Public Safety Committee

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE May 7, 2018 A meeting of the Public Safety Committee was held this date beginning at 3:12 p.m., at 80 Broad Street, City Hall, First Floor Conference Room. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Shahid, Chair, Councilmember Seekings, Councilmember Wagner and Councilmember Lewis Staff: Chief Luther Reynolds, Susan Herdina, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Councilmember Wagner. Approval of Minutes On the motion of Councilmember Seekings, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the March 21, 2018 meeting. Approval of the formation of the Charleston Citizen Advisory Council Chairman Shahid said he understood this was a proposal out of the Illumination Project. It would create an advisory council. The members would be selected by the Mayor and Councilmembers and would also have a facilitator. Councilmember Seekings said it would be an advisory council, not a standing committee and that was confirmed. Councilmember Seekings asked if they needed to have action to form it and Chairman Shahid said he thought that was what the Mayor was asking them to do it. Chief Reynolds said he had the opportunity to talk to others and review the context of the Illumination Project, and the idea of having a level of transparency and a place to have discussions. There was a lot of work that had gone into this over the course of a few years and he was satisfied. He had reviewed this and thought it was a good opportunity. He was good with the way it was written. He had some questions and all of those were answered adequately. He thought the idea of having a council for open dialogue, but with structure, was a good thing. One of his biggest challenges was to continue to build relationships, so that they could also have meaningful dialogue outside of a formal setting. This was a good, balanced step. Councilmember Seekings asked Chief Reynolds if he had served on an operation or council like this in other jurisdictions he had worked in. Chief Reynolds said he had. Where he came from, the Chief had advisory committees, and liaison committees. It had been meaningful and productive. It was smaller than this, and less structured. They had talked about why this needed to be as structured, and all the history that led to this. To compare his experiences, it was more of an honest dialogue, where complaints, concerns, and ideas could occur in a meaningful way with communities that had history with law enforcement and concern with the police. It took a lot of time to develop trust, and this committee had allowed for that to happen because there was a regular place people could come and begin to see the Chief. People could talk about what was working well and what wasn’t working well. Councilmember Wagner said it was a good concept. He would like to look at North Charleston a little bit, because they hadn’t had great success with their version of this. If they did it per capita, West Ashley would have 6-7 representatives, but that probably wasn’t where they needed representatives from the most. They had about 10,000 people on Johns Island, which may end up being under represented a little bit. Councilmember Seekings said it would be 23 members, which was too big. Councilmember Wagner said it would be large, and how they made it up, ‘the devil would be in the details’. Councilmember Seekings said when they brought it to Council; they should have a discussion about the size. Chief Reynolds stated he thought they should do what was best for Charleston. The idea of having discussion was a positive one. He had a similar reaction to the size, because that wasn’t what he was used to. Councilmember Seekings said it was actually 26 members. Chief Reynolds said he believed they had healthy discussion about these things. The make-up of the membership was the same as the one in North Charleston, which wasn’t necessarily purposeful. Individuals had met over a period of a year with Chief Mullen on this issue and they discussed the size. Chief Mullen had asked everyone to write down a number of how many members they thought should be on the council and a lot of people came back with lower numbers than Chief Mullen. He envisioned representation appointed by City Council members, the Mayor, and some high school students. Councilmember Seekings said he just thought it was too big. It was actually 25 if they counted the 12 appointees from Council, 8 from the Mayor, 3 high school students, the Mayor, and the Chief. It was a citizen volunteer council and they wanted to get a conversation going. It wasn’t going to be cohesive, because people would be coming and going. It was hard to get that many people in the room at one time. This was an important council, and his view was that if they were going to build a council, it needed to be there for a purpose, to do something for a purpose. He would ask Chief Reynolds to think about the size. They didn’t want to exclude anyone from the community, and they wanted it to be well- represented. Ms. Herdina said she didn’t disagree, but part of the rationale was to make sure they reached every possible community and community members, so that in the event that there was some sort of emergency or tragedy, they knew someone in that pocket who the Chief could reach out to. There may be a way to do that differently, but that was the rationale. Councilmember Seekings said that he thought an advisory council was there to set up a framework and infrastructure to try to avoid things in communities and get out ahead of things. If they were on the back side of an incident, it would be the Police Chief’s and Mayor’s job and those that represented the districts, to get out ahead of it. He didn’t envision this to be made up of people who were getting out ahead after something happened; it was there to advise them of ways they could have a better, safer, and more communicative community. He didn’t want this to be anything other than an endorsement of the idea, because he thought it was excellent, but he just thought, given the history of committees and the size, to the extent they want it to give good feedback to the Chief, and him have a group that he could rely on regularly, the smaller the number the more likelihood of that happening. Councilmember Lewis said that they had made the Committee for the entertainment district, and each Councilmember appointed someone. It worked well. Councilmember Wagner said it was a little smaller. It had 16-17 people. Chairman Shahid said he liked the idea of the Mayor having some selection, beyond what they did, because that would take care of there being areas that were over or under represented. The Mayor could offset that balance by appointing someone else. With the qualifications, he could appoint someone outside of his district. It didn’t have to be 4-5 people from West Ashley. He had a question about the role of the facilitator and asked if they had used one before. Councilmember Seekings said the Illumination Project and the Task Force had facilitators. It had worked out fine so far. Chairman Shahid said he wondered how the facilitator would operate and that it would be someone from the Clerk’s office. _________ said they were two separate people. There would be someone from the Clerk’s office to keep the minutes and make sure the meeting was kept in order and the facilitator would be there to make sure everyone had a fair chance to speak their mind. Chairman Shahid asked who nominated the facilitator and Chief Reynolds said that he would be selecting the facilitator. Councilmember Seekings said that would add another person, even if they weren’t a voting member. This wasn’t just a Committee where they would show up. The people would have to go through training, and participate in ride-a-longs. He wanted this to succeed though. Chairman Shahid said his suggestion would be to reduce the number of the Mayor’s selections from 8 to 4. They could make that recommendation, but he didn’t want to undermine what they had done. Councilmember Wagner asked if the Chief would be by himself, or if they would include some of the Senior Officers. Chief Reynolds said he appreciated they were concerned about that. He had a similar reaction. His experience had been much less formal, so they could have a meaningful outcome. The reality was that, with FOIA laws and the requirements for meetings such as this, that wasn’t going to happen, with a council of this type. They explored that discussion, of having it be smaller and more intimate. He thought this had been being discussed for so long, there was a healthy debate where they developed a model, and in this time transparency was critical. He was hesitant to want to change everything. They looked at all the questions that had been asked and some others, such as ‘when could they go into Executive Session?” They had to figure out how to navigate things, and his conclusion, after discussion, was that they had to start somewhere. For that reason, he was okay with this format. He didn’t think it was ideal, but it would serve a purpose that would be meaningful and productive, and consistent with what the vision had been all along. Councilmember Seekings said he saw there were three high school students that would be on the council and he asked if they had any concern or age requirements. Ms. Herdina said if they were under 18, they would have to have consent of the parents. Councilmember Seekings said that would add another layer to this. Having them be 18 would be a good idea. On the advisory committees, where people were citizens, the notion of them going into Executive Session made him nervous. He didn’t know why they ever would, they weren’t sworn in. Chief Reynolds said for that reason, he didn’t think that was advisable. Chairman Shahid said they would be reporting out the question of size, including the number the Mayor would select, and age of the students. Councilmember Wagner said he would like it to be smaller because they could always add individuals later, but it was hard to take away. On the motion of Councilmember Seekings, seconded by Councilmember Lewis, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the formation of the Charleston Citizen Police Advisory Council. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:35 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary