Oct 05, 2020 City Council on 2020-10-05 11:30 AM

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Dent City Council on October the 5th, 2020. It's 11 31 a.m. We'll go ahead and move through our work session items. Our first work session item is 1a, but we do have a closed session scheduled for this, I believe, issue and is that just a placeholder or if there's questions that need to be answered, do we go ahead and do that now or after our work session? It's simply a placeholder, Mayor. We didn't expect any legal questions to go into closed session, but we just put it there just in case. Okay. So let me ask, are there any questions, legal questions in which the council members have that we would need to convene in closed session? Seeing none, we will then move forward with our work session. And I'm, if Mayor Pro Tem, and I'll let my colleagues and staff know that I think the internet service here is pretty reliable, but if somehow I disappear, Mayor Pro Tem, just go ahead and take the helm and then I will return as soon as I can get it worked out. But I think we're going to be okay. All right, then we will move through our first agenda item. Let me pull that up. Our only agenda item really, which is work session 1A, which is receive report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the final report and recommendation from the ad hoc use of force committee. And if we could, as far as how we want to handle these questions, are there sort of natural breaks in the presentation, Sarah, on this? Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Sara Hickler, Chief of Staff. Yes, we can take some breaks and pause for questions. I think let me go to the next slide. And that kind of has a presentation outline and maybe where some natural breaks would occur. So I'm going to review these first three bullet points, just some background on the formation of the ad hoc use of force committee, an overview of their work, as well as just a brief overview of some of the topics, data and information that was reviewed by the committee. I'm going to turn it over to the committee chair, Cheryl English, and she's going to review the findings and recommendations from the committee. Police Chief Frank Dixon will also have a couple slides at the end of this portion. And then lastly, at the end of the presentation, staff will be seeking counsel direction and next steps. So just let me know as you'd like to take breaks as we move through it may occur kind of at this in between me handing it off to Chair Cheryl English. Okay. Okay. So just by way of background and reminder, in June following the tragic death of George Floyd, there were demonstrations across the U.S. and in Denton calling for police reform and then to review the police use of force policies. One of the initiatives coming out of these demonstrations was a national initiative by former President Obama and my brother's Keepers Alliance called the commit to action initiative. And it called upon mayors across the U.S. to take four actions as listed here on this on the screen to commit to reviewing the policies in our communities, engaging the community reporting then on the findings of that of that feedback, and then using it to reform police use of force policy. So Mayor Watts wished to join this initiative with the support of Police Chief Frank Dixon, and he brought forward an item to City Council on June 9 to see if City Council would support him signing on to this pledge as well as forming an ad hoc committee made up of 21 diverse stakeholders and community representatives. Council supported that and passed resolution 20-1110 and the committee and this resolution charged the committee to review police use of force policies and practices and develop a report of findings and recommendations to City Council no later than September 15, 2020. So relatively a quick time period to turn around findings and results. With that quick time period, the committee got started on its work within two weeks of formation and held its first meeting on June 25. During this first meeting, the committee elected Cheryl English as chair and Cedric Chambers as vice chair. They also adopted a meeting schedule meeting almost every Thursday through July and August into September. Overall, they held a total of 10 committee meetings. All of these meetings were streamed live and recorded. They are archived on the city's website as shown here on the screen for anyone that wishes to watch those meetings, as well as all the agenda and materials that were provided to the committee. During two of the committee meetings on July 23 and August 20, the committee held public input sessions to gather that feedback from communities as charged in the commit to action initiative to hear their input experiences and stories with the Denton Police Department and in regards to use of force. There were a total of 20 callers during these two meetings and there was also 57 online comments received over a month period that was available through an online form through the city's website. All of these public input opportunities were publicized through press release, through social media on the website distributed to committee members to distribute to the community as well. So trying to gather as much public input as possible. In addition to the meetings, the committee members also participated in the use of force simulator in early July at the Denton Public Safety Training Center to provide them an experience and insight into an officer's work and some of the various incidents they may be placed into. So as far as topics reviewed, the committee reviewed a lot of information, data and reports in a short time period. You can see listed here on the screen are some topics that were covered. I'm going to provide a little bit of information on some of these just to provide counsel some insight into the types of data and information that was reviewed. But there was a lot of back and forth during these meetings in which we provide staff provided information and then the committee members asked follow up questions, sought clarification, staff would bring back follow up reports as requested by the committee. So more information on each of these is found in the committee's final report. But I'm going to take the opportunity to walk through just a few of the subject areas to provide you some overview of what the committee reviewed during their time together. So jumping right into that, I'll have a few slides. They're all kind of arranged the same way in regards to the topic at the top here, some of the information presented, links to all of the resources that were provided as well, and then some various charts that may be in the side column here. So the first topic that really we reviewed with the committee was policy, as this was key to the committee's charge. So first we had to talk, we provided some information in regards to the background of general orders, which are the policies that PDE employees are guided by. The police department recently went through a comprehensive update of their policies. And this was following a recommendation by the Perf, the police executive research forum that conducted an assessment of the police department in summer of 2018. They identified that the policies needed to be updated. And when chief Dixon started shortly thereafter, he also identified that as a top priority for the department and immediately signed a detective to develop and update the policies and also move to a system called Lexipol, which is used by many law enforcement agencies across the country. And there's a lot of benefits to using the Lexipol system, but one of the top advantages is that it will allow the police department to continue to stay up to date on their policies by getting information on recent legislation, court decisions, best practices, so that they continually review those on an ongoing basis and the policies do not become stale. So there have been substantial improvements all from across all of the policies since 2018. But we focused on reviewing with the committee, the policies related to use of force. So if you see here on the right, these are the policies that were reviewed in more detail with the committee and especially general order 300, which is the use of force policy, but it has been renamed to be the response to resistance policy so that is more appropriately titled. Also down below here, you can see this chart at the very bottom. This is the eight can't wait initiative. It's the eight measures that that organization has put has identified that law enforcement agencies should have. So those eight are listed across the top here. And then in that second row, you can see the Denton police department has met all eight of those initiatives and it references which general order and section in which that is found. The second area where the committee spent a lot of time learning about the Denton police department's training programs. So the committee wanted to understand not only the initial training that an officer might receive before they start patrol, but also was very interested in the ongoing training that officers received. And so reviewed information on both of those topics. As far as initial recruits go for the basic peace officer training, any new recruit has to go through over 700 hours of training in the Academy. Once they complete that Academy that they then have an additional 700 hours plus of field training. So basically a new recruit is going through over 1400 hours before they are on control. And then once they are an officer TECOL requires them to go through 40 hours of training every two years. And then there's additional training that officers must receive that may be legislatively mandated by the state. And that may change after each session as well as department mandated training that chief Dixon identifies that all officers must have. And so since he has come in to the Denton police department, he has identified and brought new training programs. And you'll see here listed on the right are the training that is department mandated. So just specific to the Denton police department of officers must receive. And you'll see a number of different categories here, but really focusing upon mental health, deescalations, persons with autism and other areas. In addition