Why hasn’t Akron City Council voted on police review board rules?
Akron will have a new mayor, police chief and, hopefully, a functioning independent police review board in 2024.
The status of the review board — overwhelmingly approved by voters nearly a year ago — surely is a growing source of frustration among supporters now being reminded of how slowly the wheels of Akron City Hall can move at times.
The Akron Citizens’ Police Oversight Board, as it’s officially known, approved its charter-required rules July 12, but City Council has not approved them, leaving the board powerless to do much of anything. The police auditor’s unfortunate health challenges and staffing woes certainly haven’t helped either.
Regardless, the board can’t launch any investigations without City Council approval of its rules.
The rules have not appeared on a council agenda with the Akron Law Department, which must draft all legislation that the council considers, holding up the process. Nor is there any guarantee the council will approve the rules.
Law Director Eve Belfance, who reports to departing Mayor Dan Horrigan, has met with the review board twice in executive session, a legally permissible private meeting if she were the board’s attorney. To us, that’s not a role Belfance should be adding to her important duties.
The independent nature of the review board is unlike any other city commission or board in Akron, existing solely to scrutinize the city’s most important power, the policing of its citizens including arrests and use of force.
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As legal expert Tim Smith told the Beacon Journal in August: “She wants to keep these people from causing trouble for the city. And this board is just guaranteed to cause trouble for the city. So, they got a problem there — an overarching conflict of interest.”
To us, the review board needs to hire its own legal counsel and needs such funding from City Council.
With the Fraternal Order of Police Akron Lodge No. 7, the union representing Akron officers, claiming the board’s proposed rules violate its labor contract, Belfance has legitimate concerns worthy of conversation. But she should share them publicly with the review board.
There’s also a chance the Horrigan administration is moving slowly on these issues after opposing Issue 10, the vote that created the board last year. There's a strong chance Shammas Malik, the presumptive new mayor in January and proponent of the review board, will push the matter more quickly.
What’s clear is that Malik will get a chance to hire a new police chief, with Steve Mylett’s recent announcement that he will retire as Malik becomes mayor. Given Malik’s more progressive views of modern policing and transparency and Mylett’s questionable performance in his two years here, it’s another opportunity to move Akron forward.
Akron faces a long road in rebuilding public trust of its police force — especially among its diverse residents — while combating growing gun violence, an issue deeply explored in our coverage this week.
We just hope the review board is actually functioning before January.
We’re confident that’s what voters would want.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Citizens’ Police Oversight Board needs its own legal counsel
