So we'll get a chance to hear their names again.

A lot of what's on the agenda tonight really, in a way, is helping bring them on board and and get some sense of how the board operates.

So welcome, welcome to the board.

And then with that uh that said, I think we'll go ahead and start introductions.

And uh as it's become sort of traditional, I just always look left.

I'll start with assistant chief Horrell first.

Sure.

My name is uh Richard Harelm, Assistant Chief of the Columbia Police Department.

I'm Lynn Bergen.

Uh member, okay.

Steph Yockham, Human Rights Commission.

Harry Castello, board member.

Ed Robinson, board member.

Denise Flazik, board member.

Doug Hunt, board chair.

Steve Jeffrey, Vice Chair.

Stephanie Coleman, board member.

Mikeing Powell, new board member.

Earl Krause, City Law Department.

Payne Oliver, City Manager's Office.

Stephanie Brown, City Manager's Office, and Staff Liaison.

All right, first item as always is the approval of the agenda.

Does anybody have any changes they would like to make or like to see on the agenda?

If not, I'll entertain a motion to uh approve.

Motion to approve.

Okay.

I'll second.

Coleman.

Jeffrey.

Motion.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed.

No.

None opposed.

And uh so the agenda is on as written.

Um and then we have in front of us, and I think people have had a chance to look at it ahead of time as well, the draft minutes from the August 13th uh meeting, our last meeting.

Um I should say to the new members, although they probably know this, that you can always review those past meetings because they are available and the video of them is available.

Um do I have a motion to approve the minutes of the Jeffrey motion.

Okay.

I'll make a second.

Second from Stephanie Yocham.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same side.

Um the first item I actually considered briefly the idea of um changing the agenda.

I'm gonna instead try to explain a little bit about the wrong house follow-up.

The the uh August 13th meeting uh included a a uh presentation by Assistant Chief Horrell about what are often called wrong house or sometimes wrong address uh police actions.

Uh and so that's what we're referring to.

I had actually expected to be presenting a summary of what the board learned about what these common, what are commonly called wrong address errors by police officers uh are all about.

Uh and um what uh assistant chief Horrell had to say about the the Columbia Police uh department and uh their policies and procedures.

I did think that presenting such a summary would help us do our job of increasing the police department's accountability to the community and community trust in the police department.

However, Chief Slute last Friday sent me a note objecting to my attempt to summarize what Assistant Chief Orell told us last month.

And in order to respect the Chief's wishes, I won't present the summary.

Unfortunately, I am forbidden by state law and city ordinances from offering that explanation.

So I have nothing particular to present with regard to the wrong house follow-up.

Certainly other members of the board are welcome to talk if they have any observations about what we discussed at the August 13th meeting about wronghouse incidents.

If not, we can move on to the next item.

Okay.

The next one could be described as just as housekeeping question.

There's an annual report that the uh that the Citizens Police Review Board is to file with the City Council, and I I see that it wasn't posted yet.

That is, I when I was looking at previous annual reports, I didn't see 2024 up.

I remember that I think it was on the January meeting this year, we had a draft that uh of uh that had been prepared by Rose Wibbenmeyer before she left on the 2024 report.

To be honest with you, I can't remember at this point whether we approved that draft, but I know uh did anybody from the I feel really confident we did.

I'm gonna there was a final draft in the folder.

Oh, there was a great that's great.

So I think it may the all we may be talking about here is let's make sure that it gets posted with the other uh uh uh annual reports.

I just wanted to make sure that we tidied up that little bit of business.

Um of course I can never rely on my memory.

So it did well.

I feel like sent it to City Council, and I saw it on a city council agenda.

Oh, good.

Excellent.

Excellent, excellent, excellent.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Um I think those little bits of housekeeping are done.

Um, the again, and I I want to say that one of our um purposes here really is to welcome Lynn and Mike Keen aboard and to kind of have a discussion of how things operate here.

And I I um I had prepared and I sent out to people so they could have read it, and I don't know how many people had an opportunity to read it, a little five-page summary of it was primarily focused on the first year, but talking about the things that happened.

Um it looks like most people, but maybe maybe not all have actually read that, but I'm I think nonetheless, just to refresh, I what I'd like to do like the three-minute version of it, just a little slow little summary to sort of focus us on that.

I know that some of you, I'm guessing about half of us were here when uh State Representative David Tyson Smith described for us the 2006 incident that led to the birth of the CPRB.

According to Representative Smith, the incident involved the takedown and handcuffing of Alvis Scott, a middle-aged African-American woman who was not threatening anyone or violating any law.

Several prominent Columbia citizens made it clear that this wasn't the kind of policing that they wanted to see in their city.

They insisted that some system of citizen oversight of the police be established.

And so after much discussion and study, I mean much discussion, it's like there were like 36 meetings of blue ribbon commissions working on it.

After much discussion and study, the City Council created the CPRB, which had its first meetings in 2010.

During those 2010 meetings, the CPRB heard only three appeals, but received a great deal of attention because the appeals were adjudicated in public with members of the press present.

To judge from the excellent minutes taken by Rose Wibbenmeyer, those hearings were precisely what my high school civics class had prepared me to admire.

A robust community discussion of how an important public agency should do its business.

A wide range of citizens were heard from, including some with ties to the police department, some with ties to civil liberties groups, and some with ties to neither.

There may not have been a time before or since when so many Colombians heard so much or thought so much or cared so much about police policy.

From one perspective, it looked like a golden age.

But from another, it looked like a train wreck.

In two cases out of the three, the board agreed with the Chief's preliminary finding.

In the third case, it disagreed.

That case involved once again the takedown and handcuffing of a citizen who was not actively threatening anyone or breaking any law.

After much testimony and debate, the majority of the board members concluded that the chief's exoneration of the officer was incorrect, and that the officer had used unnecessary and excessive force.

The Columbia Police Officers Association responded with an angry press release, which I'll quote.

The board's decision was rendered after a two-week evidentiary circus in which the board publicly obsessed over hours of redundant, speculative, and wholly irrelevant testimony.

Both the lack of thoughtful contemplation present in the board's decision and the nonchalant approach to applying well-established constitutional standards completely undermines the board's credibility with officers while still in the infancy of its existence.

Close quote.

Police chief apparently agreed with the police officers association.

