Call the March eleventh meeting of the Citizens Please for You Board to order.

And we will begin as usual with introductions.

Stephanie Brown, Special Project Manager, City Manager's Office.

Pardon me, a little frog in my throat.

I is the does anybody have any uh additions or corrections on the agenda that they want to?

I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda then.

So moved.

Jeffrey.

Coleman second.

Uh move and second to approve the agenda.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

So that's approved.

We'll move on to the approval of the minutes, which I think everybody would have an opportunity to review by now.

I saw no complications or difficulties with it myself.

Do anybody else note anything?

I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the February 11th meeting then.

I'll approve, Jeffrey.

I'll second Hunt.

Okay.

All those in favor of approving the minutes.

I think Annual Report update.

And that might be Stephanie, you want to talk about what we're looking at here?

Sure, yes.

So as mentioned in the last meeting, we did present the board's annual report to the council at the beginning of February with a note that we'd include the uh demographic information of the complaints that's required in the the board duties to be in the annual report that we would include that once it became available.

Um Assistant Harell, Assistant Chief Harell did provide that information that we've shared with you all.

Um we can at the board's approval uh submit this as a supplement to council.

So it might be because some people will be looking at this for the first time and will have an opinion to express.

This would be a good opportunity to see what we're seeing on here, and then we'll entertain a motion to uh to uh include it in in our um in our uh annual report.

I'm I'm I'm actually gonna do one of those things that I do periodically.

I'm gonna be go silent for a while.

There's something that stands out to me on this report, and I'm curious about whether other people are seeing things too.

As an as an elderly white male, I was struck by how few male white complaints there are.

And uh we have much more female complaints than we have uh male complaints than generally and a lot more complaints from uh uh black folks than from white folks.

Um I don't know what to make of that, but we you know we need to look at uh what statistics sort of suggest, and it does to me suggest uh some tension, let's put it that way.

Uh I don't that we don't might not know how to interpret, but it's it's a sort of a leaping out thing for me.

Um I have a question.

Do we have historic data for all of this as well, so we could look at trends maybe for past five, ten years?

Uh yes, there should be the information available.

Um we did have it posted online up to a certain year, but that information I would think has been um submitted each year prior to this year.

So we could just look at the check on that.

I can provide that information.

So you're thinking that I, you know, the final the annual reports are posted, as I recall.

So you think they're buried in they can be found in the annual reports or yes.

Would you like to would you would you be interested in seeing some sort of aggregated report on that so we can make sense of it or just if that wouldn't be too if that wouldn't be too much?

I I I I like trends.

Okay, because just data points don't really do a whole lot without seeing patterns and trends.

You know, we we could say this looks horrible and then look at five years past, and this looks great compared to that.

Yeah, or it could be the opposite.

Are you looking at the past five years or ten years?

I would say five years wouldn't be a good idea.

Five years I would think would be good, yeah.

That's an excellent idea.

Yeah.

The total number of calls was really high, and then there was only a small amount of complaints.

But I don't know if that's percentage-wise like 56 compared to 129,000.

I think some people get discouraged by having to write it all out and you know the process and so they're just like forget it.

Well, thinking that they were doing a good job and nobody was complaining.

And just go, okay, you know, I could see that.

Yeah.

The the other thing to to watch though, so as not to misinterpret, this is complainants, not complaints.

And there are multiple complaints from some complainants, and so this is a much smaller number than the number of total complaints that came in for last year.

I think for that reason uh uh of that overlap.

Right complaints.

I I think I think that's uh one of the things.

That does that sound right to you, Rick that it's um there's um well there's fifty-six individuals that complained.

Uh some of those individuals might there might have been a complaint and three individuals complained about one event.

Does that make sense?

Right.

Yeah.

There's 20 people that complained that withdrew after talking to the investigator.

Right.

So that so there was a higher number of total complaints, 70 complaints total, but 20 people withdrew those complaints.

Right.

Okay.

Talk about complaintants, though, right?

Nothing.

Yeah, the the the chart is of complainants, but but uh but it turns out that the discrepancy isn't as large as I was imagining because of the withdrawn complaints.

Right.

