Public Safety Committee

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE August 4, 2017 A special meeting of the Public Safety Committee was held this date beginning at 3:38 p.m., at City Hall, First Floor Conference Room. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Kathleen Wilson, Chair, Councilmember Lewis, Mayor Tecklenburg, and Councilmember Wagner (by phone until he arrived at 3:55 p.m.) Staff: Kay Cross, Susan Poteat Amy Wharton, Janie Borden, and Wanda Stepp, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Chairwoman Wilson. Approval of Minutes On the motion of Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Shahid, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the June 15, 2017 and July 6, 2017 minutes. Update on Fire and Police Chief Searches Kay Cross said hello to the Committee and said that they had finalized the contracts with ESCI for the Fire Chief Search and PERF for the Police Chief Search. She was waiting to get those three originals with their signature and once she got them she would obtain signature from Amy or the Mayor to finalize those but they were in agreement on all of the terms. She said they had set dates for their first visit to the City to get the process going. ESCI would be coming on August 16th and PERF would be coming on August 29th. Both of them would be reaching out to all of them individually to get their thoughts on what they felt were the most important qualifications in a Fire Chief and a Police Chief. So, if they could all just give her some times of day that were the best times to reach them and contact numbers that would be very helpful. She said they would be finalizing the job description, getting their advertising plan in order, setting a timeline, and working on the brochure. She asked if anyone had questions. Councilmember Shahid asked where the meetings would take place and Ms. Cross stated that they had meetings scheduled and Mayor Tecklenburg had block off time on his calendar. They would then just be meeting with her in Human Resources to do ground work. This was just a preliminary visit and they would be coming again. They were planning on spending just one night at this time. Councilmember Lewis said that they needed to get the information to her and Ms. Cross said yes and they could do that after the meeting that day. Mayor Tecklenburg said that he would report that they had spoken with Chuck Wexler who was the head of PERF. He was involved in the search for Chief Mullen and was Mr. Wexler was familiar with the process and with Charleston. He was a professional and Mayor Tecklenburg had heard nothing but great things about him. He looked forward to working with Mr. Wexler. He thought they would come to find the next great Police and Fire Chief of Charleston. Chairwoman Wilson said that she agreed and those firms had done exceptional work for the City last time. She thought they had gotten this off on very  Committee on Public Safety minutes August 4, 2017 page 2 good footing. Ms. Cross said that she agreed and that both firms were excited to be working with Charleston again. Presentation by Novak pertaining to subcontractors to conduct an audit of the City of Charleston Police Department for purposes of making a recommendation to the Mayor Chairwoman Wilson said that Julia Novak was with them pertaining to subcontractors to conduct an audit of the City of Charleston Police Department for purposes of making a recommendation to the Mayor. Julia Novak thanked them for having her there. She wanted to present, formally, the options they had identified as a special advisor. They had packets for the Committee. The request was that they identify three firms that they could work with, in order to complete this work, and they went out and talked to people who were experts in this area, got some recommendations from folks, the Department of Justice, and other people that they were aware of and had provided the Committee with three options to make a recommendation to the Mayor. The first was a firm and the others were individuals. RTI International was an independent non-profit research institute that was dedicated to improving the human condition and they had about eight different practice areas including international development, public health, energy research, food security, but germane to this work they had a practice in social injustice policy, and as part of that they did work with criminal justice, law enforcement, and corrections agencies. They had recently been doing work in this area of identifying bias in policing and they had done work with the City of Durham, North Carolina. They were located in the Raleigh-Durham Triangle in North Carolina, so they had a number of criminologists and social researchers that were part of their team and they would serve in a capacity to them to be both advisors in process, and support on the data analytics so that they ensured a good product for the City. The second was an individual, Dr. Jeff Rojek. He was the Director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Rojek had been in UTEP since 2015 and though he was originally from the St. Louis area, he also had some South Carolina roots, in that he used to work at the University of South Carolina in their Criminal Justice Program. So, this was an area of research study for Dr. Rojek. He recently had completed a project for the City of San Jose, California along very similar lines in terms of looking at police equity and bias. He was someone that they reached out to and he said he would be interested in working with them. The third person was Dr. Robin Engel. Dr. Engel was based out of the University of Cincinnati where had two roles at the University. She was a criminologist and researcher and had been studying police equity and bias issues since the early 2000s and had been published on this particular issue dating back to 2008. She had worked with a number of Municipal Police Departments, as well as State Patrol Agency. She had worked for the NAACP, Department of Justice, and had done some work internationally in this particular area of focus. About two years ago Dr. Engel was put in a position to be the Vice President of Public Safety and Reform so she had given up some of her teaching responsibilities and had oversight of the University Police Department, as they had sought to re-train their workforce following the shooting incident that occurred in the community off the University property where a civilian was killed. A community member was killed and she went about both reforming the department, as well as working to improve community relations. Any of these individuals or the firm, RTI, would be excellent partners for this particular project. One of Ms. Novak’s biases was to work with someone who had a long history of researching this issue, that  Committee on Public Safety minutes August 4, 2017 page 3 didn’t just fall into, but it’s been an area of study for them, and she thought any of the firms and individuals had the right background to be an excellent advisor