He concluded that the CPRB wasn't a tribunal that could fairly judge officers' conduct.

He refused to change his disciplinary decision and urged the City Council to put stricter limits on the review board's ability to hear appeals.

On that note, the CPRB's first year ended.

The difficulties of the first year foreshadowed the difficulties that lay ahead.

Tensions between the police officers association, the chief and the board grew.

Soon the board stopped hearing its appeals in public, and it became harder for anyone on the board or off to know whether its efforts had any impact on how the police department operated.

From time to time, board members resigned, expressing their frustration when they did.

One said, and I quote, I wish that the review board could function the way in which it may have been intended.

I wasn't there when they implemented it, but it's evident that it's not working.

Close quote.

Another said that he no longer could quote sit on a board that has no power to do what its ordinance claims it can do.

By sitting there, I feel like I'm being complicit and lying to the public.

Close quote.

It became harder to recruit applicants for empty seats, and sometimes those who stepped forward did so because they were ideologically committed, either to supporting officers or criticizing them.

Disagreements about how the work should be done at time became acrimonious.

In 2022, the City Council felt compelled to put the quote dysfunctional board on hiatus for a few months.

In 2024, in response to a new state law, and at the urging of the Columbia Police Officers Association, the council stripped the board of what may have been, certainly in my view, its most important duties.

No longer would it be authorized to provide feedback to the chief and the city manager on policy matters.

No longer would it be authorized to host public meetings where police policies and practices were openly discussed and analyzed.

So that's the end of the history that I had provided.

And that brings us to the present moment.

Any comments or questions are welcome, either from our new members or anybody else.

But that's sort of just trying to catch us up to how we got where we are.

I'd like to say thank you for providing that, Doug, because I think it's important that we understand who we were, who we are, who we want to be, and without understanding our history, we have none of that.

So I want to thank you for providing that to us.

I think it's very important for us to understand that.

Thank you.

And I I really, if people want to plunge into that, I really do recommend that they look at those minutes from the early meetings.

They're they're very detailed and very fascinating.

And you get to hear how people were talking at that point.

So I would I would echo what Harry said.

Uh good job of putting all that together and bringing everyone up to speed on that.

Um full disclosure, I was part of that dysfunctional board back in the middle of the year.

Yeah, right.

You've been here.

Yeah, yeah.

It was just the first month or two, and then we went to hiatus.

So I was like, what exactly am I doing here?

But uh, you stayed with it.

Yeah, yeah, I persevered.

But uh I would say yes now versus then.

We certainly have our differences to be sure, but uh.

I think everyone is on board with working toward the end result of improving things, improving policing, improving uh communication, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's vastly different now than what it was, and I'm happy to be part of it.

Thank you.

That's great.

And that's that's important for us to hear too, because you were there to see all this.

And only getting it at second hand.

Yeah, I never felt that within the board that we're so far with the board members I've worked with, I've never felt that there was any kind of issue between us.

The issue is on the outside forces that are tying our hands and preventing us from being able to do anything.

And I kind of feel like you know, like the old board member that you quoted about feeling like, are you like, is this like a play that we're in, you know, like, you know, like the placebo thing, are we really?

It seems more and more like even what what you reported today, more and more we're not uh uh our wings are just clipped.

So I I feel frustrated, you know, very much, but not within the city.

And we're gonna get a chance uh later on to sort of go around the table and talk uh about our experience.

But I think that's very, very good.

I mean, to get this uh discuss.

I think we need to know, and and both of you said something I think is really important about feeling good about what the board has been doing.

And you come away from these meetings feeling like you've seen citizens actually try to do very much the right thing and a balanced thing.

But the the I I I can't imagine what some of those meetings must have been like in the old days.

Well, there was not necessarily harmony within the board.

So there was some some tension.

Yes, yes, some tension, good and good and good word, not only with the board, but obviously we're trying to present a united front, and that was close to impossible.

But again, that's long ago.

Today is much, much, much better.

So I feel the board has been through many iterations throughout the years, and that in the last 24 months, and especially since the passage of the state law, this board as a whole and individuals are all trying to move forward in good faith.

And this board has gone through many generations.

I feel as if the relationship with the local law enforcement may remain more stagnant and may be slower to evolve or change the conversation or dialogue.

I feel as if we are still not being received in good faith.

And as if our suggestions are being received as punitive or aggressive, when in reality, I genuinely feel as if we are trying to just make a better policy.

If we've talked our history, we're back to the present, so to speak, and we'll return to the president.

I uh uh as I as I uh uh told Mikein and uh Lynn, um one of the things we want to do is make sure that they're just properly brought on board and understand some things.

A lot has to do with and we're gonna be turning to Earl Krause for this, with the rules under which we operate.

Uh and so um and so we are now we really are in the present, so to speak.

So uh Earl, I don't know how you would like to go about this, but I know you're well prepared, so I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you.

Yes, I do have some materials I'm planning to go through.

Hopefully, I can touch base on a lot of procedural, some legal requirements, some process, uh the authority that relates to those.

I'm gonna go down to the podium so I can run it from there, I think, because I understand that's where that's set up.

Uh if that's all right.

Sure, absolutely.

Hear me okay?

Good.

Cut this up.

See if I can vote.

Which eyes do you say last time?

I feel for you.

I thought he was over there last time.

This is three minutes or five minutes here.

Well, hey, whichever you prefer.

If you go on, I'll just give you the red light.

All right, so I was gonna start off.

Uh we've got mentioned on the agenda the city code and state law, which includes um section 59502 and chapter 610, the sunshine law.

Uh I was gonna go in the order of starting with city code first, because that most directly applies to you, and then the other authority relates uh in a way.

Uh if you want to go to that and find it, I wasn't sure how often you go, if at all.

I go there all the time.

It's great for us to go.

Uh so you go to the City of Columbia Como.gov and you go to government.

Uh well, it takes you to another link for city code.

So code of ordinances again.

Here we go.

And we go down to we want to find the board, right?

So we'll go down to police in 21.

And a part of that is Citizens Police Review Board in Article 3.

That we go.

Citizens Police Review Board, and it starts on with the various codes that address uh what you do.

Uh including starting off with your purpose, uh, which you talked about a little bit already, but it does set out the purpose of the article.

So an external and independent process for review of actual or perceived misconduct by police officers, thereby, including police departments with accountability to the community and community trust in the police department.

