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Commission Designing New Oversight Board
Lists Possible Components
Staff-Organized Community Listening Sessions Get Mixed Response
by Philip C.

Now 12 months into their their mandated 18 month task of creating a new police oversight system, the Police Accountability Commision has completed two phases. They have created bylaws, met with stakeholders, and created three documents listing practices to consider and practices to avoid based on their research. One addresses other jurisdictions, one cites police oversight experts, and one looks at the existing system in Portland. The current Powers and Duties stage involves three topics: access to information, officer accountability, and structural oversight (policy recommendations and other issues).

On August 31, City Council appointed new members to fill vacant seats: Aje Amaechi and Obinna Ugwu-Oju, to replace Alvin Joswick and Winta Yohannes. Another member, Eva Vega, resigned in late October, and Eric Hunter resigned in early December, leaving just 18 Commissioners. On December 14, Commissioner Jason Renaud resigned and City Council replaced him with lawyer KC Lewis Jones. Lewis, like Renaud, works with the Mental Health Alliance.

The PAC hosted two community listening sessions, a virtual session on Nov. 3 and an in-person only session on Nov. 17 (with masks and social distancing optional even though COVID-19 is still infecting our communities). Most of the discussion involved community members asking questions about the mission and powers of the Commission with the PAC members offering explanations. Many community members shared their distrust of city-run police oversight groups because the groups have been without power to make changes, discipline, or fire officers. Community members were asked to share their traumatic run-ins with the police and how they would like things to change but without follow-up or any kind of trauma-informed care provided. If the PAC was looking for constructive input to help guide their work, I think the first listening sessions were failures because (1) the meetings were not well attended, (2) most attendees didn't have a basic understanding of the PAC, (3) the PAC will likely have little practical use for the input they received, and (4) the listening sessions felt like checking the community engagement box rather than quality community engagement with the PAC. Moreover, because no hybrid option was offered, only four of 19 Commissioners attended the in-person event.

It's been one year since the PAC started meeting and they are only just starting to describe the new board that was voted in to the City Charter in November 2020.

Note: the print version listed KC Lewis as KC Jones. PCW regrets the error.

January, 2023
Also in PPR #88

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Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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