Boulder City Council votes 5-2 to remove Sweeney-Miran from Police Oversight Panel

May 4—The Boulder City Council on Thursday voted 5-2 to accept a special investigator's recommendation to remove Lisa Sweeney-Miran from Boulder's Police Oversight Panel, despite pushback from the selection committee and community members of color.

Before voting in favor, Councilmembers Rachel Friend and Matt Benjamin said they didn't agree with the special investigator's conclusion that Sweeney-Miran should be removed. Instead, they said, they only voted for her removal because it would protect the panel's future recommendations.

If police discipline is recommended by a panel that Sweeney-Miran is on, Friend said, the disciplined officer will have "strong evidence," thanks to the independent investigator's removal recommendation, to have that decision overturned.

"I don't see how Lisa can stay on the panel without threatening the legal sustainability of all of her panel's findings. ... I don't see how that moves us forward on either racial justice or police oversight," she said.

Though she voted for removal, Friend said, she didn't see anything in the report to convince her that Sweeney-Miran wasn't fit to serve on the panel. Removing her feels like "a slap in the face" to those who nominated her, Friend said, and she called on the council to change the POP ordinance to avoid similar situations in the future.

Third-party investigator Clay Douglas investigated a series of code of conduct complaints from community members, then issued a report on April 14 suggesting Sweeney-Miran should either step down or be removed from the POP. The report also sustained an allegation that Sweeney-Miran had shown "real or perceived bias."

Sweeney-Miran was a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against Boulder's camping ban, which is enforced by police officers, before her POP appointment, and she had made posts on social media criticizing police or policing.

In a written statement following Thursday's vote, Sweeney-Miran and her attorney, Dan Williams, called the decision to remove her "unlawful and unethical" and said the council has turned the POP's appointment process into "a circus."

"The police union, the police foundation and anti-homeless hate groups have pushed an overly politicized City Council into breaking their own laws," according to the statement.

The statement went on to say that, by overruling the voices of the NAACP Boulder County and El Centro Amistad on the selection committee, "Boulder is silencing the very community members the Police Oversight Panel was created to elevate."

Councilmember Lauren Folkerts, who proposed an unsuccessful motion to keep Sweeney-Miran on the panel, said her removal amounts to the city rejecting the recommendations it solicited from those representing historically underrepresented groups. Her motion was supported by Councilmember Nicole Speer.

"It sets a dangerous precedent to single out one individual panel member who hasn't done anything during her service to warrant her removal," Folkerts said.

Folkerts referenced concerns shared by the Boulder Human Relations Commission, which sent a letter to the City Council this week addressing both Sweeney-Miran's potential removal and the POP's appointment process.

"The purpose of the panel is oversight," according to the Boulder Human Relations Commission letter. "With a Police Oversight Committee of 11 members, there is room — and there should be room — for a wide diversity of opinions around the role of police in Boulder, including opinions that are highly critical of law enforcement as an institution."

Along with concern about removing Sweeney-Miran, according to the letter, there's a larger concern about "the glacial pace and flawed process by which the city of Boulder has attempted to engage in police accountability and reform."

The letter goes on to list several ways the city's police accountability efforts have been hampered, including the fact that city has yet to name a new police independent monitor after a failed search in February. Several former members of the POP also have expressed frustration about a lack of city support and push back from the police department, according to the letter.

Sweeney-Miran and Williams are continuing to raise concerns about whether the City Council had the authority to remove a POP panelist. Earlier this week, Williams sent a letter to city attorneys stating that the City Council lacks the authority because the POP is not a city board or commission, but a separate and independent entity.

In addition, Williams wrote, even if the municipal code did apply to POP panelists, boards and commission members can only be removed for "just cause," which includes violations of law, code of conduct violations and dereliction of duty. Sweeney-Miran, he noted, has not been found to have broken the law or violated the city's code of conduct.