Uh so most articles have definitions, and this one does too.

Uh I'm not going to run through each and all of those, especially if I only got three minutes.

So I'm kidding.

Take your time.

All right.

But there's a couple of them of note that that we'll touch on.

Of course, misconduct is defined uh in the city code, and it defines it as a violation of federal law, state law, and the reason that's important is you address issues of misconduct.

And if it's not within the definition of misconduct, that's not something that would be within your authority.

You know, so what all is in here?

Uh violation of federal law, state law, city ordinance, regulation, policies, rules, uh, a number of different things.

Uh which in uh incident, which involves that's a key key part of that definition is all these different areas of law and rules and things, but only to the extent they involve excessive use of force, abuse of authority, discourage, discourtesy, use of offensive language, and then it includes things about the language.

So it's not everything, it's things that involve those types of things.

Um question I know we've gotten previously is like, well, yeah, but what's an example of what wouldn't fall in that?

Well, if there's an issue, let's say how an officer is using their vacation time.

It's not going to fall within that.

It might be a violation of policy, but it doesn't involve use of force or these other things listed in this definition.

So that's an important one.

Uh notice can be also too because we track timelines and time frames.

Um different parts of the process that we talk about.

There's certain time frames within which things have to happen.

Um or they're barred in some instances.

And so notice uh has it just defined.

And it says, well, if you hand deliver it, that's notice.

Or five business days after it's mailed, that is automatically notice.

So if a notice is mailed out five days later, notice is met by city code.

Um there's other ways you can you can uh determine actual notice, like if you email it to someone and they respond, hey, I got this.

Well, it's pretty good evidence they have notice.

Um at any rate, that's the definition there.

And as we go along, if you have questions or thoughts, please jump right in.

I don't mean to dominate the discussion.

All right, so it establishes the board.

The board is hereby established.

That's important to have a board.

Uh you've got the members and the qualifications, terms, and all those things.

Uh unless there's questions, I'm not going to focus on that too much.

Uh your officers and meetings is set out too.

Importantly, five members is a quorum.

It's stated in the code, so you need five members to have a meeting.

Thankfully, you've got a whole full boat tonight, which is great.

Um, but if you have, if you gather for a meeting and there's only four or less, can't have the meeting.

And we'll talk about that in the sunshine law too.

Uh right, so administration of training, it talks about that a little bit on training.

This is a part of that for for the new members.

Bringing them up to speed and where to find it, and then hopefully later, as you're thinking about this, if you're like, well, what was that one we talked about?

You can go back to the ordinances and see what it says.

Uh and honestly, that's what I do when I get a question, and Rose used to always say, go back to the ordinance, or I'll go back to the ordinance.

Because you know what really matters.

Well, what's the ordinance say on this situation?

And that's good advice.

So duties of the board, those are spelled out also in 41 and 21-49.

So review appeals from the police chief's preliminary determination on alleged misconduct on complaints.

That's a key function.

You uh do a jurisdictional review, which can oftentimes be a part of the main review.

You have to have jurisdiction to take an appeal in the first place.

You want to do a review and make sure.

And in some situations, that's really the initial or maybe the only review if the initial determination was this was about something five years ago, and it's not within the jurisdiction of a complaint, and so then it comes to the board, and you make the a similar assessment or an assessment to determine whether that was accurate.

Uh reviewing records related to complaints of alleged misconduct, and then there's uh an annual report there, which we talked about a little bit earlier.

All right, so now the real process uh for uh complaint works complaints that come before the board.

Uh so of course a complaint first comes in uh through the city clerk or to the police department and the police department, if it comes to the city clerk, they send it to the police department, and if it goes to the police department, then they have it.

Uh and they look into that, they do an investigation.

It eventually leads to a preliminary determination by the police chief.

And that goes that it's provided via notice to the complainant.

And then that person can appeal that if they want to within a certain period of time.

That's that's set out.

This first part talks about the police chief's duties and the police department's duties and how to do that.

And then when once they make a the chief makes a preliminary determination, it can be unfounded, not sustained, sustained, uh, those types of decisions.

And then it talks about there's a right to an appeal, that decision.

The clerk must receive the appeal within 10 days after the notice.

That's part of the notice and the timing requirements we're talking about.

Uh if they do that, uh then it comes to the board.

And you have a as a part of that the jurisdictional review we mentioned.

Um, and there's things qualifications to uh you know, be on time and and you're the person that the complaint was about and that sort of thing.

Uh we get down here, uh the board, and I'll talk about this more in a little bit, the but the board meets and discusses under city code and state statute, complaints and appeals in closed session.

Uh under the Sunshine Law, those things are closed under section 590 502, those are closed and confidential.

And so you have you're required to discuss those in closed session.

Um, like is noted on this agenda.

If you were to go into closed session from an open meeting, I'll talk about a little bit later how to do that.

You can you kind of have done that a lot and are good at it.

Um, but you'd go from open into closed session.

We hold those upstairs, usually on the second floor, um, and discuss those things in closed.

The board would then make a recommendation.

The board makes recommendations to the uh police chief, saying, Well, you recommend that you agree with her, you recommend that you don't agree with her, and here's what you would like to see, whatever the recommendations are.

Uh and then the police chief takes that.

She can agree with you, she can do something, change, she can, I guess essentially leave her decision the same, change her decision to something else, or not act, and then it's an inherent applied leaving it.

Notice that that goes to the complainant, and then they can appeal that if they want to to the city manager.

Right.

Yes.

The appeals that Rose is talking about now, that's our hurry up moment because we have a limited amount of time to uh look into the the uh situation and make our recommendation and so um it tends to push us to say to put us all in a position of saying, well, whatever I was planning to do this weekend, I I may or may not be doing.

So that's that's the that's the stress time in some ways for us.

Yeah, that that's an excellent point.

Um because there's not only the time frame set out in these this many days, that many days, there's also the overall time frame in 590 502, which requires the entire process to be resolved in 90 days, and that entire process means the complaint comes in, everything the police does in all their investigation, you appeal to the board if there is one, the appeal to city manager approves one, back to the police chief for final determination.

All of that has to happen under the statute within 90 days.

However, there can be extensions sought, and if it happens to have go through all those bodies and have a meeting, and then if you don't have a quorum, you got to go to the next meeting or have a special meeting.