to training, I just wanted to point out the committee did have more discussions around Denton or chief Frank Dixon's mission and vision and his change of the department's organizational culture. He's placed a great emphasis on his expectations for his employees for the community. And then chief Dixon has also started within the last year, a peer support team. And this peer support team is made up of officers and they provide support to other officers and employees. As officers may go through different incidents that may challenge their wellbeing, their mental health, making sure that officers stay well and are provided the resources that they need as well so that they come into work and are prepared to serve the community and stay well. So that's an overview of kind of the areas that we covered in as far as training. There is more information provided in the committee's final report as well as the appendices. Some of the appendix have more in regards to the training curriculum listing out the classes and hours and more specifics in that backup. So next in kind of a related topic, we also covered information on accreditation and compliance. This is an initiative that the Denton Police Department is currently going through with the Texas Police Chief Association to seek accreditation. In order to become accredited, the agency must demonstrate that it complies with 168 best practices that TPCA has identified. And these best practices are organized into the 12 chapters you see here on the right. So they're currently in this process. And again, in the appendix, there's kind of a status update of where the department is and going through that accreditation process by each one of these best practices. But it is expected that the department will become accredited in April of 2021. And there's a number of advantages to being accredited as listed here in this last bullet point. Another topic that we spent a lot of time with the committee on is in regards to internal affairs. So I have a few slides covering internal affairs. But internal affairs is a division of the Denton Police Department, and they track employee performance, as well as investigating any allegations of employee misconduct or complaints received. It is important to note that the division does not conduct criminal investigations on department employees. There have been a number of changes to the internal affairs department structure, or sorry, division structure, and how they handle complaints through the last two years as Chief Dixon took leadership. There's actually a chart in one of the coming slides that will show kind of a before and after of how the internal affairs was structured and their process to how it looks now from two years ago. But a number of measures were put in place to improve the accountability, form a more deliberate process when they are reviewing a complaint and determining discipline, if it is a sustained complaint, and enhancing consistency. Before I move into those next slides, I wanted to point out these two very important charts for the public on the right here. In terms of filing a complaint, anyone can file a complaint, and it's available through two methods. Citizens may file a complaint at dentonpolice.com, and this can be done in English or Spanish, and this online option was put into place less than two years ago. Or they may also contact one of the investigators in the internal affairs division by calling one of these phone numbers listed here. In addition, another public aspect that I wanted to point out was an initiative that the department has started less than a month ago. They have created a data initiative page on their website, and there are a number of reports and data shared here for the public to view, and there are ones related to use of force, including an annual profile on use of force, and then as well as the demographics for the response to resistance incidents. So for the internal affairs part, on July 16th, we covered a lot of information with the committee in regards to all aspects, including Chapter 143 of the Civil Service Act, the Meet and Confer Agreement, and how investigations of police misconduct occur in the Denton Police Department. There were a number of data and reports reviewed with the committee on this date. I've just included one slide as an example, and I think this is kind of the summary slide of the DPD complaints from 2015 to 2020. So I'll walk through this kind of quickly, but from 2015 to 2020, for over five years, there were 539 complaints received by the Denton Police Department. That makes up 0.1% of total call volume. As you can see, the total call volume for that same period listed here, which is over 525,000 calls. So of the 539 complaints received, that's actually broken up into two different ways. Complaints can either be received externally, so meaning a resident has reported a complaint, or they can also be internal, meaning an officer has reported another officer. So you'll see here, of the 539, 215 were external, and 324 were internal. And then you can also go into this last column, which is the percentage sustained. So of the external, which is the 215, 53 were sustained, or 25%. And then for internal, of the 324, 271 were sustained, so 84% of those were sustained. And then this chart lists the allegations in regards to that complaint. So you can see here, performance related is the largest category of complaints received, and it kind of goes down into the top five. You'll see these other complaints listed here. Sorry, listed here. As far as use of force, there was a total of 18 complaints related to use of force, so the 14 listed here, as well as the four TASER complaints. So 18 complaints of the 539 were related to use of force and TASERS. When we reviewed this with the committee, they requested if they could be provided any more information in regards to those 18 complaints related to use of force. So within a week, staff went back and came back with a report provided to the committee of what we could legally provide with a short synopsis of each incident and some other information. So this you can see is also in your appendix, both these reports are. But we came back and were able to provide just a short synopsis of that complaint, as well as some key information, including if the complaint was sustained or not sustained, the demographics of both the citizen and the officer, and if it was sustained, was training recommended, and then was that training conducted for that officer in the incident. So both these reports were provided with more information to the committee. And then you can see down below here of the 18 related to use of force, 10 were identified as internal review and seven from a citizen complaint, with one being uncertain due to past records. Sarah, can I have a quick question of clarification? When you say how complaints were received internal review, does that mean it came from someone within the department? I mean, what exactly was the process on that? Yes, it came from someone in the department and maybe an officer reporting on another officer, maybe a supervisor who is reviewing an incident. Okay, all right. Okay, thank you. Okay. So this is going into the next slide. This is the chart I had mentioned that kind of shows a before and after of the restructuring of the internal affairs division within the Denton Police Department. So again, increase that accountability, establish an internal review board and enhance consistency. So you'll see just kind of some before and afters of the structure that Chief Dixon had changed. Also related, just some data points of the internal affairs complaints received in 2017 compared to 2019. So you can see internal complaints listed, external complaints, as well as disciplinary suspensions and counselling and reprimands, just the before and after there. The last subject that the committee also had wanted to receive information on was in regards to civilian oversight models. So during the course of the meetings held with the committee, they requested more information. And on September 10th, staff prepared a presentation and Deputy City Attorney Mike Kronig presented this information to the committee. It reviewed a number of different things, including the purpose or goals of civilian oversight or advisory boards. It had a comparison of civilian oversight in other Texas cities. And we really spent a lot of time reviewing the limitation on civilian oversight for the Denton Police Department, which is imposed by Texas Local Government Code Chapter 143 and the Meet and Confer Agreement. And there's more details to this, but it did include in the right, sorry, it did include to the right, that provision of the Local Government Code Chapter 143, which limits that the department may not release any information contained in the department file to any agency or person requesting information relating to a police officer. So investigations of police misconduct are confidential and remain confidential if an officer was not suspended for at least one day, demoted, bypassed for a promotion, or indefinitely suspended. So this is a provision that we must continue to meet in regards to Chapter 143. It can only be changed if the legislature changes that provision or through the Meet and Confer process with the police association. So based upon those limitations, staff put together some potential models for civilian oversight or advisory boards that may exist in the Denton Police Department and then considerations for each. So here is the chart that was presented to the committee with some various different options with those considerations, including would it meet or would it require a change to Chapter 143 and the ease of implementation. So you can see here, I'm not going to go through all of these, but just some different options from actually hiring an employee, that would be a police monitor reporting to the city manager, to an advisory board, to the chief of police, to going more into those community panels where they would actually need access to those confidential files. So that is kind of a quick, I know it's a lot of information coming at you quick, because we did have over 10 committee meetings where we reviewed a lot more of that information in detail and answered a lot of questions from