There's only 50 actual formal uh di uh dispositions uh and 56 complainants.

Does that make sense?

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh any other observations or questions about this.

We want to make sure we're understanding what we're putting out there, obviously.

So if people are feeling that are understand what we're what we've got in front of us, I'd entertain a motion to include it in the annual report as Stephanie suggested one?

I'll make a motion to include it.

I second it.

Moved and seconded to include this item in the uh annual report as an it's really an update to the annual report.

I think that's technically as an annual report update.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Thanks.

Um business.

This is where we got we actually have some a little bit of of uh talking to do and and thinking together.

I uh handed out, I and I think everybody except me in the room has a copy of it now, uh, a thought, and and it's no more than a thought about how we might uh but begin to deal with our reviews.

And and I I mentioned this, I think um perhaps in an in a sort of broadcast note or something that went out that uh you we can't review the most recent things from 2025 because they're still in that window where there might be action taken in investigation.

So what I did was just to go through I started with our dashboard and went through uh big at the big with the beginning of the year, right?

And and move forward uh through the first quarter of the year.

So the first three months of the year to see what was there.

And then um because uh as as has happened in past years, we've tried to to choose for review complaints that seemed representative of the most common classes of complaints.

And so um from that relatively small number, as as Richard's pointing out, we don't have tremendous number of complaints from that relatively small number.

I pulled out uh complaints that that uh had to do with the most commonly uh complained things.

I could look at the old spread the spreadsheet I did this on and and try to remember, but like discourtesy, for instance, I remember was was one of them and one was um I think detention.

And then I to as a third item I thought about where are there particular officers who are complained about more often than others.

So I I I I sort of aggregated that to make a list of things that seem to represent the most common complaints from the first quarter.

I also did it by the way for the second quarter, and it shifts a little bit.

So you know, it'll be kind of interesting perhaps if we take up these a little bit at a time to see whether there's a a different pattern at different times.

Well, you'll also see a difference because we're going from winter into spring into more, you know, they're gonna be having more outings and more represented.

You're right, exactly.

Yeah.

That's true.

Um now I uh you've got in front of you a sheet of paper which is which I this is what I meant about just a thought.

At first, I I had thought, but you know, it's always a trade-off.

And in the past, sometimes we've done something like we divide it up into three groups of three, and uh taking a group of things of of complaints.

Um that's got some advantages.

Uh it does mean you've got to arrange a time to meet or meet by Zoom or do something like that if you're really going to have a discussion.

Um it has the therefore the effect because it's more time-eating, uh perhaps decreasing the number that we can look at.

So when my initial thinking, I think went overboard in the other direction and said, why don't we just all do a complaint from the first quarter?

But then I thought, well, it's really useful sometimes to be able to bounce an idea off somebody else, or if you've got something, you know.

So what I'm thinking about here, and this is just a thinking stage.

So anybody who wants to s suggest that this isn't the best approach, uh, I would be glad to do it.

I just listed this more or less in order.

You'll notice that um on your little chart, there were nine complaints.

I recently pulled out nine because I think nine members of the board, but of course we now have are down to eight for a little while.

So we're just taking the first eight.

And I just sort of listed people in order on the board.

Um we could, for instance, where uh there's a column that says primary uh CPD.

That's just the name of the person who would be the take the weight.

Um you know, um I'll probably come into the meeting and I'll be the one who leads the talk about that.

It might also be that the person who is primary, you know, those of you who have done these complaints before know that a lot of the work goes into just making sure that the paperwork is handled correctly, right?

That the dates match up and that the proper notices were sent out.

It seems really unnecessary for two people to go through that mechanical process.

So I'm sort of imagining the primary uh dealing with the the things that we're talking about as sort of statistical data and not not necessarily worrying the secondary person, but the secondary person can look at other aspects of the was my thought.

Now, let's think about that.

We have to think about everything, including sunshine law and everything.

Um there a problem if we have two people working on a given review of their communicating with each other.

So I mean it's not a quorum.

Well, right.

If if you have of course, if you have one person doing it, they're not going to have any issue at all.

Right.

Um if you have two or more that the board is designating with this assignment to meet and talk about that business, other than at the next closed session where you're gonna talk about the complaint, you know, they would have their own meeting that is gonna fall under the sunshine law requirements, which means we'd have to post, we'd have to have an agenda, we'd have to start off in open, move to go into closed, it would be a whole all those requirements would apply.

We I I I and I, you know, it's gonna finally be your call.

I will point out we've done this every year with groups of three people meeting uh to go over a so apparently it had not been considered a sunshine law thing, but you're saying it is a sunshine law thing.

I'm saying it is a sunshine law issue, yeah.

It applies to subgroups or work workforces, task groups whenever you have designated people.

And and the purpose behind that is you're they're doing you're doing business of the board, and the public should be able to see that.

Maybe they can't go to the closed part, but they can go to the open part, see the agenda, see what you're gonna talk about and close at least the topic and the exception.

Um and then go into close.

So if if for instance uh to to think about one of the things, I I am uh working with Charles on one of these if on the list.

If Charles and I want to talk about this, we have to post it and have it here publicly so people can come and watch us talk about it.

That's right.

And be staffed.

Which is another question that many I I run into this with a lot of with boards pretty often.

Um there'll be a desire to have work groups to really take on a lot of different issues, um, and that can be a very effective way of doing things, but it does take resources to do that.

And many boards aren't staffed for that.

You have to have the room, you have to have the staff present, you have to um do all of those things that you wouldn't normally do for like this meeting.

And that's a real challenge for for most boards.

Well, the rule the the the uh a slight variation of that you could uh ask individuals or assign individuals to look at certain complaints.

These are yours, look at them closely, be prepared when you get to the next meeting of the board to talk about those with the other people who have also looked at those and with those who haven't looked at those.

Be prepared when you get to the next meeting of the board to talk about those with the other people who have also looked at those and with those who haven't looked at those.

Well, let me ask if uh uh not have any issues with sunshine law.

That that that might raise an an interesting comp what I would describe as a compromise.

What if again we've got a list here that's called primary and a list that's called secondary.

If the people who are listed as secondary said, I'll look at this ahead of time.

I won't talk to anybody about it, but I'll look at it ahead of time, that would be okay.

Yes.

Does that sound okay, folks?

So I'm not understanding what you're saying.

I'm confused though.

It's it's the meet the getting together outside of this meeting is where issues arise.

If you don't get together and talk outside of the meeting, you don't have a sunshine law issue.

So if we just each review the cases, both both parties as listed, and then uh we come to the closed session, that would make the closed sessions longer because we would then Steph uh uh Stephen and I would would be like, did you see anything where did you see anything we need to report?

Yes, no.

If so, we'd bring it forward.

And that would be go through that with each group.

And that's okay.

That's how we would have to do it.

Right.

So we could do it, it would just make the closed sessions longer.

Yeah, I I I I I think so, but I mean, uh if we do that division of labor, I think what one of the things that those of you who have never done this before will discover is that some reviews take a long time.

Talk about that in a minute.

And uh some take a very short time.

So it might not be as time consuming either in the closed session or or not.

You know, for if we're looking at eight, some of them are going to be some of those uh relatively quick ones that are not going to be a problem.

Um but so what I'm imagining happening in the closed session is the primary will vouch for I I checked on all the paperwork stuff, the page one stuff on the review sheet, right?

Um this is what I'm I'm finding unless my second the secondary person sees something that I didn't see, we'll just assume that's fine.

Let's talk about the other things.

And here's what I see, and then I'll turn to the secondary person for confirmation.

Does that seem okay to people?

I'm thinking since some of the new people have never done this before and don't understand the rules.

Why don't we just let both parties check all that?

Because we we're each only assigned two files.

It's not that much to, you know, to fully look at the dates and that's the one.

Oh, that'd be okay too.

Okay.

That's fine.

It suits me.

Um I have a I'm I'm still not.

I'm very yeah, just I need direction.

Um how is us meeting breaking sunshine when we talked about if we had less than a quorum, we could meet and discuss events of the board last month.

I'm confused.

I'm just I'm I'm getting lost.

The discussion at the last meeting about getting together outside of this meeting.

Yes.

Well, I I hope you remember I I voice some concerns with that.

Pretty expressed concerns concerns with it.

That it would violate sunshine law.

Clear's mud.

So then is it your expectation, Doug, that we would go through all eight of these at the next meeting or three and three.

If we just think logistically, I mean we don't we we if if um we begin to get uh appeals coming in, appeals are always time consuming.

And so they tend to knock a closed session entirely out of circulation.

And uh as I say, what I've listed here are representative cases from the first quarter.

We might very well end up four eat eating up four closed sessions to do the reviews.

So, yes, I'm imagining trying to get through all eight at one session because at another session we're gonna have to get through eight or nine if we have somebody added.

Uh so that would be my intention.

Now it might be as we all know, an appeal takes priority.

I said that's a lot to go through.

It's uh I mean it could be.

Yeah.

It could be.

It could be a simple quick summary didn't see anything on screen.

Yeah.

We might be talking about one or two.

Right.

I think it at the meetings it would have to be more of a this is what we would like to do, but let's see how far we get.

The other thing that I think we could quite possibly be doing in the closed session is setting aside ones that may require more thorough look at but for the whole board.

So we to an imaginary scenario we could imagine that uh six of the eight or seven of the eight, people say, well, there's this is there's no no question here.

It's perfectly clear.

And then ones that are likely to take more time because there are more substantial foggy areas or things that need to be made clear.

We might be able to put off.

But it's going to be time consuming.

I don't I don't know.

We d I don't know how to avoid it at this point.

Um yeah.

Um and I will say something about time consuming.

I'll say this now, but it's pertinent to what we'll be doing in closed session as well.

The review that I will be sort of leading people through, I guess, during the closed session for the sake of our people who have not done this sort of thing before.

I spent five hours on.

Okay.

And I still have a couple of questions that I would like to spend a little more time on.

So let's not underestimate the amount of time that goes into to doing these reviews.

Uh if it had been a simpler one, it might have been, you know, a couple of hours or something like that.

But by the time you confirm all the dates, and then you check to see whether the body warrant and camera footage actually matches the uh count of the body worn camera footage and do all if you if you really do that, it's a very time-consuming process.

So a lot of the time is outside the board meeting.

Um that's one of the reasons I was trying to take some pressure off secondary people is, you know, uh the uh if you're the primary person, we're gonna feel that you've really looked at it hard and and seeing what's going on.

Secondary person might be for judgment calls.

So maybe the if the primary person says, here's the you know, you might see other things.

These are the ones where judgment seem to be coming in.

Uh and and try to, you know, discuss those.

And may and maybe the answer is that there are none, right?

Some of them we might dispose of very quickly.

But the other observations?

Are we going to try this in the Okay present form?

Okay.

So again, if you're if you're primary, um, you you've got an obligation to spend as much time as you possibly can, or as much time as is needed.

Uh if you're secondary, do what you can, right?

So that the primary isn't hanging out there as the only person whose judgment is being uh uh uh articulated in the in the meeting, right?

So we've got at least two sets of eyes on that.

Still using that simplified audit form.

The um you you f should find, and in fact we'll we'll be looking at it in closed session anyhow, but uh attached to the agenda there was the uh uh uh uh an even s more simplified uh audit sheet.

Uh yeah, right there.

It's uh it's an attachment to the agenda.

But I'll be I'll be I'll be because we're gonna be going through a case in closed session, I'll be handing out that sheet again.

So it's it's not substantially different, didn't you?

I I took off a couple of questions that seem superfluous is the main thing.

I think on the agenda it's linked as optional worksheet for reviews.

Is that right?

Optional worksheet for reviews, exactly.

Yeah.

So I mean it very much is an optional worksheet.

If you you might have a different approach, but we'll walk through one with the optional worksheet for reviews in closed session today so people are at least seeing what's what's there.

All right.

That linked the links don't work.

Okay.

Any other observations or I I don't think we actually need a motion to say that's the way we're gonna do it.

We're just gonna do our best.

Yeah.

I I think that's right.

I think we would staff would want a a directive that these are the uh ones you want put put out there on the evidence axon system for your access.

Okay.

Is that right?

I that that that makes a good sense.

These are the ones that we want to want put on for next week.