Um, an extension for 60 days, two times.

You, meaning the police chief seeks these extensions.

And that's because this whole process ultimately can end up with action against the officer by the police chief.

So if it's not extended and time runs out, the police chief is the one that loses authority.

She doesn't want to lose that authority.

So they would seek the extension from the city manager.

There's a hearing process if if it's not consented to.

And some of these have reached all the way to the end of all of those three time frames.

And it's been kind of this done because there's no more extensions.

So uh appeal to the city manager.

That's after you've done your part, and then it's kind of out of your hands at that point.

It's on to the city manager.

Uh the city manager proceeds as as they're going to.

Typically, that involves a full review of all everything that's in the record.

Um, and then making a the city manager also makes a recommendation to the police chief, because the authority to make the final determination and take action, if any, against the officer resides with the police chief under the CO2.

I would think the city manager's recommendation.

We're going to carry a lot of weight because they're the kind of the police chief boss, but uh that's how it's written.

Okay.

So down to records with regard to the complaints, which is right here, talks about since this was passed a while back, it addresses issues before 2021 and after 2021.

Um that's what that's about.

So here you got records on or after 2021.

Uh shall be subject to the confidentiality requirements of 59502.

That kind of makes those the same.

And it says they're confidential.

So records about complaints and appeals and all of that that comes uh before the board on specific cases by statute and by city code is confidential and closed.

And that's where you'll find that authority.

Uh let's see.

I have a quick question.

Yeah, go ahead.

The 90-day timeline, uh, the state statute of 595, has it always been 90 days, or was that changed last year?

I've no I knew we had extensions.

I didn't know if I've always felt the 90 days is very little time.

I didn't know.

Yeah, it's not very much time.

If it had previously been 180 days or something more recently.

I feel like we had meetings that talked about that new time frame.

I think that's I don't think it was the most recent change in state law.

Okay, so it's a couple of years ago.

I have a copy of 59502, the note at the end from uh revised statutes of Missouri is that it was enacted under Central 26 and in the year 2021.

It's not noting any other changes since then.

And 2021 was also the year of the strengthened police officers bill of rights, I think, and stuff like that.

Right.

Because this section also called talks about um notice requirements and how to uh question officers and giving a guarantee.

All right.

So well, that's what I was going to talk about next.

Um there's a lot uh different things in 59502, much of it goes towards things that police departments required to do in uh potentially investigating andor taking actions with regard to officers.

Don't relate directly to the board, but there are a few things like the time frame, certainly does.

We have to keep an eye on that.

It also talks about notice to the officer.

That the complaint has to be supported by a written statement outlighting outlining the complaint that includes the personal identifying information of the person filing the complaint.

So no anonymous complaints.

Two talks about giving a guarrity notice, which Garrety is a reference to a court case.

I guess if an employer, and this this isn't just a policing, this is an employer is questioning certainly government, questioning an employee about something that could result in criminal charges.

And the employer says you're going to answer these, or we're going to fire you.

You're required to answer.

Well, they have to, there's a there's a notice that they need to provide them about their rights with regard to that, because if they do require them to answer, and they do, then those answers can't be a that's not a full and complete uh description of that, but that that's what that's about.

Of course, they provide information about right to an attorney.

Uh timing deadlines talked about the 90 days extending twice uh for 60 days.

Uh it can also be told, the timing entirely can be told, meaning paused, I guess.

Um if there's a related criminal investigation going on, then because that can take that.

Um so this uh potential disciplinary thing can all be told by us, something like that is pending.

Um right.

We talked about it's in 50902502 also about records being held confidential, not subject to disclosure.

It specifically says not subject to disclosure under Chapter 610, which is the Sunshine Law, except by subpoena, court order, officer consent, or uh some other uh 59502 does talk about uh if there was a lawsuit that finds that a governmental body violated that section uh court shall void any actions taken in violation of the section and can award costs and attorney's fees.

So that's where the 59502.

I was also gonna touch base a little bit on the sunshine law, unless there's some questions.

Um I do have a couple more sunshine law books.

Uh by Keene and Lynn One.

That's the most recent updated one.

Uh the law has changed a couple times since then and changed in this last legislative session a little bit too.

And in fact, in the city council meeting on Monday, they're considering um amending the city code to encompass some of those changes.

We'll see if they do or don't.

But that's the most recent book.

The frequently asked questions in the book are pretty good.

Uh, there's some case law that I find interesting, you may not.

Um, but it's it's riveting reading, and less, especially if you're trying to go to sleep at night, then it might help you there.

Um still has our uh prior AG.

We have a new state attorney general now.

Um, but of course, that's not reflected on the book yet.

All right, so on the sunshine law part of it, uh, with regard to all governmental bodies, including this one and the city, um, it talks about open meetings and open records and really stresses uh meetings and records, meetings like this one are encouraged to be open so people can come and watch.

You can see the agenda ahead of time and decide, oh, that's something interesting on that agenda.

I want to go see that.

Where is it at?

Well, here's the date, and here's the time, and here's the all the stuff on the notice.

It's posted more than 24 hours ahead of time, like is required.

Staff takes care of all of that.

Um, and then you can come and watch.

Except there are specific exceptions in the law that say you can close for these reasons.

Um, and particularly when there's another law outside of the Sunshine Law that says this shall be closed or confidential, and there's potential penalties for not doing that, um, then that's important.

So we talked about there's there's a whole list of reasons.

I think we're up to with the new changes in the law.

Some of them relate to each other.

Um city code, uh each this each public governmental body that's referring to the city is required to have a policy about its open meetings and open records.

The city has done that through ordinance, and they've adopted ordinance about these reasons can be used to close meetings, these reasons can be used to close records.

They're gonna take up the records thing again on Monday.

Um of the other law, we talked about 59502.

Uh, there's also even in uh chapter 610, there's 610100 regarding uh police investigative reports and arrest reports.

And this can be kind of difficult for the records custodians in that whether it's sometimes it's open and then it becomes closed, and other times it's closed and then it becomes open.

And so it depends on when you get the request, if it's a records request, um, or if it's to be discussed at a public meeting, it's like, well, is this open right now?

I don't know.

Um, but like police investigative reports are closed while the investigation's active, but once active, it becomes open.

You have an arrest report that's open, but if they're not charged within 30 days, it becomes closed.

