This week the Urbana City Council followed up on many of the Committee of the Whole items from last week's Cheat Sheet post. The main resolution passed by the City Council was affirming the council's priority on de-escalation policies in the Use of Force policy being worked on by the City, Urbana Police Department, and the community. From WICS:
On Monday night, the Urbana City Council passed a resolution that prioritizes tactical deescalation as a police response when appropriate...
The resolution was amended to require multiple reports a year on officers' use of force policy.
It also pushes the Use of Force Review Board to add at least one new member that must be a civilian.
Full article here. The News-Gazette had additional details and an explanation of the bill this week as well:
Its sponsor, Ward 1 Alderwoman Maryalice Wu, said the resolution isn’t meant to be an update to the use-of-force policy, which is in the process of being updated.
“The purpose was not to fully go through the entire use-of-force policy here,” she said. “The purpose is to say the intent of city council on how we want that direction of the use-of-force policy to move forward.”
The police department had planned to finish updating its use-of-force policy by Jan. 31 to qualify for certain federal funds, Chief Bryant Seraphin said last month, but after pushback from the local NAACP and ACLU chapters, it met with them and is still working on the update.
That full article here. The recommendations and drafts from the local ACLU and NAACP are available on the local ACLU website here.
Another contentious issue before the City Council was on clarifying the language of the Human Rights Ordinance to exclude the city from the current enforcement mechanism for violations which poses some longstanding conflicts of interest and logistical issues. The clarification would have still left enforcement for City violations of the HRO left to be determined, but the language was sent back to committee for further revisions. The language will be considered again at the next Committee of the Whole meeting on March 1st (agenda).
Meeting Writeup:
The meeting began with a presentation by Alderman Brown and a report in his capacity as chair of the Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He laid out various options and recommendations for the Kickapoo Rail Trail path through Urbana and entertained questions along with the staff on what the details and timing would look like if approved. He will be returning with a resolution for the Council to consider in the near future.
Public participation was more contentious than usual. A lot of regular speakers took criticism from other public speakers upset at the the accusations and numerous complaints. Accusations of frivolous complaints, weaponizing complaint processes and at significant costs to the cities started out this portion of the agenda. The regular speakers for their part rebutted and counter-accused others of smears and conspiracy theories. Others accused the regular speakers of being variously ignorant or malevolent "trolls."
In the back and forth some speakers raised concerns about language exempting the City from enforcement of the Human Rights Ordinance, complications with an annexation item, and Use of Force policy details. Reverend Dr. Evelyn Underwood encouraged folks to embrace more love and kindness with each other and offered her appreciation of the work and consideration on the Use of Force policy by the City and various organizations.
The Mayor shared her presentation on the proclamation marking Supermarket Employee Appreciation Day. Council comments consisted of Alderwoman Hursey making a correction on the context of statement by her that was referenced in public input.
The Council passed its action items on the agenda except for the Human Rights Ordinance issue which was sent back to committee. The de-escalation resolution was passed with some minor language tweaks. The annexation approval included direction to City Staff for outreach for further annexation offers to the remaining unannexed portion of that neighborhood.
No comments:
Post a Comment