As OKC appoints new members to police oversight board, transparency concerns remain

Oklahoma City's revamped police oversight board now has appointed members, but concerns remain about issues of transparency and clarity over how residents could submit complaints.

Councilmembers voted 8-1 on Tuesday to appoint inaugural representatives for seven of the city's eight wards and an at-large chairperson to the Community Public Safety Advisory Board, a volunteer committee meant to provide independent accountability of local police.

"I am very grateful to those who will serve. I think they're going to do a great job, and I think they're going to meet this moment," Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said. "That's their job, is to move forward and make sure that these issues are prominent, that they're handled professionally and in the interest and on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City."

The lone vote against Tuesday's resolutions, Ward 7 City Councilwoman Nikki Nice, said she was concerned about what she saw as the "watering down" of the city's work over the past two years to implement police reform recommendations.

Her chief reason for dissent, she explained, was because she believed the at-large chairperson for the board should be a collective vote of the city council, not an appointment by the mayor alone.

"Our mayor's appointment is going to be the chair of this committee, which I do not believe should be the appointment of one person," Nice said. "This body should be able to choose who can and who will lead the charge in this effort for this particular advisory board."

More: Now that OKC has replaced its police oversight board, what's changing? What we know

Who was appointed to OKC's Community Public Safety Advisory Board?

Approved Tuesday were:

• Dianna Berry for At-Large Chair

• Gregory Grimaud for Ward 1

• Nicole Maldonado for Ward 2

• Kenny Liles for Ward 3

• Jason Brown for Ward 4

• Chris Foshee for Ward 5

• Richard Sturt for Ward 6

• William Teater for Ward 8

The revamped oversight board, officially approved by a city council majority last year, was born out of 39 recommendations made in March 2022. The recommendations — a result of the work of the mayor's Law Enforcement Policy Task Force, the Community Policing Working Group and the city-hired consultant 21CP Solutions — ranged from prioritizing de-escalation at a higher level, improving officer wellness and searching for an alternative response to mental health calls.

A previous Oklahoma City Police Citizens Advisory Board had existed for two decades, but critics argued it wasn't able to meaningfully accomplish change because it could only review investigations of complaints and then give recommendations to the police chief, who'd also appointed the membership in the first place.

Councilmembers disagree on advisory board's makeup, how the public can give feedback

Although city officials and community advocates agreed the board needed a new membership design, agreement on how exactly to do that has not been unanimous.

During her dissent Tuesday, Nice pointed to a previous discussion on the topic last August, which included a suggestion from Ward 6 City Councilwoman JoBeth Hamon to rename the advisory group the Community Review and Accountability Board so that its purpose could be better understood by residents. That suggestion did not advance when a city council majority voted against the motion.

Ward 2 Councilperson James Cooper, who otherwise supported the board-related resolutions, reiterated concern about further clarity for how residents could submit police complaints on the city's official Public Safety Partnership webpage.

"The very simple ask that I had, and that the community had, was where do they go when they have a concern in terms of a concerning encounter with law enforcement?" Cooper said. "The very basic idea of how does someone make that complaint about an unfortunate encounter with law enforcement is just not on this page."

Assistant City Manager Jason Ferbrache noted that a link leading to the official webpage for the police complaint form was accessible under Recommendation No. 17 on the public safety partnership's website. But he also told Cooper that he was willing to work with his staff to move access to that form closer to the top of the page to be more visible.

Cooper continued to argue that the city's website navigation was too "vague" for the everyday resident to easily access, claiming that he felt the work the council had done on police reform was being obfuscated. He also said he had not yet had monthly meetings he'd requested with OKC Public Safety Partnership staff on how to continue implementing police reform recommendations.

City Manager Craig Freeman, meantime, said the reason why Cooper's requests were not met is because the board responsible for reviewing complaints had not yet been officially appointed before Tuesday, an explanation which Holt also echoed.

In further criticism of Holt, Nice claimed that the mayor's office influenced the process of the advisory board's name, which Holt denied.

"I had no involvement in the name of the board, other than we voted on that board as a body," Holt said, also adding, "I don't have anything to do with the way this is presented on the website."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC appoints public safety board members; transparency concerns remain