Miami-Dade commissioners ready for vote on civilian oversight panel for police
Miami-Dade commissioners likely will vote next week on reviving an oversight panel for the police department, as the stalled effort gets new life on the heels of countywide demonstrations over the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who sponsored oversight legislation vetoed by Mayor Carlos Gimenez in 2018, is backing a plan that mirrors the mayor’s criteria for the kind of panel he would support. Rather than seats held by community groups, as Jordan proposed two years ago, this legislation allows commissioners to appoint oversight members, the arrangement Gimenez said he would support in 2018.
“I vetoed it because I didn’t want just representation from special interest groups,” Gimenez said at a press conference Monday. “It has to be made up of people from the community — all of the community.”
The draft Jordan legislation has no requirements for membership of the panel, and each appointee would have to win a majority vote of the commission. “I am hoping and praying we will have unanimous support for the item,” she said at a committee meeting Monday.
Steadman Stahl, president of the county’s police union, said he wants to see the details of the legislation before announcing a position. But he said the union could accept a review panel under the right set of rules.
“We usually find very little gets accomplished with them,” he said of the oversight boards. “If it does make the public feel comfortable and our officers’ rights are protected, we can work with anything. But we want to be part of the process.”
The panel would not have disciplinary powers and would publish reports on complaints after public hearings.
Appointees are likely to include police officers. Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson said she would like to appoint a retired police officer to the panel but would wait to see what other commissioners do with their picks.
“If there are too many police officers, I’m thinking of putting a civil rights attorney on it,” said Edmonson, one of the four black commissioners who backed Jordan’s 2018 proposal. “We need to have people who understand, and who can be fair to the police department, as well as fight for the community.”
Jordan’s legislation will likely come up for a vote Tuesday, June 16. Jordan said she’d also propose a ballot item for November to enshrine the panel in the county charter. “This is something I feel should live beyond just having an ordinance or having a resolution,” she said.
The Jordan legislation grants the panel authority to investigate any county employee, and gives the board subpoena power. But it excluded police officers from those subpoenas, citing Florida’s “Police Officer Bill of Rights” and the state rules restricting how police can be investigated.
Andre Ragin, Jordan’s chief of staff in her District 1 office, said commission-appointed panel members would mean “broad representation for the community, and a much needed voice for the community.”
Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Board last week endorsed reviving the panel, which stopped functioning in 2009 after county commissioners stripped it of funding during a recession. Gimenez has said he would propose a budget for a panel this year if it’s revived.