the committee members. But at this time, I'd like to kind of review how the committee decided to deliberate and come up with their findings and recommendations and then I will turn it over to the committee chair Cheryl English to go through those findings and recommendations. So the committee, generally the process, I'll go over this, is staff towards the end of August met one-on-one with each of the committee members to kind of understand what were their interests, what were their feedback, what were things that they were starting to identify as potential findings and recommendations and trying to identify if there were some common themes amongst the committee. We then compiled that into a summary of those individual interviews and presented it to the committee on September 3rd. We also brought in a meeting facilitator who helped to foster that discussion around some of the common themes that we had heard and flushed those out further and help the committee start to draft recommendations around the areas of use of force policy, training and reporting. We then came back on September 17th and the committee that day voted on recommendations. How we handled that process is a memo was sent around to the committee in advance of the meeting with some proposed recommendations based upon their prior meeting on September 3rd and as well as a matrix of options for civilian oversight if the committee wished to recommend a civilian oversight option. So at that meeting on September 17th the facilitator introduced each one of those proposed recommendation by topic area, asked for feedback and then took a roll call and voice votes on each of those. So this time I will turn it over to the committee chair Cheryl English to review with you those findings and recommendations from the committee. And I'm actually going to stop sharing just for a second so she can sit down and I'll pull back up the presentation. Thank you Sarah. Good afternoon mayor and city council. I'll just jump right into it. The findings and recommendations, the policy and training, does the committee have any recommendations for updates to policy language or training regarding use of force? And the committee voted unanimously to support the policy and training recommendations as presented below. After review the committee felt that they could not offer any specific recommendations or changes to policy. To continue emphasis on understanding and de-escalating situations the police department should investigate continued opportunities for regular training for officers on mental health, diversity, and inclusion persons with physical or intellectual disabilities and LBGTQ individuals. Such training should be balanced to manage proper staffing for the department and other managed trainings, mandated trainings the police department should track and share general metrics on training. Before I go to the next page does anybody have a question? Okay. Let's see let me get back. Was there any questions? I there we go. Any questions on that council member Armitter? So I have a bunch of questions but I was kind of planning on saving those for the end. Would that be okay? Yeah let's go let's wait till we get to the end. Okay all right. Thank you. Questions and recommendation number two transparency and accountability. Does this committee have any recommendations to enhance reporting of information to the public? The committee voted unanimously to support the transparency and accountability recommendation as presented. The police department shall create a report that includes data on officer response calls where use of force was used and summary information on complaints filed against police officers for use of force and their disposition including if the complaint was sustained and training was recommended. This report shall be posted and presented online in a friendly consumable way. The frequency of the report shall be at least semi-annually where possible data should also be presented in a data dashboard format and if if there is a tragic loss of life due to the force the didn't police chief and individuals are encouraged to acknowledge or issue a statement reaffirming the value and sanctity of human life and commitment to transparency and accountability. Number three civilian oversight. Does the committee think civilian oversight is needed if yes what option is recommended and by roll call in both voice vote the committee voted first on if a civilian oversight should be recommended and the committee voted 10 to 6 that a civilian oversight option should be recommended and then subsequently voted for the options. The committee recommends civilian oversight in the form of an advisory board to the police chief. Okay. Any questions? Okay. What how much more of the actual slide presentation do we have before because I know we said we're going to wait till the end of the presentation to ask questions. I think chief Dixon is next and there are a couple more slides and then nothing more done. Okay good. Okay. Yeah let's just go ahead and proceed with the presentation. Okay. Good afternoon mayor council. Frank Dixon chief of police. We'll go through the next couple of slides. We're going to go through the recommendations if approved by the body. The first would be if you do approve this as a body we would by ordinance creating an advisory board as part of the department that would advise me and it would the ordinance would establish the structure of the board its makeup the combination of civilian is sworn civilian or sworn and it would also talk about the appointment and removal process for non sworn members training for all board members and its scope and it would obviously include all the statistical and data trends that we talked about before during this committee uses of force complaints displaying actions training and policy we would look to have it scheduled to meet quarterly but if we did not have the ability to do that we didn't need that frequency we would commit to meeting at least twice a year at a minimum. Obviously all the documents created by the board would be subject to Texas Public Information Act and these recommendations by the board to me are not binding their recommendations similar to the ones that you're looking at today. They would also elicit a response for me that will be subject to public release to the extent that it's allowed by law and when it is released it will be redacted with the confidential material. I would already be doing this anyway we do this once a year do an annual written report and brief you all as a city council on the advisory board's work and its recommendations the responses to those and we would talk about the ones that we rejected why we rejected those the ones we accepted why we did and then the ones that we implemented and this process as it's laid out right now could be done without any change to local government code chapter 143 or through the meet and confer process. And just kind of summary once again we heard a lot of information throughout this process of the ad hoc committee meeting and again I want to give my thanks and gratitude to those community members that sacrifice a lot of time out of their evenings to do this and then some when they're doing their research we really heard a lot of great discussion some of the things that we heard throughout the course of the meeting we started implementing there were actually some ideas that we had already started implementing prior to the to the ad hoc committee be informed and we've already rolled out some of those we talked about police officer wellness which was a big part of what the committee talked about the peer support team that we set up about a year ago is still gaining traction starting to grow already we've already seen a lot of benefit from that as well as police officer training the training cycle that we have through teak hole through the texas commission on law enforcement education only requires us to have 40 hours of training every other year right now on average each dent police officers averaging about 70 to 77 hours per year in the last two years so we're already above and beyond what we should be doing the bare minimum but again we don't want to be the bare minimum we want to make sure that we're striving for excellence on the communication with the community we already launched an open data page that's on our website this link to our website that have all the reports that were given to the ad hoc committee we've also added in some other information since then so that's going to continue to be updated we're going to add more reports things that we think the community wants to see and wants to be informed about we really encourage people to go there and explore that page to see what the police department is doing and then lastly staff is seeking direction on the committee's recommendation from from you all the first ones in policy and training there were actually no recommendations to policy from the committee they did ask us to continue to investigate regular training officer for officers and they really had an emphasis on deescalation increased awareness especially when you talk about persons with disabilities and they also like to see our training metrics shared with the public so that's one process that's already in in practice we're going to continue to improve upon that the big part of that is sharing the training metrics which we had not been doing but we will be doing as well the transparency and accountability creating that use of force data report twice per year it'll be posted online as well and then at the end of the year we'll just wrap that up with one annual report that will encapsulate everything that we have done over the course of the year and as i already do in our public statements encourage encourage statements on the sanctity of human life that has always been a focus of mine prior to coming here from day one here till now we have constantly talked about that so we're going to continue that as well and then really the only recommendation that y'all have left is a civilian oversight and that's whether or not to create an advisory board to the chief of police so just to review this is the last slide mayor watts if council wishes to create that advisory board to the chief of police the next steps would be to