A new police oversight proposal is on the table for the City of Burlington.
The City Council Public Safety Committee put forward a new proposal Thursday evening that aims to give the current citizen oversight Police Commission more power to hold the Burlington Police Department accountable.
The council passed a proposed charter change in December that would have authorized the creation of a new, independent oversight board, separate from the current Police Commission. That board would have had the power to investigate and discipline the police.
But in a New Year’s Eve veto, Mayor Miro Weinberger nixed the plan, primarily because he thought it was too “hostile” toward police and overly ambitious for a charter change, which requires approval by voters and the Legislature and can take years to implement.
The resolution brought forward by City Councilors Karen Paul, D-Ward 6; Zoraya Hightower, P-Ward 1; and Jane Stromberg, P-Ward 8, on Thursday evening is the first iteration of a compromise that aims to bring the mayor on board while retaining support from Progressives, who enjoy a majority on the council.
The proposal has yet to be passed out of committee. Councilors worked through a set of revisions Thursday night with Police Commission member Stephanie Seguino, who is a University of Vermont professor of economics. The edits need to be approved by the city attorney’s office and then brought to the larger council, which Paul said she would like to do by the body’s August meeting.
Paul said the resolution works to expand the powers of the current Police Commission. It does not create a new body to avoid the charter change process, Paul said, which can take years and see major influence from Statehouse players.
“What we’ve seen with charter changes that we approve by March, those, at the earliest, will come back to the city sometime in, probably, March of 2022,” Paul said. “That’s two years after the approval.”
Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District, first proposed the independent oversight board and had been opposed to only expanding the Police Commission’s power. Paul said she hopes Freeman will support the new proposal.
Stromberg said she’s ready to vote favorably on the proposal.
“I think it makes sense to move forward on something we can agree on,” Stromberg said.
The resolution would ensure, through an ordinance change, that the commission has the ability to review all complaints of police misconduct and determine whether the complaints are low-, mid- or high-level infractions. Seguino requested that the commission, not the chief, determine the severity of a complaint in order to prohibit the chief from using the low-level designation to avoid scrutiny.
The resolution also proposes that the commission be able to hire its own independent lawyers and investigators if it chooses to hold independent investigations into any complaints against officers. The commission would also have the power to recommend discipline for an officer following an investigation.
If the chief disagrees with the commission’s recommendations following an investigation, the resolution would require that the chief submit their argument in writing for review among the Human Rights Commission, the council’s Public Safety Committee and the mayor’s office. The three bodies would make a final determination on the commission’s recommendation after taking testimony.
The commission recently held a series of trainings with the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, and Seguino said that led more commission members to believe that the body should have greater independence from the BPD. This includes holding meetings in a location other than the police department and deliberating on certain issues without the police chief present.
“So although these seem superficial things,” Seguino said, “they’re really fundamentally important.”
Clarification: Paul’s view on Freeman’s perspective on the proposal has been clarified.