So those are kind of moving targets that can be really challenging to figure out.

And of course, if you do it wrong on one side, someone's mad, and if you do it wrong on the other side, someone else is mad, and you could get sued from both sides.

There's that.

Um the long and short of it is you know, to do open stuff and open, do closed stuff and close and do your best, and if you're not sure, ask questions, and we can figure it out.

Um with regard to meetings, sunshine law addresses meetings and records.

Uh we talked about this uh board quorum is five.

Uh if you don't have a quorum, you can't do business.

Uh your quorum can be usually people here in person.

Um, but it can also be uh everybody's on a video chat or everybody's on a phone call.

And even if you say email everyone and they reply all back, that's the whole board talking.

And if you're talking business, that can be a meeting posted and people can't come watch, and it's a violation of the sunshine law.

Um a good way to avoid that, and most of you know this, is don't even email everybody, email staff.

They'll send it out to everybody, and they'll line copy, so you can't accidentally hit reply all and say, I didn't get this, what time's the meeting?

And I don't know if I can be there.

Oh, well, now you're talking business.

And it's it's actually required under chapter six, under section six ten oh two five that if you email a majority of the board, you're required by law to send it to staff also, and that's so that it's somewhere on the government of the cities, the governmental bodies um record system somewhere instead of your individual ones, because if there's a lawsuit about it, you don't want to be people going probably.

You'd rather have them just look at the cities.

Um but anyway, that's that's a requirement.

Uh mentioned meetings have to be posted at least 24 hours ahead of time, along with a tentative agenda.

Sometimes you amend your agenda to make minor adjustments, that's completely okay.

Um, but the point there is so that people can see it ahead of time and decide if they want to come watch.

Uh minutes have to be taken, that's also required in the sunshine law.

The law actually only requires votes be recorded.

Most boards put a whole lot more in their minutes.

We talked about this, we planned on that, we want staff to bring this next time.

That's all good stuff.

It's great business practice.

It's not actually required by the law, but it's certainly not prohibited, and is a good thing to do.

But the votes you have to get down.

Uh roll call votes.

Uh you don't notice sometimes you the votes so far today, you called, got a motion, got a second, all in favor?

That's great.

Uh sometimes you'll ask, usually ask staff or someone to call each person's name and record their vote individually, and you'll each vote individually and separately.

To go into closed session, that's required by law.

It has to be a roll call vote.

That's also required.

And I think the reason behind that is because the public's not there watching the closed session.

And so how's anyone going to know what was voted on or decided?

Well, the minutes.

And if the minutes require a roll call vote on every one and how each person voted, it's not the same as someone sitting there watching, but at least it's a record.

And that you may think, well, that's closed.

How's that ever going to come out?

Well, if there's a lawsuit and there are discovery or there's subpoenas.

Still come out that way, even though someone submits a record request, we'll say no, it's closed.

You can't have that.

And then six months later you get some a summons on a lawsuit, and then you get discovery request for production.

The judge says give it up, and then you have to give it up.

Uh right.

Everyone, everyone always asks about penalties and sunshine laws, so I I typically just touch on that.

Uh there are some.

Uh it separates out, this is kind of odd.

It has knowing violations and purposeful violations.

Purposeful is worse.

Uh knowing violation is a $1,000 fine per violation.

Purposefully is $5,000 per violation.

But of course, to get to that point, you have to have had some kind of problem.

There's some kind of a complaint or something that wasn't resolved.

There was a lawsuit.

It was litigated for a year and a half, if you're lucky.

Um, and then there's a judgment, and the judge decides these things and imposes decide to, which can be those amounts.

They can also award attorneys' fees, which 1,000, 5,000.

Um that specifically in that section can be on the governmental body, which is the normal case, but it does say or a member.

And it could be that very often, but it can be under the law.

And the judge can void whatever action was taken if there was one in violation of the sunshine law.

They're not required to do that, but they can.

Um so if let's say you were in closed, you had some kind of noncompliance with uh approval of a contract or something, and it through just like we talked about, and judge determines there's a violation, they impose the fine, they impose the attorney's fees, and they void that vendor is gonna be not too happy that their contract got terminated, voided, not just terminated, but voided, never existed.

And so they're probably gonna sue, and then you're gonna have another case, and it's gonna be a whole thing, and it's embarrassing, and it's in the media, and it's it's just not great.

Um again, this doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

Um I know I saw one recently.

Judgment on CaseNet from this with the state of Missouri, and they even they named the agency's attorney who is involved in this over and over and over.

How am I still?

Oh, oh, that's not great.

Um so you know, it can happen.

Um that's what I had on the Sunshine Law.

There's a lot more I could talk about about that, but I don't want to take up all your whole evening.

Uh some logistical things uh that relate to these.

Um typically before meeting, the board will the board staff will try to poll members to see who all's coming and who's not, so we can make sure there's a quorum.

Um so if you you s you respond, you're like, well, no, I can't, and then someone gets back to you and says, You seem kind of iffy.

We have four confirmations.

Are you sure you can't come?

Because if you can't.

So they really try to do that to ahead of time to plan so we know we're gonna have a quorum.

Um otherwise, you know, you waste a lot of people's time and the public shows up and then you can't have a meeting.

And it's and if we're on uh type time frames on a case, then that matters even more.

You might have to have a special meeting or get another extension.

Board members typically receive open materials via email, which is your own personal emails.

Closed materials, you typically will not receive that way for reasons we've talked about.

Um so that that can be by mail, it can be by pick up a flash drive at the front desk, it can be by a dashboard we've been trying to deal with.

Um is that generous?

Um, but that's the reason for that delineation is you know, the the open materials out in the world.

Well, if they're happen to also be on your email, that's no big deal.

Closed materials, we have to control where those are.

Stay closed because there's penalties if they don't stay closed.

Well, that's what I had about that.

Why not?

That has to do with uh email.

Uh I was advised when I came on the board that it would be wise for me to separate into another uh email address, the business that I do uh on the board.

And in fact, I'm on a couple boards, so I got one address for my board work and another address for my other things.

And in fact, I I have been sunshine.

That is my emails have been looked at and things like that.

But it was not all the emails that I sent to my daughter.

So there's an advantages to setting up a separate account for the money.

Yeah, man, I was gonna tell them that too.

At least did that as well.