adopt an enabling ordinance to create that board staff has drafted that ordinance legal has drafted that is attached as exhibit five to this agenda item if council wishes that could be scheduled as early as october 13th or october 20th for city council consideration staff has recommended a 10 member board which would consist of seven citizens one appointment for each council member one member from the denton police department lower than the assistant chief rank one member from the police officers association and then one member from the city manager's office if it were established and once established the appointment process could begin to name individuals to that board then the next steps would be to develop agendas and topics for the advisory board first meeting could be scheduled to be held in january 2020 that first meeting as well as meetings subsequently thereafter would really focus on providing background in regards to the denton police department and use of force and police chief frank dixon would develop kind of a training series for those board members to make sure they receive the proper information before beginning their work a list of topics for meetings may include the review of use of force complaints and data really reviewing those trends and data that are from the use of force reviewing training that officers receive and the training curriculum that the denton police department has looking at policy if there are any policy updates or amendments to the police department's general orders as well as reviewing some of the data reports that chief dixon had reviewed including use of force demographic data so i will take down the slide and that ends staff's presentation okay great thank you councilmember armater you had some questions yeah if you could you know ask a couple two or three and then we'll move on and then we'll just circle back around sure i wanted to start before my questions just with a just a brief statement i wanted to thank the members of the committee for their hard work um it's public knowledge that i voted no to this committee um primarily because i didn't think uh and i still don't think that uh police should have been on the committee as voting members and i didn't think that that council members uh should be on that committee in any capacity um but i watched uh not all but a number of those meetings and was really impressed by the way that that committee members work together and listen to public input and work both within and kind of as i saw it around on the limitations of that committee so it really exceeded my expectations i don't regret having voted no but i just wanted to be clear about that and to say how proud i am of those committee members the progress they made second um i want to say you know this has all been been framed as um as in response to the the tragic death of george floyd and nationwide protests and protests in denton about george floyd um but i think it comes off as you know a little tone deaf if we don't acknowledge um the tragic death of darrius tarver and how here in the city of denton and how those protests were also protests uh about the death of darrius tarver not only here in denton but also nationwide his name has been said nationwide i think it's really important uh for for history for how we look um for us to acknowledge his name now because i think it looks bad if we don't acknowledge his name now um thirdly i just wanted to acknowledge before i ask my questions uh i know that you know many of you members of the public maybe even some on council and staff have received you know some of these postcards about me i'm saying here councilmember councilmember armator councilmember armator i'm not sure where you're going with this this is just that councilmember armator there there are there are elections occurring and we're not going to turn this into something regarding those so if you have questions councilmember armator i'm going i have to say you cannot mention postcards i'm not sure exactly where you're going with this but you can't go there well okay well actually where i was going was to say i hope no councilmember and listening to me no no no councilmember armator councilmember councilmember armator i need you to respect the process this is not a place to to air your personal grievances about something that's happening in the community we are talking about the use of force committee and what are the recommendations yes and what i was going to ask is that i ask that people please put these postcards aside okay councilmember armature i'm going to councilmember armator you're saying i'm saying what you're saying okay so i will continue here are my questions thank you moving forward with my questions okay um so uh i'm curious so from chief jixson um how much body camera footage was requested or viewed by the committee and was uh policy on release of body camera footage discussed i know that these synopsis were discussed uh with regard to use of force incidents complaints but as you know you know there is you know not just in denton but nationwide you know there are you know sometimes disagreements about whether or not um police uh synopsis of use of force incidents and incidents correspond to action to body camera footage and to what degree so i was wondering if you could comment on that there were no requests for body camera footage on the numbers that we gave to the committee members we did not have any body camera footage that we reviewed as a body during that and we did not talk about the body camera policy as i recall okay thank you um so i was wondering so you mentioned that actually no new uh policy recommendations were made from the committee is that because as i understand it that's because these policies such as the eight can't wait etc that were uh highlighted in the beginning presentation were already put in place prior to the beginning of the the committee is that correct that's correct policies have been rewritten and been in the course of being rewritten since december of 2018 okay thank you and that was you know part of my confusion about the committee was kind of not understanding you know why we're discussing these things that were already put in place but i will say i'm glad that those policies are in place um so it's as i mentioned before i watched some of these meetings but not all of them um were uh and so my questions reflect you know my um not knowing about what exactly was discussed at those meetings that i did not see um were uh bans on no knock warrants tear gas rubber bullets um or marijuana and paraphernalia citations uh included in any of the discussion so all the discussions centered around use of force so none of the the marijuana came up during one of the public call-in sessions we did not discuss it as a body we did not discuss anything about um misdemeanor fill releases or anything like that thank you um and and and finally and this will be a mayor this will be my my final question for right now um so uh i'm curious about the the new policy uh or the on um uh release of use of force incidents information about use of force incidents to the public will the officer's names uh be included in that release of information names and photos so that members of the public maybe who have had an incident been involved in an incident negative or positive uh with those officers could be able to see you know and and respond and help to provide some context and background uh to to these uses of force so only those cases where an officer receives a one-day suspension or more will their names be released by law we cannot release those if they have not met that standard and that is through local government code chapter 143 enemy confer process and if they do meet those matrices they will have their names in those documents as well and uh may or may ask a follow-up question to that or am i real quickly and then real quickly and then we're going to move on to uh some other council members okay thank you very much sir so uh my uh kind of question in response to that is um you know so is it true then that if if you as chief or maybe it would be the internal affairs committee i'm not sure you know exactly where the kind of final decision although it's my understanding that you would have the final decision would lie um that if you wanted uh information in a use of force incident to go public and thought that it was serious enough that somebody could be suspended uh for a day or more just suspended for a day or more and then everything would have to be public is or at least the name would have to be public is that correct that's correct thank you yes ma'am okay uh who else council member davis and then council member briggs um the first thing i'd say thank you mayor the first thing i'd say is anyone who's watching this at home if you go back to the use of force committee agendas that are all on the website all of those backup materials really kind of are required reading to fully understand the work that the committee did and the legal briefing they got on some of the things the chief just mentioned chapter 143 the meet confer all those kind of things and there's a nice matrix there too of all the different things they consider and then rejected in making this recommendation to us my question is could either chief you or someone else whoever's best suited help us understand the ways that um having an advisory board that reports to you that is advising you or you know in other places it might be the city manager but here in this recommendation it's you how having that board closer to the police chief actually makes the board's job easier gives them better access to records all that kind of stuff can you help us understand that and why the committee felt that was important absolutely thank you for that question well it just really makes it conversations like we had during this committee meeting when they have direct access to me there's a lot of information that i can glean from those conversations whether or not it becomes something that i can release publicly that i can still take back like some of the recommendations that i got through listening to the committee during this process there may be small training items that we can take care of without having to go through some long formal process and we'll also