Public Safety Committee

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE November 27, 2017 A meeting of the Public Safety Committee was held this date beginning at 11:33 p.m., at 80 Broad Street, Council Chamber. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Kathleen Wilson, Chair, Councilmember Lewis, Councilmember Wagner, Councilmember Shahid, and Mayor Tecklenburg Staff: Bethany Whitaker, 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 Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the November 2 and November 9, 2017 minutes. Report on and potential action regarding modification of Novak Consulting Group Performance Assessment Contract regarding police department audit Mayor Tecklenburg stated that they could consider an Executive Session, since it was regarding a legal matter, but he didn’t think that was necessary. After the last City Council meeting and the recommendation of exploring the contract with Novak, he had called Ms. Novak and asked if she would be willing to agree to voluntarily modify the scope of work so that it wouldn’t include the police bias review. She was agreeable to that. He had a letter that she and himself had signed that confirmed an agreement to exclude any future services from the police equity bias audit, and therefore it would clear Ms. Novak from that being part of her work. She had eight remaining projects, which had already been reviewed with Council that she was well on her way on. They had a great session with her the previous week on the TRC Committee review. She had started a review of the Human Resources Department and employee relationships. That month, she would begin an analysis of the Sanitation Department. She had plenty of work to do and she had agreed to remove this from her scope of work. Chairwoman Wilson stated that they needed to vote to accept this and remove this from her contract. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they could take two motions because when they discussed doing a new RFP, he would like to have a definitive discussion on that. Councilmember Wagner said now it was out of the contract, and she had done some work. They knew they would have to pay her. He asked if they would get a scope of what she had done. Mayor Tecklenburg said that she had provided a memo that reviewed her meetings regarding scoping and it was about a 4-5 page report. Councilmember Wagner said they had something to start with. She had done some work. Mayor Tecklenburg said he had a report. She had spent hours of her time dealing with this and trying to secure another firm. Councilmember Wagner said that she should get paid for what she had done. Councilmember Lewis said he was sure they would work it out. Councilmember Shahid said that the effect of this motion was that her company would no longer be involved in the police equity bias section of the audit. This was confirmed. On the motion on Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to remove this scope of work from Novak’s contract. Request for RFP regarding police bias audit Councilmember Lewis said that they would identify a firm that could effectively do this. They knew there were problems, not only in the City, but also in the County. They needed to get this audit done. Councilmember Shahid asked if they would need to define the scope of work before the RFP was sent out. Councilmember Lewis said it would be good if Mayor Tecklenburg would put together a Committee of staff, Council, and CAJM to come up with the scope of work. Councilmember Shahid said it would have to go through the normal selection process. Councilmember Lewis said he meant before they sent out for the RFP, they could put a Committee together to come up with the scope of work. Then, they could go through the regular selection process. Mayor Tecklenburg said they were back to square one and one of the places this got off base was in the Committee that reviewed the RFP that had gone out. He suggested that that Committee should be formed prior to the RFP going out, and be involved in drafting the RFP, including Councilmembers , City Staff, and whoever they wanted to work with to come up with the RFP. Councilmember Lewis said that CAJM had been behind this for over a year and had given the City some good recommendations. It would be good to have their input. Mayor Tecklenburg said that was true and that Ms. Novak had met with them. CAJM had provided her with two different scopes of work. One was a take-off of an RFP that was done in another City and the other was something they had given the City two years ago. He was thinking that if they had Councilmember representation who could draw upon whatever input from whoever, including CAJM, that would be fine. He would like to keep it in the normal procurement process, which it didn’t last year, they could have at least 2 Councilmembers to serve. He would like about 4 Councilmembers. That way, everyone would be on board before the RFP went out. After reviewing Ms. Novak’s study, he had shared it with Margaret Seidler, and many of the things in the scope were things that they had already been working on in the Illumination project. The big missing thing that they wanted to address a year ago was regarding the matter of the statistics on traffic stops. But, many of the other items that were being recommended for review had already been reviewed by the Illumination Project. He would like the Committee to pay attention to that because he didn’t want to end up with such a broad review. Madison, WI had spent something like $750,000 on their review. He didn’t want it to get so broad that they couldn’t afford it. The reason that he tried to include this in the comprehensive plan was to make it affordable and something they could get done quickly. Chairwoman Wilson said she agreed and that she thought that the Committee should be mostly Councilmembers. They should put it in Council’s lap. Councilmember Wagner said the budget would be key. The better the scope was defined they could get right to the heart of whatever it was. He felt like they had a good Police Department and Chief. At one point, the Police Officers were expected to write so many tickets. That was his perception, or ‘bias’. They needed to clearly define the terms and he would like to know what the expected outcome was. He was feeling good about Chief Taylor. Councilmember Lewis said this was not against the Chief or the former Chief. They knew they had the best Police Department in the City, State, or Country, as far as he was concerned. It wouldn’t be hard to define. Councilmember Shahid said that this had been discussed and he wasn’t saying they should or shouldn’t do this. He asked if this should wait until they had a new Chief. They should have that discussion. He volunteered to be on the Committee that would be formed. Chairwoman Wilson said the issue of a new Chief or Chief Taylor may resolve itself because of the timetable. She didn’t know how fast HR or the consultant were moving. She agreed that it probably needed discussing at some point. She thought that just with the way it was lining up, it would resolve by itself. Mayor Tecklenburg said it was obvious that they would follow the normal procurement policies and he did plan to appoint a Committee that had more Councilmembers than required. On the motion of Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve to send an RFP to Council for a police equity bias audit. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 11:52 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary