The Syracuse Citizen Review Board (CRB) held its regular meeting on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at 5:30 PM in the Common Council Chambers. The meeting began without a quorum, which was later achieved, allowing the board to ratify minutes and proceed with business. Key highlights include the resumption of investigations, approval of liability insurance, acceptance of two resignations, a data breach disclosure regarding the Right to Know data, and public testimony expressing both support and frustration with the board's authority.
The citizen and the board members to the Tuesday September 1st, 2026. See uh Citizen Review Board. It is now 5:30. Um, and the meeting is being held in the common council chambers. Um again, welcome everyone. And Peggy, can you do the uh attendance role? Uh he's excused here. Okay. She's excused. Yeah. Okay. So we are one shy of a quota. Um Linda is Lynn. No, oh, I got it on the if you look on the agenda. Okay. Okay. Okay. So um we're gonna have to table the approval of the August uh minutes because uh we don't have a quorum. So that'll be uh table unless Harry shows up and then we can re um um bring that back on the agenda. Um the first thing on the agenda is the update on the CRB um pause. Uh as most of you know that we have decided to continue with the investigations. Um and then we had a um a request to board members that if any board members chose not to stay on the board, they needed to have their written resignation in by that Friday. Um and we have two letters of resignation. Um one is uh Linda uh bat, and the second one is Michael Kern. Um so what we're gonna have to do is that we'll have to work with the council uh for replacement for those two um members that decided that they were gonna drop off of the board. So we're now down um three members off of the full CR um CBR CRB board. Um the next thing on our agenda is the update on the insurance, and I am happy to announce that as of today um the insurance policy went through, so the board is now covered by the insurance. So uh so that's all taken care of. Um the next thing on is um the board members' responsibility. Um one of the things that we're gonna try to do in the upcoming uh the rest of this year is to make sure that we keep tight reigns on attendance for board members. Um we need to have all our board members attend all the meetings. Also, um we're gonna do a special training for the board members on institution instituteing uh events in their area. So um that was one of the things that's outlined by the legislation that board members need to hold an event in their area. So we're gonna do some training to help board members achieve those uh those goals. Um the next thing on the agenda is the CRB administrative monthly report. Good afternoon, everyone. Um I would like to first take this time to uh to say thank you to the CRB staff and also to the board members for all that they have done for showing up and standing strong throughout this process. It hasn't been an easy task, but I want you to know that your work did not go unnoticed, and I thank you so much personally for your encouragement on the times that you know we felt a lot of discouragement and things, but thank you again for your encouragement and your support. Truly it did it definitely impacted not just me but the office itself. So thank you. Um so on August the 12th, um during our public meeting, it was decided that CRB will ret resume um investigation. The first thing on the agenda before getting back to the investigation was getting the liability insurance, which um our chairman just told you that we are all set now with the liability insurance. Um I am currently working on cases that are approaching their expiration dates and managing the cases that are um out of our scope of work by getting the information and things together and sending them letters to let them know that it's not something that we actually handle within our scope of work. Um since August the 24th, I have already prepared um, or I won't say prepared, I've prepped 10 cases with the hope of them being completed by our next month's meeting. Uh CRB continues to be active in the community during the month of August. We attended the meet and greet uh with the mayor and the chief. We attended CNY Jazz. Umcerts in Jubilee Park, Hanover Square Music Fest, the Latino Fest and Clinton Square. On Fridays, we do uh boots on the ground, which we do outreach in the downtown area and the surrounding areas, uh handing out brochures and information in regards to what the CRB does. Uh we had a DSA meeting, and we also had our unified day.