Are these the only these are the only ones, right?

Yeah, we're only doing the first quarter of the year.

But it's every one of them.

Every one of the ones that are listed for the first one.

On that sheet that I just handed out to that uh that's what I did.

I wasn't sure of.

So to be clear, these numbers listed here will facilitate that being put up on the evidence system that you all can access for the next meeting.

For the next meeting.

Prior to the next meeting.

Prior to the next meeting.

Okay.

Right, exactly.

And um I guess the other thing I would I would say about that, I I'm thinking about our spreading out some responsibilities, but I'm I'm assuming, Richard, when these are posted, they'll be posted so that any member of the board can look at any of these uh eight cases that we're looking at here.

So if if you just feel like you want to spend a little more time and be more prepared for the discussion, um tell your your family and friends that you won't be seeing them for a little while, and you can uh you can you'll be able to access all eight of the uh quit plane.

I wanted to say one thing as well on a positive note.

Does anyone watch John Oliver?

All right, on HVO.

Well, every week he dwells into a pretty serious issue.

And about two weeks ago, his issue was about cameras worn by police.

And um and he gave all the statistics about, you know, everyone's got them now and the common issues, having them be turned off, or this and that.

But one of the other things he mentioned is that there are just so many hundreds, millions of hours of those video tapes that nobody ever looks at.

And so the only time they usually come to view is if uh there is a complaint or there is a lawsuit, and they're regularly not reviewed, which would be wonderful if they were, because then they could be used for training purposes, you know, before things got too out of hand.

So what we have little duties here.

Yeah.

We have little influence here, but we're allowed to randomly audit these.

And so that's something, guys, you know.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So let's go ahead and do a good job.

Okay.

I I think we're oh well, actually, I I I think you you were perhaps suggesting, or all that we should uh have a vote to ask of the okay.

We're good, Rick.

We're just assuming that they're gonna go up.

Okay, great.

All right.

The board's asked staff to do that, we'll do that.

Okay.

All right, great.

Um I don't think we'll be having a human rights report because we don't have representatives from human rights.

Um commission uh available.

Uh on that, I did notice that um there were some new members appointed to the Human Rights Commission by the City Council.

And I think they're taking up consideration of potentially one more in their next meeting.

Um, but that commission did not meet for their early March meeting, so they couldn't didn't have the opportunity to appoint someone to this board.

So at the earliest it will be after their next meeting.

Oh, okay.

I mean, it's that's for them to decide and for them to do.

So do they meet monthly?

I think so.

Um want to speak.

Comments by members.

Jumped ahead.

Right?

You got you got a general comment.

Anybody any else anybody else?

And um general comments from the staff.

Yes, so uh beginning in June, the uh council chambers and count conference rooms 1A1B will receive A V upgrades, so for the video uh audio visual system.

So they're asking for the meetings during that time, any meetings that are held in council chambers in 1A1B either be rescheduled, canceled, or relocated.

So um I'm just suggesting, and of course it's up to the board.

If there are no appeals, we may want to consider canceling for the month of July.

Um or if we do have an appeal for the the sake of time and deadlines, um we can relocate potentially to 1C for the open portion just so we can go into closed session in 2A, because 2A is available.

And so we can make that, or the board can make that decision closer to the remote.

If we have an appeal or that makes good sense.

Okay.

I I'll also mention I pulled up the Commission on Human Rights next meeting is April the 7th.

April the 7th, okay.

Ah, you're a good point.

Collection day, right?

All right.

Um I think we've at this point.

I would entertain a motion to go into closed session to discuss records which are protected from disclosure by law pursuant to section 610.21, PRIN 14 and 590.502 of revised statutes of Missouri.

Uh, in order to discuss the review of complaints.

Actually, I'll move that we go into closed session.

Is there a second?

Jeffrey second.

This we decided last time this was a voice vote, did we not?

Roll call vote.

Roll a call vote.

I've always get confused about which one's which.

Okay, roll call vote.

All right.

Denise?

Uh yes.

Harry?

Yes.

Len?

Yes.

Stephanie?

Yes.

Doug?

Yes.

Steven?

Yes.

And Charles.

Yes.

Motion pass.