I didn't.

I don't, but I have 10 email addresses already, and I don't care what people see.

So I learned a lot and connected a lot of dots on things I already knew.

Did we not do a roll call on the closed minutes from last time?

Because I wasn't here and I got them in the mail, and I knew we would do like a name roll calling.

We we do votes in open, even to approved closed minutes, do not have to be by roll call.

Okay.

Ignore that.

If you approve them in closed session, it would have to be.

That's good catch.

Yes.

Thank you for thinking of something else.

Let me know.

Right.

We went slightly over your five minutes.

Well, you were on a roll, I just let you know.

All right.

I was kicking Stephen, but he wasn't paying.

Well, now that you said that, I've got another three chapters.

Our red.

So that's what you want.

No loss.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Um next item is comment by experienced board members about their work with the board.

Uh, again, I'm thinking this might be useful for our new members.

Our new members might also want to say something at some point in this.

Informal.

That is, I think I I set out the suggestion that we might want to talk about what got us onto the board and and what we found really satisfying and what we found uh more problematic about being on the board.

So that's uh the this new members kind of know what the the road ahead looks like for them.

But I I'm gonna just sit back for a while because I've talked too much this evening already and see if anybody would like to to take the lead.

Yeah, I can start.

Okay.

Um so the main thing that coming in coming aboard, welcome, by the way.

I'm glad you guys are here.

It was very nice to have a have a full board.

Um one of the things that I would say that I want you guys to know is the work that we do.

It can be pretty heavy at times.

We're looking at body worn cameras that can be pretty intense.

Um and if you're you haven't seen something like that situation, it you know, sometimes it gets us.

So that's just something to be aware of.

And we're also spending, you know, sometimes it's it's a lot of hours to go through, you know, all of the evidence.

So I appreciate that you guys are willing to do that.

Anyone else want to make a an observation?

Yeah, I'd like to.

Sure.

Uh just don't want to dissuade you.

Um I know what you'll hear a lot is that we have no teeth.

Uh the people on this board want to have teeth.

Um, and we try to find a way to have teeth.

Um specifically, Doug, you do a great job of that.

You do uh a great job as a leader to try to give us the ability to have the citizens understand that we really want to do our job.

Um some stuff happened a little while ago.

I'm very disappointed in the um Columbia Police Officers Association, very disappointed in them for lobbying to stop us from being able to do what we want to do, or what we should do, or we were tasked to do what we should be doing, exactly.

Um but that being said, it's still important work, a hundred percent important work that we are here and that we uh make sure that citizens know somebody's looking, right?

So something that really stuck out to me uh when you were speaking earlier.

Uh you said who we want to be.

So can you guys elaborate on that?

Who do we want to be compared to who we were a few years ago?

Like I know a lot of things have changed, but do we have like a plan to get to where we want to be quite yet?

Or I can speak a little bit on that.

I mean, for me, I wanted to be more proactive.

And when we first started, we were able to do public type forums and and get the public involved in suggestions for like policies and things like that, and we're not allowed to do that anymore.

So the only time that we ever get together is for a meeting now.

We're not getting out there and being proactive of this is who we are, this is what we do, and trying to to bring people, you know, in.

We don't we aren't doing that.

Uh we we do have brochures and things like that, at least now that we can hand out, but we're not we're just not doing the proactive approach like we were.

So yeah.

Um Earl, you were you were showing something in I I want to say it was 59502.

You talked about community trust in the police.

That's that's who we should be.

We should be able to give the citizens that community trust in them, right?

Because somebody has to watch, right?

Um that's who we want to be.

Um and it feels at times that we're not allowed to do that.

So that's my opinion.

Only from my observation, I've been on here less than two years.

Everything goes through cycles, powers and attitudes have waxed and waned, and then of course we're in Missouri, we're in the 2025.

Um we used to, from my understanding, maybe have more leeway in being able to state opinions or issue opinions about police officer actions and then now reduced even more to more of an advisory role, which I don't think anyone has a major issue with, um, but it does tend to feel somewhat performative sometimes.

Um but also to echo what Harry said, I am very full of complaints, and all I'm doing is complaining to people about all of the problems I see.

But I am here because I do believe that things can be made better.

And I believe that there are compet competent people within every layer of public service who can be told like, hey, this is what the public's dealing with.

You have to remember that.

So it can be a misunderstanding, I think, about the purpose of the board.

And um and we're not trying to be adversarial or critique the police department.

I I we want to say, as members of the community, we want to have a a really great police department, and we want the citizens to feel comfortable with the kind of security that they provide, and we just want to help them do a better job and help you know the citizens feel like you know, that we really do have a great police department.

And but because of that thing that happened in August, you know, when they they passed the law and they kind of uh hobbled us, it it does make it seem a little because how it was so disappointing to see the police.

The Columbia police department come out against us.

I mean, do you know how devast I mean that is so devastating because that's like we were thinking we were partnership?

Good government, you know, and instead it's like no, no.

And so, yeah, but but we are trying to uh figure it out, figure out a way to to have some impact and make it you know better work, tempered, comprehensive, policy focused, not individual punishment-based.

Yes.

And sometimes I feel that our opinions are not received at all, or not received well, or not, but again, that's just my anecdotal expression.

Or sometimes we can't tell.

That's a lot, a lot of difficulty getting feedback.

I I I would say I'll sort of microscopically and then uh in a larger sense.

I can think of some instances where we dealt with citizen complaints.

And I felt a strong sense of satisfaction because the citizens felt they had been heard.

And and in a couple of cases, we were actually able to give them a measure of relief uh about uh things that happened.

So, you know, we you you get a case now and then, um, and it's like another set of eyes looking at what happened and seeing something and saying to the complainant, we see, you know, in a fact, we see what what you're saying here.

And you know, we this is what we're trying trying to do for you.

Um so that's the the individual case, and and I don't want to discount that.

I think that's an important thing.

Uh the other side of me says if if you are trying wholeheartedly to improve a system, you need to be able to address the system.

And very much what what Steph is saying, the way the system is set up, it all has to do with discipline of individual officers.

That's so a lot of and that's we're not very interested in that, frankly.

Right.

We're interested in talking about what are the policies, what are the procedures, what is the training look like, and we're we struggle with a way to to do that uh given what the uh ordinances in the state law have to say.

