Urbana's City Council had another two part meeting this week due to overwhelming community input and participation at the regularly scheduled Monday meeting. A local issue of police use of force in the Aleyah Lewis case had increased attention and pressure with national attention on the subject of police brutality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
Nationwide and international protests that resulted from another brutal death caught on video in contrast with official police description were further fueled by brutal assaults on journalists and protesters by police afterward. It is in this context that a groundswell for more dramatic changes and impatience for the status quo swept into local marches, protests, and local government.
The Urbana Mayor and Chief of Police Bryan Seraphin have both been out in public assuring residents they take these issues seriously and are committed towards reviewing use of force policies and considering reforms. Both have made a variety of public statements to this effect and showed up to one of the larger local protests along with Champaign officials and police representatives. Prior to the second half of this City Council meeting on Wednesday, both appeared at the Champaign Community Coalition with the same message (video available here).
The Monday regular meeting ran long with public comments and emailed public input being read into the record. Like the previous Committee of the Whole meeting last week, they recessed and reconvened the meeting on Wednesday to finish the agenda items, including a budget presentation and approve updates to the Emergency Order for outside dining and cocktails to go.
Public input was overwhelmingly in opposition to or supporting a delay in re-appointing Chief Seraphin among other annual appointments on the agenda. Those supporting his appointment included people who had a working relationship with Seraphin over the years. Testimonials from Preston James known in City of Urbana government for his work in criminal justice reform and reentry work and the Cunningham Children's Home and their reliance on a working relationship with the Urbana Police to ensure the safety and success of their programs stood out among the handful of endorsements.
Council member Jared Miller summed up the overwhelming opposition Wednesday night before the vote to re-appoint Seraphin as 140 voices and emails in roughly 48 hours, including spontaneous protests Monday night in front of the City Building as the City Council appeared to cut off public input and continued protests on Wednesday night that appeared to have expanded to 50-60 people disrupting traffic in front of the City Building.
The vote still came in 5-1 with only Council member Miller in opposition to re-appoint Chief Seraphin. The arguments from City Council members to approve noted the at-will nature of the appointment, concerns about having a power vacuum at this delicate time, and a strong working relationship with Seraphin on previous criminal justice reforms. From Mayor Marlin to other City Council members there was a repeated argument that Chief Seraphin was a credible voice with the police department itself, which would be needed to get "buy in" for any reform measures enacted.
Council member Maryalice Wu argued in her support for appointment that the demand for change puts the onus on Seraphin to lead and demonstrate change in the department or the Council would have to revisit the decision on his leadership.
In other appointment news, previous Urbana City Clerk Phyllis Clark was appointed to fill that same position after the health related resignation of Clerk Charlie Smyth. Applications for appointment to the City Council's Ward 2 are available from the City's website here after Eric Jakobsson announced his impending retirement at the end of the month.
Other Meeting Highlights:
Monday's video (available here) started off with some technical announcements explaining the new webinar format being used on Zoom to avoid last week's Zoom bombing problems. Mayor Marlin apologized for those vulgar interruptions and graphic images. She explained that they were going to do audio comments first to avoid the frustrating delays of the Committee of the Whole experience last time.
She explained that due to the overwhelming number of emailed public comments she'd be enforcing the two hour time limit for public participation. Protests started outside of the City Building when she cut off reading emailed public comments into the record prior to that two hour limit (video from one of the protesters here).
Minnie Pearson of the Champaign County branch of the NAACP spoke along with Carol Spindel of the local ACLU in support of criminal justice reforms (direct video link here). They focused on looking and revising use of force policies, restricting neck holds and banning knee holds. Pearson noted a need to adopt and implement the NAACP 10 shared principles as with other local government and departments and demilitarization of the police. She went on to demand a greater effort in honest communication with the community.
Public comments that followed stressed the need for more police accountability, empowering Urbana's Civilian Police Review Board, and more dramatic reforms shifting funding from police budgets to programs and services that would alleviate reliance on policing. This was in addition to specific requests for a transparent and independent investigation into the Aleyah Lewis case and opposition to the reappointment of Chief Seraphin.
Mayor Marlin began reading emailed public comments at 7:43pm (or around the 50 minute mark of the video here). As summarized above, most were in opposition of Chief Seraphin's reappointment. There were several that followed what appeared to be a form or script from local organizers, a fact that Council member Brown used to dismiss opposition to the Seraphin appointment. For a local issue to get enough attention and participation in organized opposition to merit elected officials to publicly address and diminish its relevance, however, tends to highlight that it was relevant enough they couldn't simply ignore it either.
Having listened to the comments read into the record, there are appeared to be plenty of various and sincere opposition around the same themes, however. Opposition or delay of the Seraphin appointment, dropping charges against Aleyah Lewis, putting the arresting officers on administrative leave pending an independent investigation, and empowering the CPRB.
Cunningham Township Supervisor Danielle Chynoweth took to social media to criticize the Mayor after comments were cut short and the meeting went into closed session for another matter. People began coming out and protesting in front of the City Building at this time as well.
When the meeting returned to open session there was some discussion about how to split the time and agenda items. The agenda was moved around to get the Committee of the Whole agenda items through and then start fresh on Wednesday with the budget presentation.
The budget presentation began at the beginning of the Wednesday night meeting (video available here). The discussion included the financial status of the City going into the pandemic and now official recession. The City's work to address deficits and other budget issues has left it in a better position to endure the economic fallout of the pandemic, but there are still a lot of unknowns about future funding. Right now the budget maintains current services to residents, but the City will have to continue to assess and reassess as we find out whether or not we'll recover faster or slower economically.
The question and answer discussion after the budget presentation focused on a lot of technical details and nuances. Examples were the revenue streams from cannabis, the equipment fund for the Fire Department, potentially reconsidering a K-9 unit vehicle given new cannabis laws and potential upcoming police reforms and spending priorities. The budget discussions will continue on Monday with more presentations and Council input. The planned date for the big budget vote is June 22nd.
No comments:
Post a Comment