have a wider breadth to bring in people from within the department a lot quicker than trying to schedule things out when they have direct access to me they don't have to go through another body to get that information that they need which sometimes creates a bit of lag time and then when you talk about someone reporting to the city manager in the form of a police monitor again that just really starts to lay up some barriers to communicating quicker more efficiently and then more directly with me i think that although this is really tailored around use of force there's a lot of things that come out of use of force like training education all the things that we've been talking about mental health that can really tie together very well in this process may I ask a follow-up to that of course so one of the things we've talked about already in this meeting is confidential records confidentiality things that have to be kept confidential under the law until certain thresholds are met if a committee reports to you as a port or advises you i should say as opposed to you know a civilian board that has no connection to the police department did that with that civilian board with no connection to police have access to the same kind of records that a board would when they advise you directly under the law right no they would not so the board did reports to me directly will also have the ability or i'll have the ability to show them things in confidence that i wouldn't be able to necessarily show boards that don't report to me or police monitor or other things like that and that's allowed by law okay is that it council member davis okay council member breaks thank you mayor um just a few questions and and one clarification um we'll just i'll go ahead for the first clarification on the board makeup it said one from the denton police association but we have two police associations so i wasn't sure how was that just one from either one or one from each or that i i'm looking for a clarification on that because i don't want to um leave anyone out so the next question i have is on the the training mandates which you are clearly work is being done and it's it's fantastic thank you for for all those trainings and the mandated by the department which since you've come in um but since there was no there's no requirements or updates on that my question is um if if you leave will those mandates from the department go with you or is there some way that we can make sure and assure that those trainings continue within the department i'm afraid to answer that one do you know something i don't know so the answer to the first question is the dent police officer association is the only association by charter can that can negotiate with the city and the meet confer contract so that's why the dpoa is specifically spelled out now with that other person that i appoint from within the department it can be from anybody under the rank of assistant chief so that could capture someone from the dmpa the other association or not and then if the unfortunate circumstance did occur it would really be up to the next chief to look at the plans that we laid out the training plan for 2020 and 2021 to decide whether he or she wanted to continue down the same path or go in a different direction okay so it's it's up to each chief and i only mention that because um of all the work that you've done for our department it's great and um everyone commends you on that but i i did listen to some of the the advisory i mean some of the the board meetings and they're talking about the future way way on out and so um it was just a question that i had for for future reference um my other other question is for you i guess chief personally do you think um an advisory board like this would be helpful to you i think it could be incredibly helpful just just as this ad hoc committee was the diversity of voices that are represented in that is probably one of the most important pieces of this entire process it does no good if i'm listening to the same like-minded people across the board so getting that diverse representation of our city as it stands today really does help everybody the community and the police department okay i appreciate that thank you very much okay anyone else councilman councilmember melser go ahead uh you have a couple of questions for uh for miss english she's still available yes yeah thank you um yeah thanks for uh for all the hard work of of uh chairing um part of the process was involved encouraging the members of the community to share stories and i wonder if you could characterize for us what you learned from from hearing the stories um some stories were relatable i've had my own situations where they involved um police and so i think we all do that but you have to also realize that um i come from a background of law my father was in law enforcement and stepfather as well so it's kind of you get to see both sides because even though you know people who um have had this for a profession you've also had your experiences to whether good or bad so um i think some of the stories were informational some were relatable um and we could always do our part to make it better any uh okay has been answered and then on the uh the vote on the committee the 10 to 6 that's a pretty uh substantial dissenting group uh can you share anything about what what the point of views points of view were that were expressed in dissent was one um overriding point of view or or many different well most we had four options and the each member voted on which options that they want at best and and and that's where we where we came to to that conclusion um i think someone is i had the impression that it was a two-step it was a two-step process it was and they were to particularly pick out which two um policies that they would have liked to seen implemented and so everyone didn't agree and that's how you got that number i think um there were more people or not more people but there were some people who wanted the oversight committee to be a little bit more stringent um and that would have taken a lot more time to implement and there were some legalities in that but that was their position and that's where they stayed on that position okay thank you i'm going to circle back around to council member armature uh does anybody else have any questions um first questions council member ryan or mayor pro tem before i circle back around to those that have already asked questions okay all right uh council member armature so just to confirm for the record so that that was one of the meetings that i watched and i saw that two-step process and and i was kind of counting up and looking at who was voting for and against in the initial vote which was just you which was a four against any kind of use of force committee um is it correct that the police officers on the committee who had a vote uh all voted against in that first vote uh or were there some who voted for in the first vote um i don't recall all the votes you would have to go back and look at the notes um because i was a couple a couple of weeks ago and i've slept since then but um i don't think it was for use of force i think it was more so that's what i meant sorry yes for the community oversight board thank you right okay okay uh any more council member armature not for now all right council member riggs hey sheryl thank you for your uh service on the committee and um i i did get to watch and i had a similar question on of the original six that voted no i did follow back and see that some of those voted yes for option two so um for for me it ended up being more of a yes than no um for for those in the in individuals in the committee um is that can can i infer that whatever is on the film but yeah i think that is what happened i think we came around and then we kind of narrowed it down and came back around again okay okay uh and so i did also listen that there were some conversations about it being an advisory or an oversight that that was really important to individuals on the committee what that how it was referred to um can you speak to that a little bit and was that included in your recommendation one or the other it was um and i think it's more about i don't know how much oversight it would depend on how much information that that they were allowed to legally be able to share with that committee so an advisory committee um probably would be a better time for it so i think that's why we got into the weeds on that because one particular committee would take longer to establish and would have to go into um the 143 and they had already done that so the advisory committee um where they would report directly to the chief um would be a better option okay thank you so much yeah before you i'm sure i don't know if you're going to be back on for questions but thank you so much for your leadership in this regard and i want to thank all the committee members and i'll have more to say at the end as we wrap this up but again thank you i understand uh it was it was a great process and in a process like that you're always going to have things that people are going to agree with or disagree with but i think in the end i think we've come out at least to this point based upon the discussion so far something that at least the police chief sounds like that uh he's he's on board with and is in favor of thank you so thank you cheryl appreciate that all right council member armature if you've got questions just let's go ahead and ask them because i uh this is it's responding i mean at the time i had no questions now i have a question response to something that was just mentioned it's part of the kind of organic way that deliberation unfolds no i understand that but my my my question is or my comment is it seemed like you had a lot of questions in the beginning and and so you asked about two or three of them so that you were you were gracious to let us sort of recognize other council members and so i'm saying that if you have questions that are organic i absolutely understand that i understand the deliberation process i'm saying if you have other questions that were already predetermined prior to this you're certainly free to ask those at this point so though you know i prime i've asked my primary questions already um okay so yeah what i