So but I you know I one of the things I've because we're we're in a way giving a gloomy picture.

I want to reinforce what several members of the board have said.

Um you know, when when uh and it was sort of Stephen after that period that you knew so much about when the board was having all this trouble and they went into hiatus and they were looking for new members, and I actually had a call from a neighbor asking me to apply because she knew I was interested in such things.

The pastor of my church said that's a dumpster fire, you want to stay away from it.

Um I joined the board and I found anything but a dumpster fire.

Uh I mean the board members have been you know very different life experience and perspectives and everything like that.

It's inspirational to see this board really pull together and get its word done.

And it's astonishing to me, again, given the range of experiences and perspectives, how often we arrive at a unanimous decision.

You know, we talk it over as early and arrive at a unanimous decision.

So I, you know, I really I leave the I leave those meetings dealing with those very difficult things, feeling good about what has happened.

So we have two members, at least two members with previous law enforcement professional experience, which I also consider very helpful.

We did have two with educational experience, which I think helpful, but Xavier left with the that was good and useful, I think.

I felt good about getting that.

So and we know we uh new members were willing to to talk, you know, when when you want to talk.

Again, the very very much pertinent to uh Earl's presentation.

We're the sunshine law put some constraints on things, but if you want to have a cup of coffee sometime with me and talk about what it's like to be on the board or something like that, we can arrange it, right?

And uh have more than four, right?

Exactly.

And I and I and I do want to uh reinforce something that Earl also said.

Sometimes there is something you really do want to communicate to the entire board, just remember to do it through the staff.

Write up what you want to say and say, please forward this to the board, and then they can decide if there's a real problem, I suppose they could see uh see a problem with it.

But what practically matters happens is that it's then logged in and it can go out to the board.

All right, anything else?

Should we go to the human rights report then?

Anything to report?

Sure.

Is anyone in here, does anyone in here recall the local news incident that happened about 30 days ago of an individual in Stevens Lake Park who was suicidal and barricading themselves and threatening suicide.

Okay.

Um that was one of our members of the unhoused community.

Um I was going to discuss just say my personal experience with this person.

I've dealt with this person many times and in many states, and I understand their relationship with law enforcement is a lot different.

But after this, many people online, of course, the common plea is man, I can't wait till we get better mental health counseling.

Man, the city is working on that co-responder problem.

Man, I wonder if this could have been better.

Man, I wonder I hope that guy is getting the help he needs.

I just want to make sure that we all know that he is now facing, he was not a felon before, he's facing two class E felonies, three misdemeanors, so he has five charges, and he's still unhoused and on the street.

And so that I mean, when people reach an acute level of news and a crisis, et cetera, we still have not gotten to a remotely effective co-responder position, et cetera.

I am not in any true position of authority in the way that I interact with this person.

I understand this person probably has behavioral issues, but I've had to direct them in their behavior many times, and it certainly never escalated to a five-hour standoff in Stevens Lake Park.

And again, it's very complex.

We desperately have to start paying better attention to our mental health resources.

But I know we all know that that is an incredibly broad ship right now in 2025.

Is anyone going to NACO?

Pardon me.

Three of us going to NACO.

Is anyone?

NACO.

NACOL.

Are we?

There's three.

I haven't heard anything though.

I have two that have responded.

Oh, so I guess I'm not.

Okay.

Oh.

No, you're one.

Who else is?

No.

I know Stephanie.

Right, but do I get to go?

Like I didn't hear anything.

I haven't gotten a lot of people.

I was going to give an update during staff uh report.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, no, you're more than a good thing.

So just you and I are gone?

Maybe.

Might be.

Yeah, gone.

Well.

I'll have to think about that.

I've I've as usual, my life is full of late October.

Dumbledore, so 26 through 30?

Yeah.

26 through 30.

Yeah.

October.

Okay, I'm gonna make sure.

No.

Good for that.

I could I could tell a story about that.

It actually has to do with my other board, and I'm gonna be in Burlington, Vermont doing some research.

So we're ready for general comments from the public, and I see a couple of people out there who might want to uh approach.

And uh my understanding is that uh we ordinarily say that you've got three minutes as an individual, or if you're representing an organization, five minutes and um Steven will be our um timekeeper, so come come right up.

My name is Grace.

Um just a general member of the public.

I really appreciate you guys making this an open forum.

Can you all hear me well?

Yep.

Yep.

So um I know I know that you guys talked about how there generally has to be uh misconduct done for you guys to really do anything.

And so that's uh that's making me realize that my issue that I'm bringing up might be something that you can't do anything about right now, but I really, really, really want you guys to be aware of it.

Um it is the flock cameras that have been going up all around our city.

They are there's about what how many 49, I think, in all of Columbia, but they're at, you know, there's like they're at you know, several intersections and stuff, and these give um quote real-time alerts to law enforcement.

Um they're at 15 intersections, and um I think there are civilian reporting, but I don't know if they're open reporting.

Um they are said to connect CPD or other police organizations with databases that you know might contain, you know, this person has committed a crime or this car has been stolen, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, but my concern is who owns that information, what databases are they going into?

Is it Columbia PD that owns that information?

Is it Flock?

Um, is it what other law enforcement?

Where is that going to?

Um I think that while this has not been a proven, you know, thing that's an issue right now.

I think that there is massive, massive potential for it to become a problem.

In fact, um in Kansas, two different police members, members of the police force were caught using this to stalk ex partners.

Two different people on like the general, I'm pretty sure the same area of police force.

Um, and I mean, this is when you combine that with the knowledge that domestic violence is very, very high amongst members of the police force against their spouses.

That really concerns me.

And I want that to be something that you guys are ready to talk to law enforcement about and be open with them about it.

I, as a concerned member of the public, as a woman, I really need that to be something that is on your radar.

Um, I believe that's everything that I have to say right now.

I really appreciate you guys making this so accessible.

Also, super glad I came in on the the history lesson day, because I've never been here before, so like that was awesome.

But yeah, thank you guys very much, and I appreciate you hearing me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Grace.

No, okay.

That's fine.

Uh comments by board members.

I have one more question in the vein of cameras.

Our body worn camera records retention policy changed this year.

We bought more storage to extend the length.

But I understand to 180 days.

Yeah, excuse me.

The uh complicated, but the axon system we bought into has more storage capacity.

Perfect.