to them on this particular project. She was happy to answer questions. Mayor Tecklenburg asked beyond the experts, how she viewed the process once someone was selected. Ms. Novak stated that it was important that they defined the scope of work after they had the chance to meet with community members. They would meet with elected individuals, representatives from the Police Department, and community members to get different perspectives on the project. They saw four pieces to the work. One was understanding what the community experienced/what expectations were and another was understanding the Police Officer’s experiences and expectations. Then, they had data validation. So much of this work was going to be untangling the data and understanding and interpreting it and then finally coming up with solutions, so it was really four pieces but until they had a chance to meet with people who had an active interest in the project and they had the special advisor on board, she hadn’t actually formally scoped the project. They would like to really do that as a collaborative exercise. Councilmember Shahid asked which one she thought would have the best ‘on-the-ground’ experience. Ms. Novak said she thought all three firms or individuals had great experience to apply to this. She found Dr. Engel’s experience interesting, because she had worked it from different sides. She had been a researcher, a consultant to police departments, reformed a police department, and she worked with communities and interests like the NAACP and Department of Justice. Ms. Novak felt like she brought a lot of lenses to the table and that was intriguing. Councilmember Lewis said that he hadn’t read up on the rest of them but he had heard about Dr. EngeI and it was a possibility that she could be a very good person. The important thing was meeting with the community, hearing from them about how they felt. Those were the people they be hearing from so he was glad to hear them say that. Ms. Novak stated that it was important work to the community and to the City and they wanted to do an excellent job for them. Mayor Tecklenburg stated that with that in mind, the scope of what they would measure and analyze wasn’t set until they talked to the community first, and he thought that was an important aspect. Councilmember Wagner asked about the University of Louisville and Ms. Novak stated that once she had reached out to a number of firms, she did not go back and reach back out. She had already had conversations with the three firms with their permission to share their names and she felt like she needed to stick with that process. She thought they had identified good firms for the City. Councilmember Wagner said that he was good with that. Councilmember Shahid asked what Ms. Novak’s opinion was on the difference between Dr. Engel and Dr. Rojek. Dr. Rojek seemed to have a lot more local involvement and experience. He asked if that was a positive or negative. Ms. Novak said that she would say that it was probably neutral. Somebody with some South Carolina roots may be helpful. If that was something that was important, it was something to take into consideration. They all had diverse sets of experience and the work that Dr. Rojek had done in this area in particular had been in California, which had very different types of demographics. Councilmember Shahid said that he saw a lot of similarities between the two of them and some differences as well. He was just trying to weigh that idea and whether it was a good thing or bad thing having those experiences in South Carolina. He didn’t think that eliminated him. Chairwoman Wilson said that she was looking at the work that Dr. Rojek had done for Charleston and wasn’t sure if it was a pro or con.  Committee on Public Safety minutes August 4, 2017 page 4 Ms. Novak stated that she didn’t think because of the experience the City had with him, it would be disqualifying at all. The City had a good experience with him, and he had developed some workforce training that had been nothing but positive from what she had heard. Councilmember Shahid asked if the RTI group had more extensive staff support, because it seemed like they did. Ms. Novak said that yes, RTI was a large organization, and they would have a number of researchers they would assign to a project like this. When they worked with a university professor, their approach was to work with graduate students who would do the data analytics. On the Novak team, they had some capability for data analytics. Depending on who they worked with, they would figure out who would do what pieces of the work, based on the skill-set and resources they could bring to the table. Chairwoman Wilson said that the one negative she saw to RTI was the fact that they were so multi-faceted. There was a part of her that would like a firm or individual that was very tuned in and worked on that issue specifically, however, they do bring those additional resources. She wasn’t sure how she felt about a professor and graduate students handling this magnitude of work. Ms. Novak said that the graduate students were behind-the-scenes. The people that the community would be interacting with would be Dr. Engel or Rojek and people from the Novak team. Councilmember Lewis asked about the time-frame and selection. Councilmember Wagner arrived at 3:55 p.m. Mayor Tecklenburg said that he was hoping to have a recommendation that day, but there was no rush. Councilmember Shahid asked if they could get more information on RTI and who would be their support staff, and some of their qualifications. Ms. Novak stated that they had identified 4 people. She could get their bios. Councilmember Shahid said the question would come down to whether they wanted to hire an expert professor versus a consulting firm. They needed to have that direction. Ms. Novak said that she thought RTI would call themselves a research institute/think tank as opposed to a consulting firm. She chose to identify researchers, because it was a different approach which was important for the work they were doing. Mayor Tecklenburg said that one advantage to Dr. Engel or Dr. Rojek was that they focused on this all of the time and it was their specialty. The way that Ms. Novak was approaching this was as a partnership with her and her team, and with the other consultant. They didn’t need a full service company because of the team that was already in place. In his view, adding the expert and guidance from one of the Dr.’s made sense. Councilmember Shahid asked if they could meet before August 15th, and Chairwoman Wilson said she didn’t see why not. Mayor Tecklenburg said that he would be out of town the following week. Chairwoman Wilson said that they could possibly meet the Monday before Council. She thought they could make a recommendation by that point. If they couldn’t meet then, they would meet before the meeting in September. No action was taken. Having no further business, the Public Safety Committee adjourned at 4:05 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary