that has never been answered for me, is can a case that gets filed with IPR be finished and adjugated through the new board? Because the police association, the officers may not like that if they, you know, engage in behavior and then get judged under the new system, when they committed the act under the old system. And I don't know if you know any answer to that. I certainly don’t, even though I was on the Police Accountability Commission. That might matter for how long you have to stay around, right? ‘Cause if you have to be around to hear, not only appeals, but PRB cases from the old system, you should know the answer to that question. Thank you.

DELEGATO: Thanks DAN. I think that’s a good reminder. I obviously am used to dealin’ with public safety, 'cause they are in charge of the PAC and have been supporting us in some of our actions. But you are correct that IPR and CRC, and obviously the new system, will live in the other service area. My recollection on the tenure piece is that I believe it’s six years. It’s terms of three years, renewable up to six on the Police Review Board, but I’m going from memory. I think the bigger issue is that some of us are gonna be hitting that six-year mark probably well before the current caseload runs out, based on the current transition. So that’s an issue, and we have raised the question of whether or not we can transfer those cases over to the new board. I think our understanding of collective bargaining is that that’s not gonna be an issue, but there’s nobody from the City Attorney’s Office here tonight, so that is a super salient question once the new council takes up these issues in the new year. So we had a photo finish for raising your hand second. I think MARK got it by just a wire, so we’ll go to MARK P. SMITH, and then we’ll go to DEBBIE IONA.

SMITH: Good evening everyone, and hi YUME, it’s nice to see you. I’ll try to be quick so that DEBBIE can get comment in as well. I should actually start this comment with a very quick disclaimer. I only was able to join the meeting less than 20 minutes ago. A colleague from the Monitoring Team was here for the entire meeting prior to that. He had to hop off, and I actually joined at the end, so I missed a lot of discussion, although my colleague did hear it. The reason I wanted to make a comment is first, for anyone who’s on the call who I have not had a chance to say hello to or get to know just yet, my name is MARK SMITH, I’m the Lead Monitor over the DOJ Settlement Agreement. And the reason for my comment tonight is twofold. One is that even in the few minutes that I was able to see the end of the discussion that you were having about the letter, it was apparent to me what was apparent already in my communications with the CRC. The dedication of this group, the commitment to playing its role to ensure appropriate policing by PPB is so apparent, and I’m just appreciative of it. And I only was able to see a few minutes of tonight’s discussion, but it’s outwardly apparent, and it has been since I’ve had a chance to get to know the CRC. I just wanna say a quick thank you for that. The second part of my message is slightly self-serving on behalf of the Monitoring Team, and I wanna make sure it’s appropriate and you’re comfortable with it. But it’s certainly in the realm of the CRC and many other aspects of oversight of PPB. I wanted to just make a very quick announcement or reminder to anyone who did not already now that the Monitor’s Methodological and Monitoring Plans are up on the City’s website and available for public comment. They have been for a few weeks, and they will remain open for public comment until December 8th. And if it’s allowable, and if I have access, I’ll share a link in the chat where people can find those documents, the Methodological and Monitoring Plans, and how to provide us comment, if they want to. We want to try to make sure that everyone on this call, your circles, your spheres of influence has the opportunity to make comment if they would like to, and that’s by December 8th. So again, assuming I can, I’ll put those into the chat. Thank you for indulging me, and happy to answer questions if you have them. But again, just appreciate the dedication of this group. It is something that’s near and dear to my heart, as someone who’s done oversight of policing for a long time now, so thank you for that, and I’ll end my comment there.

DELEGATO: Appreciate it. Thank you, MARK. And if you aren’t able to paste that into the chat, go ahead and send it as a direct message to us. No, it’s in there, so there you go. DEBBIE?

AIONA: Hi.

DELEGATO: You got the last word.

AIONA: Yeah, DEBBIE AIONA again. So a couple things. This is sort of a follow-up on the question that Mr. HANDELMAN and others have raised about how we deal with the lingering cases that IPR is handling now as we transition to the new system. And I just made note in viewing the Director’s Report, I think the oldest case now is 880 days long. And it’s just puzzling to me what happens to something that’s been around that long, and how the hand-off is going to be managed, or if IPR just has to stay around until that one gets resolved? And then the second thing is, you know, as a long-time observer of the Citizen Review Committee, it’s just been very puzzling to see that you guys haven’t had an appeal for so long. And I think if you were gonna do some sort of community education kind of things in next year’s CRC meetings, it would be interesting to have maybe people from Internal Affairs and IPR, CRC, reflect on what is it that’s different now that is making it so that people are not appealing their cases. I mean, are the investigations so much better? Are you communicating better with people who’ve filed cases? I don't know, it’s very puzzling, and I think it would be very interesting to hear. I know there’s no definite answer, but to hear some sort of reflections on why we think that that is happening. Okay, so that’s all I have. Thank you very much for all your hard work.

DELEGATO: Thanks DEBBIE. I think some of it is, you know, I know that in 2021 when we started to see appeals fall off that people expressed a desire to wait for the new system. I don't know if that’s still the case, but I do think it’s notable that 82 percent of Portland voters said that this system doesn’t work. So I think that’s part of the reason we’re not getting appeals. I would love to entertain the idea that IA and IPR are doing a great job and that’s also why we’re not getting appeals, and I’m sure that’s part of it. But I think that goes without saying. Just again on the issue of, you know, caseload. Obviously, I think we’ve talked about the reasons behind the 800-day case, and I think we will not see those again. But I think it does raise a bigger issue that, you know, I know the City has been operating under the understanding that any current cases - so if the new system goes into effect on July 1, anything that happened on June 30th will be heard by the current system, and I think that’s a bargaining issue, although I don’t wanna speak for the City Attorney’s Office. Whether or not there could be Council action or something bargained to solve that problem is a question that I think we’ve raised a couple of times, and I think it becomes more salient the longer this process goes. But I think that is the operating assumption that we’re working with. Whether or not that will change or what would be necessary for that to change, I think is an open question, and one that I’ve posed to Council, and I think one that we need to continue to pose. So appreciate the comments from all three of you. If no one else has anything to add, if there’s no other public comment, then I’m gonna move to adjourn here in just a second. Before we do, wanna thank all of you for your service on the CRC one last time. I wanna thank you, both the public and our members and staff here tonight, for your interest and dedication to the cause of police accountability and oversight throughout the year, and I wanna wish all of you a Happy Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. We will see you on Wednesday, January 8th. It is 6:55. This meeting is adjourned. See you in 2025.

TRUESDALE: Happy New Year.

PAPPAS: Thanks everyone.

WALSH: Thanks everybody.

MEMBER: Thank you.

WALSH: And Transition Work Group, we’ll see you in a few days.