City Council Regular Meeting

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MINUTES DATE: Tuesday, September 8, 2020, 2020 TIME: 7:00pm PLACE: *Held virtually due to Governor’s and Mayoral Emergency Declarations 400 S. Vine St., Urbana, IL 61801 The City Council Committee of The Whole of the City of Urbana, Illinois, met in regular session Tuesday, September 8, 2020, at 7:00pm via zoom, this meeting was held on Tuesday due to holiday. ELECTED OFFICIALS PHYSICALLY PRESENT: Diane Wolfe Marlin, Mayor; Phyllis D. Clark, City Clerk ELECTED OFFICIALS PRESENT VIA TELECONFERENCE: City Council Members (CM), Bill Brown, Bill Colbrook, Shirese Hursey, Julie Laut, Jared Miller, Dennis Roberts, Maryalice Wu ELECTED OFFICIALS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Wendy Hundley, Jason Liggett, Carol Mitten, Andrea Ruedi, Bryant Seraphin, James Simon OTHERS PRESENT VIA ZOOM: Beau David Barber, Tracy Chong, Shirley Colvin, Rita Conerly, Brian Dunn, Mark Giuffre, Christopher Hansen, Meghan McDonald, Katherine Majewski, Justin Michael Hendrix, Debra Kirby, Felipe Menanteau, Megan Mericle, Elizabeth Simpson, Marcia Thompson, Chair: Bill Colbrook, Ward 6 Prior to starting the meeting Chair Colbrook read a statement about the structure of the meeting for everyone attending via Zoom. 1. Call to Order and Roll Call With a quorum virtually present, Chair Bill Colbrook called the meeting of the Committee of the Whole to order at 7:01pm. 2. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meeting CM Wu made a motion to approve the minutes from the August 17, 2020 meeting. Motion seconded by CM Laut and carried by roll call vote as follows: Aye: Wu, Laut, Hursey, Brown, Roberts, Colbrook, Miller Nay: None 3. Additions to the Agenda Mayor Marlin asked to rearrange the agenda as follows: Read proclamation prior to presentations, add Hillard Heintze (HH) council discussion for council after Ordinance No. 2020-09-045, and to have public input after the ordinance and before item 8. CM Roberts made a motion to move public input after presentations. CM Wu seconded the motion. After additional discussion, the original motion was rescinded and restated as follows by CM Roberts: move public input after item 8 (Hillard Heintze Discussion) and to move GARE discussion to the next City Council meeting on September, 14, 2020. Motion seconded by CM Hursey and approved by roll call as follows: Aye: Wu, Laut, Hursey, Roberts, Colbrook Nay: Brown, Miller Page 1 of 4 4. Presentations and Public Input a. Mayor Marlin read a Proclamation in honor of National Library Card month and presented it virtually to Celeste Choate, Executive Director of the Urbana Free Library. CM’s asked about electronic cards registration process and acknowledged the immense contribution by the library and all of their services. Mayor Marlin introduced the panel from the Hillard Heintze agency as follows: Senior Vice President Debra Kirby, Vice President of Operations Marcia Thompson, Senior Director Law Enforcement Consulting Mark Giuffre, and Senior Investigator Shirley Colvin. b. Hillard Heintze Independent Investigation (Hugger) 07-08-2020 c. Hillard Heintze Independent Review (Lewis) 09-03-2020 d. Appendices to 09-03-2020 report (The remaining Appendices referenced in the Hillard Heintze Independent Review are currently being reviewed for material that is not suitable for disclosure in light of pending criminal cases and threatened civil litigation. Once those Appendices have been reviewed, any additional material that can be posted will be posted. 1. Appendix J 2. Appendix L 3. Appendix M Debra Kirby Senior Vice President started the PowerPoint presentation by reading the requirements of the independent investigation and introducing the team that worked on the assignment: Debra Kirby, Marcia Thompson, Mark Giuffre, Shirley Colvin, and James Jones. The agency was asked to do the following:  Conduct an independent review of the sufficiency of the UPD’s examination of use of force incident  Review the related policies and procedures  Engage community stakeholders regarding perception and expectation of the UPD’s use of force practices  Review reported issue about UPD actions regarding a video from social media Mr. Giuffre presented the following list of topics addressed during the investigation. The team reviewed documents that included, police reports, photographs, body-worn camera and squad car camera footage, 911 call dispatch and radio traffic, publicly source videos of the incident, evaluated training records, UPD use of force policies, investigation reports, conducted interview of UPD use of force internal experts, focus group with community stakeholder, videographer about claim officer asked him to remove video from social media. Mr. Giuffre addressed each issue, finding, determination and recommendations. After the presentation, the panel addressed questions and concerns from council. Discussion ensued. 