wanted to just confirm so so um um miss miss english mentioned the uh 143 agreements um and it's it's my understanding and am i correct whoever could answer city manager or police chief um that uh you know that'll come up start being under deliberation really next year in 2021 was when we'll start talking you know that'll start kind of coming before council again is that correct so so we're talking about the the meet and confer agreement is coming up for discussion i believe in spring of 23 22 or 23 so we're about two years away okay so i had gotten i'll have to go back and check that email but i thought i had heard that they discussed and you're right you know that 23 is what i heard when it would come up but i thought i had heard 2021 maybe it's so in 2022 is when then the um the discussions would begin maybe maybe that's what was written could the city manager confirm that is it 2022 we would generally start the negotiations um it's probably about six months prior to the expiration of the contract has been the way that we typically handle that thank you and i'm by the way i'm sure that's what you wrote in the email i was just trying to remember but i did remember um that it was before that it was at some point before 2023 um that it would start coming up to us so thank you okay anybody else all right so uh looking for direction let me go ahead and make my final comments uh first of all i want to thank the committee members who graciously agreed to serve on this committee and and i will i will um take an opposite view of council member armature i think that the committee was diverse i think there were some that called during this the creation of this committee for it not to be diverse i think that police officers certainly the two police officer unions that are there certainly had a i don't see why we would exclude their voice at the table so i really appreciate everybody and the robust discussions that occurred i think that's what really helps me feel confident about the the product and about the results of this committee because it wasn't something that just everybody sort of agreed to uh there there were there were really in-depth robust discussions about many issues this was a force of a use of force committee uh through that that charge so the one main question i have is the advisory board that's really their charge is is to review and to provide um advice or recommendations for use of force either incidences or other policy considerations that may come up in the future it's not necessarily uh believe it doesn't it doesn't move into other areas of of that is that is that my understanding of what the recommendations are i think mr chronick wants to take this one okay michael chronick deputy city attorney the proposed or the draft ordinance that i drafted for you folks to review and consider does list the different uh roles that this board can have and it would include response to resistance but also bias-based policing racial profiling mental health and diversity uh training of dentin police officers on those types of subjects officer mental health policy review and development community engagement so yes it is use of force but it's also all these other areas that actually kind of go into an officer's use of force depending upon who is dealing with and training so it's not uh council can certainly determine the scope of it and that's one of the things that we're asking you to do but it's not strictly limited to use of force and nothing else okay all right if i could ask the chief a question chief are you uh you okay with the the scope of the ordinance as it's been drafted i am i think what needs to be clear to everyone watching and listening right now as we go into the discussions potentially of this advisory board we looked at last year we had two cases that were sustained where an officer got a day or more off for last calendar year so we would have those two cases that we could have very robust open discussions about and then the rest of the discussions would go towards everything else that we did mr kroneck just talked about i just want to make sure everyone knows that this isn't going to be open up for all of these wide-ranging discussions and videos being shown and case files being exchanged and so that's really and i appreciate that clarification because that's really what i'm trying to understand because i know that when we voted on this committee when i proposed this committee it was pursuant to uh the pledge that we signed and that was to look at the use of force policies and to take citizen input and to have citizen engagement to see if there's policies that need to be changed modified and the like from what i'm understanding regarding that specific charge there were no policy recommendations made to the use of force policies in the denton police department am i correct on that i'm sure you went over all of them so it's not as if some of it wasn't it was a comprehensive discussion but my understanding is there there were no recommendations is that correct that's correct yes sir okay and so the the advisory committee sort of was an outgrowth of that conversation to say hey in use of force incidences at least from what i can understand we want to be able to have better citizen engagement and access to information and so the advisory committee seemed to be the thing the committee gravitated to to best fit that need or to meet that need so i'm still trying to understand on those other four or five scopes that the committee uh has what i'm hearing you say is that if it's outside of a use of force incident or policy discussion uh i believe and i don't honestly i've reviewed it but i don't have my laptop here so i don't i don't remember those four or five off the top but i know mental health officer wellness those kinds of things which were some of the things that the committee had talked about really um wanting to improve anyway those issues if they come up they are handled differently or there's not i mean because they're outside of the if they didn't involve a use of force incident or officers and or officer suspension then how are those handled differently than than the ones you just mentioned so a great example would be if you have an officer that is having some troubles and they need the peer support team the advisory board and myself can talk about specifics to the point they were in a meeting but those specifics can't be released to the public i just don't want the public thinking they're going to hear very specific detail about someone that may have a a need for mental health support they won't get all of that information out publicly the committee will get that the in that advisory board and i will work to strengthen policy where we need to strengthen the peer support team where we need to so the benefit is still there and it's still great i just don't want to set up expectations that everyone in the public is going to hear about those because you still have all the restrictions that that the law HIPAA restrictions and so forth that are out there okay so just to sort of dive a little bit because i i really think this is important to go over because i don't want once this committee if that's where this council goes gets formed and all of a sudden so let's take your example if if there's a a behavioral health issue that an officer needs some some some mental health support that is outside is not a result of any use of force incident it's just everyday life why i guess my question is why would that be something that this advisory board would be looking at and talking about if it has nothing to do with a use of force incident i know it could potentially set an officer up to create or to to be involved in a use of force incident if there's if there's some some uh some support that they need there i'm not saying i'm against it but i really we need to really make sure we put the necessary parameters around that because and also the confidentiality of this committee when they're not talking about use of force incidents is how how do we protect things that are totally outside of a use of force incident that are dealing with someone's wellness someone's health someone's mental health and these other things that are mentioned how do we uh what kind of guard rails do we have and maybe this is a legal question what kind of guard rails do we have to ensure that that that their privacy is protected if it's not related to a use of force incident because i don't i don't think people are calling for the community to understand every aspect of a police officer's life and and so if you could help me michael understand that sure when when i wrote the ordinance when i drafted it and it's not intended and i agree with you that if officer smith just pick a name out uh is having a problem that this is going to go before this board that's not what this is intended for it's just the general scope or or issues that if an officer is having problems at home that he could bring to the job that end up in him being short with someone which could end up in use of force when it shouldn't have happened those are the kinds of things we're talking about what but there's no intent in dealing with a specific officer's personal problems uh it's the bigger picture of mental health uh and those types of things in bias-based policing that contribute or could contribute to the use of force so and i envision that i'll i probably will be the legal advisor for this committee or this advisory board and that's going to be part of my job is to make sure that they stay within the scope of what you approve and anything that i feel is inappropriate that should not go before this committee whether it's HIPAA protected or 143 then i would certainly speak up and tell them that i think that's beyond the scope or the law doesn't allow them to review that but again it's not intended to be a review of a particular person's problems no one ever envisioned that that's what this would be okay all right okay thank you that's helpful thank you michael uh council member mouncer yes yeah thank you um i think there may be a bigger opportunity uh here you know where i i was very strongly in favor of the formation of the committee i think is an appropriate response to the kind of expression we're seeing in the community uh and i think