And that went into effect like this year or something.

Okay, perfect.

That's what I thought.

Okay.

I just want to make sure.

I have a question for you, Assistant Chief.

During the city council meeting, they spoke specifically about the flock cameras.

There was someone that had a presentation about some data being missing.

And I know Chief Schlute spoke to that a little bit, but I didn't know if you were versed in just in case other people were interested and didn't have an opportunity to hear what Chief Sludge said about that missing data.

Are you familiar with that?

I am not.

I am not the Flock guy.

Okay.

But what I am is the professional standards overview, and I do the I do Flock audits.

So I so I don't know what she spoke to at that city council meeting.

Um my understanding was the flock system itself was down, like it stopped working for some reason, and that's not our problem.

It was a system problem, and it got working again rather quickly once they were notified.

But um from my standpoint, I do the audits related to our what what ordinance says, and the ordinance says that we have to do certain things and do a yearly report to the city council.

And so that's what I'm gonna focus on.

Um we haven't had the system running that long.

I can tell you I just looked at last month's data.

Uh there was 1750 uses of the flock camera system.

And there's attached to that a case number or CAD number.

There is a reason for the use, and there is who that's associated with the person officer running that.

So all of that data uh we try to make sure is hitting that 100% mark.

Um we're off a little bit right now.

Part of it is the way the data works and the system automate some some telling.

In other words, if we run a plate during the day, that system will run that plate again if we're looking for, say, a robbery suspect.

Um so we don't have to keep entering it every hour or two hours or something of that sort.

The system will have parameters set for that.

The other part of that is um we also have to look at outcomes.

So uh part of our reporting will be what use was this system for us in law enforcement.

So uh we have an outcome section that we'll be identifying.

We'll be able to tell you, hey, this was this created so many leads for us.

This created so many people that were not involved with something.

Um and that's how we uh utilize that.

Uh it so far it's worked very well.

It's getting more and more use as people get more comfortable with it.

So uh so I wish I could tell you exactly what the chief talked about the other day.

I I just I don't know.

But but I put uh at least that's my part of how Flock is for me.

My I'm the audit guy.

So there will essentially be a legal compliance audit on Flock someday.

Uh what do you mean legal compliance?

Oh, I thought you were saying like I make sure that Flock only keeps recordings for so long.

I make sure that's that's part of it too.

Um and I didn't know if someday after we'd had the Flock system for 365 days, if there were going to ever be like a public report to city council or something.

Yeah, there is.

Um now it in the components of that report are kind of what I just mentioned.

Um we used it, yeah, how it was tracked.

Okay.

Yep.

And and probably there'll be more to it, because I don't know what I don't know exact.

I mean, sometimes an ordinance we might write like three things that you have to do, but you you can say that, but really they want more information, right?

So um so I my goal is to find out a little bit more about what people are wanting to know about um to make sure that we're covering all the bases and using it properly, and my that is one of my jobs is to make sure we're doing things correct, whether it's thought camera, whether it's how we do useful for us, how we you know, all that falls under my purview.

Thank you, sir.

Sir anything else from um members of the board.

Members of the staff.

Yes, so uh speaking of the Nicole conference, which is in October, as Stephanie was saying, 26th through the 30th.

Um I do have two listed down that have said they wanted to go.

Um I'll send out emails tonight to confirm and I have other details as far as um how the city pays for the registration, airfare lodging, and then reimburses for other um items uh applicable to the trip.

Um I'll also send out an email to everyone, uh including new members in case you've changed your mind and you like to go, so there's still time to register.

Um preferably if I can know by like the 19th, um that way we get you in to the airfare and and uh lodging and things like that.

But I'll send information again to everyone, including the conference link, so you can take a look at like the agenda and the um venue and things like that.

Um then I wanted to uh so some of you have received some reapply letters, some of your terms are up um expire in November.

Um so uh please look for those in the mail.

Um some of you that were just appointed, you may your term may expire soon.

I mean, uh McKean, sorry, yours does.

Um, and you just have to contact the clerk's office if you want to just uh reuse your application.

So just contact them on that.

And then I wanted to bring um up some information.

So there is a group out of St.

Louis, um one of the commissioners from the St.

Louis Civilian Oversight Board wanted to put together a regional civilian oversight roundtable group and panel discussion, um, which would include um Columbia, Kansas City, St.

Louis, Ferguson.

Uh so we're planning a first meeting on October 2nd, which would be a virtual meeting, um, just to kind of see how that goes, what kind of interests we have.

Um and this is the the main focus right now is for those maybe communities who do not have an oversight uh board to consider that and the purpose of it and the groups that we'll have on the panel, which will include of course representatives from Columbia, um KC, St.

Louis, and Ferguson will talk about what their current visions are and their oversight authority because it does vary by community.

Um we have our own process here.

I know some other places uh one of the boards review reviews every complaint that they're uh that they get even outside of appeals.

So uh I'll send you information on that.

So if you're interested in getting in on to that uh virtual meeting, again, that's October 2nd from 6 p.m.

to 7 30 p.m.

and it's it's a virtual meeting.

Um future meetings uh though, because it it will include both staff and board members.

So if board members would ever like to be on the panel, that option is there too to kind of talk about your experiences.

Um so again, I'll send you more information on that as well.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um real quick, one thing that I would say, well, I know you already know Denise, but going to the NACOL, um you might want to consider not going through the entire time.

I think that very last day was like a half a day.

And we are and it was there was nothing we felt like the hotel room.

Yeah, there was nothing substantial.

So just a thanks for remembering that stuff.

Yeah.

I'm not going to be sad.

No, you're look who's in charge.

I'm just saying.

And I know on the agenda there's other sessions too that you can choose from.

There's like a pre-conference day and there's a full conference, so that'll all be on the um registration site as well.

Um I don't believe that there is a reason for us to go into closed session in the sense we do not have any appeals to hear or any other thing that uh requires closed session.

So uh I'll assume that we unless somebody sees something I don't, that we won't uh go into closed session tonight.

Next meeting date is October 8th.

And I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Jeffrey motion.

Coleman, second.

Moved and seconded to adjourn.

Is this roll hall vote?

Is I recall?

I can't remember.

No, it's not.

Okay.

Then moved and seconded to adjourn.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed.

Thank you.

Like who says opposed?

Nobody.