5. Staff Report There was none 6. Ordinance No. 2020-09-044: An Ordinance Ratifying Extension of Emergency Order No. 20-03 Temporary Suspension of Issuance of Special Events Permits Mayor Marlin presented this item with the recommendation for approval. This ordinance will allow an extension of Emergency Order N. 20-03 to continue the suspension on the holding of public and special events on any City owned, lease or operated public property. Page 2 of 4  CM Robert asked for clarification of special events permits guidelines. After clarification, CM Laut made a motion to send Ordinance No. 2020-09-044 to council with the recommendation for approval. CM Roberts seconded and carried by roll call vote as follows. Aye: Wu, Laut, Hursey, Brown, Roberts, Miller, Colbrook Nay: None 7. Ordinance No. 2020-09-045: An Ordinance Ratifying Emergency Order No. 20-10 Temporary Ban of On-Premises Consumption of Food and Beverage within Specific Bounded Area Mayor Marlin presented this item with the recommendation for approval. This ordinance has a temporary ban of on-promises consumption of food and beverage for campus area, due to the increased of positive Covid-19 cases among university students. CM Wu made a motion to send Ordinance No. 2020-09-045 to council with the recommendation for approval. CM Hursey seconded and carried by roll call vote as follows. Aye: Wu, Laut, Hursey, Brown, Roberts, Miller, Colbrook Nay: None 8. Hillard Heintze Discussion Council Members started discussion by asking questions about the use of force policy as this was scrutinized in the Hillard Heintze (HH) report, what the next steps are about their findings and suggestions. Chief Seraphin said that they need time to digest the information provided by HH and Lexipol (Police Use of Force – Safer Communities through Sound Policies) to put together a draft and allow feedback from council, staff, and the community. In addition, Mayor Marlin said that all of the recommendation suggested by HH should be incorporated into the city’s policy. Council members suggested adding police policies discussions at every meeting, dedicate time to address the structure process such as the model used for the Taser policy. Discussion ensued. 9. Discussion – City of Urbana Membership in the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) – CM Laut/Miller **This Item was deferred to next City Council meeting, September 14, 2020** 10. Public Input Public input was provided via Zoom from the following people: Dottie Vura-Weiss, Lora Orr, Allen Axelrod, Nate Wahl, Christopher Hansen, Tracy Chong, Felipe Menanteau, Elizabeth Simpson, Jane McClintock, and Danielle Chynoweth. Summary of comments included: cancel school resource officer contract with Urbana Middle School District 116, Hillard Heintze report was a waste of tax dollar, retired cops investigating cops, the report cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, the report did not address the actions of the officers, use of force policy needs to be updated, reshape policing, de- escalation method were not address in the report, talk about the appointment of Chief Seraphin, address civil rights, fix broken complaint process, defund and abolish police, police presence does not result in safer schools but it is correlated with the increase of juvenile incarceration, disappointment about censuring public input, justice for Aleyah Lewis and drop charges, advocate for utilities moratorium. Public Input via email – CM Colbrook read the following names into to the records for submitting public input via email. Danielle Chynoweth, Josue David Cisneros, Anne M. Esposito, Jon Hays, Sara Hoag, Sharon Irish, Durl Kruse, Danielle McFarland, Naomi Paik, Ameena Payne. Some of the comments included Hillard Heintze report, traffic stop data, and gun riffle safety. Page 3 of 4 11. Adjournment With no further business before the committee, Chair Colbrook adjourned the virtual meeting at 11:01pm. Wendy M. Hundley Deputy City Clerk This meeting was video recorded and is viewable on-demand. HERE Minutes approved: September 21, 2020 Page 4 of 4