Santa Ana City Council to meet with Police Oversight Commission over proposed changes
The Santa Ana City Council has further postponed making a series of proposed changes to the 2022 law that created the Police Oversight Commission.
Instead, after much back and forth at their meeting this week, councilmembers agreed to hold a joint special meeting with the commission within the next 60 days to discuss the proposed amendments. The City Council had been scheduled to debate a rewrite of the commission’s ordinance at a meeting earlier this month, but ran out of time to do so.
Commissioner Carlos Perea welcomes the meeting, saying the commission had been excluded from the process despite previously calling on the council to bring the proposed changes to the seven-member panel.
“I appreciate that the council decided to do a joint session, and I’m looking forward to that. I think that should have been done in the first place,” Perea said.
Established by the City Council in 2022, the Police Oversight Commission aims to increase police accountability and transparency, but commissioners have said they’ve struggled to make significant progress without an oversight director. Almost three years passed before the city hired T. Jack Morse as the director earlier this month.
The city manager’s office, which submitted the proposed changes to the City Council for review, said the changes are meant to “align” the commission with state law and maintain “best practices in law enforcement accountability.”
The proposed amendments to the commission are meant to address concerns regarding compliance with state law; clarification of roles and responsibilities, including that of the oversight director; training and to make enhancements that would safeguard information about police officers that may be considered “sensitive” to avoid risk of violating the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act and possible subsequent lawsuits.
Changes to the ordinance include the removal of the word “independent” throughout and in Morse’s recently landed title as police oversight director. The commission would also be limited to reviewing cases involving in-custody deaths and instances where a First Amendment right was violated. It would not be allowed to investigate cases that haven’t been reviewed and confirmed as misconduct by the Police Department.
“These amendments would gut the Police Oversight Commission, turning a hard-won community victory into a powerless, symbolic body that protects the status quo instead of the people,” Chispa Policy and Political Director Bulmaro “Boomer” Vicente said Thursday. The organization that operates as a political advocacy group for young Latinx in Orange County helped launch the oversight police commission.
Vicente called the proposed amendments “concerning,” arguing that most would weaken police oversight. “This isn’t what the community demanded and fought for,” he added.
“I did raise my eyebrows when the ability to provide input and review the contracts of the Police Officer Association was taken out of the commission’s hands. That to me raised a lot of questions, because it is the largest contract in the city,” Perea said of the proposal. “There has been serious concerns over the last 10 years of the way in which the police officers’ association has been conducting business in city hall.”
The suggested changes were worked on with an ad hoc committee involving with Mayor Valeria Amezcua and councilmembers Benjamin Vazquez and Phil Bacerra, along with staff from the city manager’s office, city attorney’s office and the Santa Ana Police Department.
Staff writer Hanna Kang contributed to this story.