it's looking very much like a response to issues of 2020 uh and if we think about what the ultimate goals would be i don't think it's just a sort of uh looking over the shoulder of the police where there's a question about conduct i think where we'd ultimately like to get to uh and i think in debt and particularly you're well poised to get there is to have a very positive relationship between the community and police and fire for that matter um and i think there are positive as well as negative goals where the community could provide policy and programming input so what i'd like to suggest is that in addition to this one narrow corner of use of force and bias-based policing and so on that we consider the uh something like a public safety community relations board that could in addition to those issues deal give input on so outreach and engagement opportunities so so i guess i want to check with this work i mean well no i need to make sure with the city attorney that we're still on posting because you're you're proposing something that's really not up for discussion here so that's that's what i'm i'm checking on yes he's starting to deviate off posting we can certainly look at that question separately and answer if council member wishes to do so in a friday legal status report or a friday report or schedule a future meeting at the next meeting which if you do proceed forward with the ordinance we could bring back an answer before that meeting okay yeah because that that i mean i hear what you're saying council member melzer and i'm not i'm not saying that's a good or bad idea i'm just that's there's never mentioned well but plus it really wasn't really i don't think addressed in the the use in the committee itself so it's certainly i think something that's a worthy discussion but as an outgrowth of this committee's recommendation then that would there's just a lot of different conversations with that so um but yeah be sure we'll have a discussion about that absolutely yeah i'll pick it up for a for a patch uh it's it's uh a in my mind a fuller realization of the um you know of the goals but okay all right thank you sir uh council member armature uh yes so i'm ready to give my direction i have to go uh i have to teach a class at two have to leave a little bit before that um so just in case even though it's a little early i want to make sure you get my direction um go ahead okay so a couple things um number one uh you know i understand that under the current um meet and confer agreement um that uh it would be as well as state laws etc as they are now um advice would have to go from a committee like this would have to go to the police chief that is why by the way you know even when i made my um proposal uh my second the second proposal that i made uh to this council for a police oversight board uh i specify that it go before uh the police chief because i understood that that was the kind of the legal requirement restrictions that we were currently under um you know i would love to see that change but i understand we need to work within what we've got so i just want to make clear on that i do have um so i support this moving forward but with two uh really strong qualifications one um since we're since uh the plan is not to for this committee not to meet until january anyway um and we've said that already this committee would not meet until january i think that it's really important uh that we wait until after november 3rd uh to appoint members to this committee um you know much in the same way you know discussions about appointing supreme court nominee to replace a supreme court member is going on i think that's really important so um and you know whether i'm here on council or not is irrelevant it is i think that it's with an election coming forward i think it's best to have a new council uh choose who's going to be on that committee especially since they wouldn't be meeting till january anyway so that does not affect when they could meet second um and i'm really glad uh that council member briggs brought up the second police union we have two police unions and while i understand that only one of them is able to you know do the the meet and confer process it's a public it's public record and been covered in the um the you know fort worth and denton papers that the the second police union was formed specifically because of issues regarding uh racism within the police department and i think that it's important that we include in the ordinance um that a member from that union be included there's nothing preventing us even though i do understand and chief dixon i do understand what you're saying about the distinction between these two unions um but i i also don't see anything preventing us from specifying that a member from that other union that the second police officer on the committee and again i would prefer to have no police officers in that committee i was fixing to say that yeah yeah but if there's going to be one okay i think it should specifically be somebody uh from that second union and apologies unions for getting my acronyms on all mixed up i should have taken my notes um but but so those are my two conditions um and finally i just want to end with a quote just in case i don't have a chance to say more before a very quick quote um and this it's from a comedian uh chris rock but i think it is very pertinent and profound and and he says um he says i know it's hard being a cop uh but some jobs can't have bad apples some jobs everybody's got to be good like pilots american airlines can't be like you know most of our pilots like to land we just got a few bad apples that like to crash into mountains and i know this is not an anti-police sentiment i know it's about high standards and i know that a number of people within our police department agree we should set the highest standards so i'm looking forward moving forward to setting the bar high that's all okay i i've got a question of clarification um you said because right now staff recommendation was one member from the dent police office association council member brig said well if we're going to have one should we have another one representing the other union i think somebody said something now so are you saying you want one or two well as my understanding there are already two going to be two but that one that the second one was of the it was up to the chief to pick the second one i'm saying that the second one i believe should specifically be from that second police union well that's if it stays at 10 i mean this is this is staff's this is a draft ordinance so okay but am i correct am i correct chief that it's two and that that one that one has to be from the police union from the dpoa and the second one um could be from the second police union but it leaves it open is that correct as yourness is written now there's one from the dpoa then there's one that i choose exactly and so mr mayor what i'm suggesting is that i think it should specify and this could be done very easily just to specify that the second person be from that second police union i don't want to from that same first police union i don't want to chance that and i trust that i actually trust that i think that our current police chief would probably um someone that would be my guest pick someone from the second union but i want to put that in writing because it's an ordinance and we have the power to do that and i think that that's fair and respects the work of that second union all right okay all right thank you uh any anybody else uh so i i do have the ordinance in front of me now if and so i'm going to say i'm not going to limit i'm not going to tell the chief who he needs to appoint if we want someone from the other uh police association to be on this committee we just simply add them and it becomes 11 but i don't think i think the chief needs to have someone there that uh that he chooses uh from his from his uh police department and then so if you want a representation from both police officers associations uh that's okay uh so i have i have the list of hold on just a second mayor pro tem let me just go over this michael could you rejoin me i've got the list now of the things in front of me um of the well it just keeps moving on me all right yes sir all right so um and and this is on uh this is under section 23-177-3 purpose of the draft ordinance for those on council who are able to pull their back up and also to give a citation to those uh that are listening or will be viewing this later uh so it says the purpose of the board is provide feedback advice and recommendations to the chief of police on the following matters concerning the dent police department i'm just going to go through these individually and just and just make my comment response to resistant use of force policy and training including emphasis on understanding de-escalation training understand that bias-based police racial profiling policy and training which could affect use of force understand that sustained complaints involving a response to resistance use of force and bias so again that's it's use of force related for review data trends for response resistance use that's use of force related mental health diversity and inclusion of all segments of the community including persons with physical or intellectual disabilities and lgbtq individuals um now what i'm understanding that to be is just to provide the chief uh data information community uh input uh sort of to pass on or be a be a conduit for these issues that could relate to use of force incidences between the police department in these communities and to give a just an overall view of the communities and their needs and their interaction with police officers in general to avoid any use of force incidences is that is that my understanding yeah i think there there's certainly times when officers deal with someone who they think is ignoring their orders and it turns out the person might have an intellectual disability and it results in a use of force so everything here is attempted to try to be tied into the committee's mandate and so six says training of dent police officers particularly the areas of parts one two and five and those are and that's the one we just mentioned uh and then of course the response to use of force and bias-based policing so uh again my phone keeps hold on uh officer mental health and it has nothing else there so i'm going to put a question mark beside that one just so we can get a better policy review and development now is that general policy review and development or is that use of force policy review or or policy review and development regarding any of the one through seven items in other words uh i would like to have some kind of give the the committee some kind of understanding of what that's referring to because policy review and development could mean anything and uh if it were certainly related to these 10 items uh well six items uh so that's one policy is number eight and then number nine is community engagement open communication transparency and accountability and i actually think that in some ways that's what councilmember melzer was referring to at least to some degree and then 10 any other matter that the chief of police seeks the board's input so that's where the chief can ask for their uh advice and and recommendations on something that may have nothing to do with anything that we've been talking about is that correct yeah i thought at the very end there may be something that the chief sees some value in asking this advisory committee their opinions or recommendations it may have nothing to do with use of force but this is an advisory panel and they may have some good advice for him on an issue okay all right good deal all right i appreciate that yes councilmember melzer thank you michael appreciate it okay so you know i want to be careful to not go outside of sort of what we said before but just within the topic of anything else the chief would like advice on could that plausibly include community outreach hiring recruiting even construction proposals purchasing recommendations it wasn't envisioned for example purchasing i mean never thought about that but it was personnel related issues hiring issues discipline issues i thought it was important to give the chief the the ability to ask this board for recommendations and advice on something that that you know may not be specifically within the the mandate of the committee kind of a catch-all but you know and certainly we can we you folks can limit it to one through nine if you want to but i i thought it was good to give give that board that or that advisory committee the ability for the chief to ask their input on something that might not be specifically enumerated here well i think leaving it as it is extends the utility and relevance you know of the of the committee so i think it's good with it in thanks yeah my comment on that wasn't too limited i think what i like about that is that it that's at the chief's discretion that's not that the advisory committee can bring up anything and saying if the chief would like and the chief had said that you know he he's in favor of this and i think part of it is because in the end he he can bring things to the committee that that he might want some advice and consent on but it's not necessarily flowing the other way with that kind of broad scope so no i'm okay with that yep all right sorry about that mayor pro tem go ahead no problem thank you so i have a number of things do you want me to take them one at a time mostly just adjustments not questions but staff may want to weigh in but just change suggestions is what i have you just however you want to proceed okay so i'll start where we left off i think you you mentioned seven eight nine on in in the draft ordinance and i agree with you on number eight more specificity is needed there just to clean that up a bit you put a question mark by mental health i'll wait to hear back for you on that and then i think looking at number 10 there should be some sort of submission process by way which uh chief has so we iron that out right so it comes through a workflow that gets to him and gives him time to consider understanding life happens at his job at a torrid pace so i want to make sure uh there we set an expectation to say yes we'll be these will be reviewed but they have to kind of work their way through the system um at a different level or at least so that chief understands expectations on replies etc mayor pro tem on number 10 if that's what if that's what you're referring to uh because i think that's just the issues that the chief wants to bring before the board so it's really it's not it's not them bringing up the board's not bringing issues up to the chief so there's there's really not a process it's more of the chief saying hey uh talking to the board i want to look at x um and and so i i think he probably would have an understanding of you know exactly what he needs to do so it sounds like you were talking about if they had recommendations or things they wanted to look at yeah i read it that yes i thank you for the correction and i think i read it the other way as well i think it but the clarification works i think that that allows uh to address that that would address that um and then uh with respect to um the members i would advocate for non-voting members from the following groups uh unt tw nctc police departments and then the didn't isd atc uh class has a law public safety and security classes i think what that allows us to do is those are partner agencies obviously there's some crossover obviously they benefit from those conversations and that training or at least exposure to our resources um and so obviously there's regular meetings between those groups anyway but i i don't think it would hurt for those groups to hear what the they may not have the same access to uh the the public if you will uh that the city does and so maybe their officers can benefit from that uh from those from that exposure and so i'm not sure what the feel is there but that's what i put forward uh as a suggestion um and then i i really want to circle back with michael on or at least advocate i think we need to have some level of uh confidentiality agreement or uh affidavit in place depending on what we're going to provide but uh i think chief touches on it before we're talking about information that the public normally wouldn't have access to so i would think the members of this committee or advisory yeah this advisory board uh would be held to a higher standard than simply uh some of the other boards just due to the the the information and i think it needs to be made clear uh if something uh discussed in that meeting makes it out into the public what those consequences are obviously the the council here has removed that restriction from ourselves or it's not punitive but i think when we're going into this next level i think it is important that people understand what they're signing on to and that they agree in advance to the those restrictions okay all right um i i okay and one one last thing one other note i did i would also advocate for a prohibition uh similar to what we do uh uh on other uses uh for past council members i think two years is is a good prohibition for if you've just come off council there should be a two-year kind of probationary period where you can't be so for example you feel like somehow police factored into a decision you're no longer on council now all of a sudden here's my chance to you know work my way back i just think there needs to be a pro a cooling off period of a couple of years uh in my mind for those elected officials just okay all right my thoughts yep all right council member armature yes i wanted to respond to two points by council member uh mayor pro tem husband some number one yeah i agree um that uh council members you know should not be serve on um any committees for uh two years for at least two years um since coming off council i think that should apply to any committee um number two i was a little confused and maybe either chief dixon or um the attorney uh mr crony could answer whoever feels most comfortable answering or either uh you know i was a little confused by those kind of uh comments about confidentiality because it's my understanding that this committee that that their meetings would be public and that they will not i i thought that one of the things that was discussed was that they could not have access to certain confidential information uh so it was my understanding that these would be public meetings can you can can that can be clarified and i'm i have no investment in necessarily being right or wrong i just want to understand exactly you know how much of committee's deliberations would be public and the information that they have i thought would be public information so can that be clarified i'm fine if i'm wrong i just want to know the truth so the way the ordinance is drafted now i believe there was a provision let me find it that these this is just an advisory board and their meetings would not be subject to the open meetings act you may want them to be but i believe that's uh let me just find where i put it so well i found it yeah okay 23-177-8 so 23-177-8 paragraph e in its advisory function the board is not subject to the open meetings act uh you may want it to be uh so the the access to the confidential information uh there are no texas court opinions that are on this very specific issue the closest one is a texas attorney general opinion from 2010 that said even having an advisory board like this the attorney general could not offer an opinion conclusive opinion whether that advisory board would have access to these confidential police department files because the devil's in the details they didn't use that but that's what the attorney general was saying the easy way to avoid that legal predicament is to not have this advisory panel give them access to this confidential information to begin with uh if you decide that you want them to have that then i have to do a lot more detail about specifically what this board is going to this advisory board is going to do and try to close those little loopholes that anyone could challenge it but the ordinance is is written specifically says that this board will not have access to that confidential internal affairs investigation files unless the legislature changes or we go through the meet and confer process so thank you and so i and actually that's something that i have i have a problem with that but i was planning on waiting to bring that up until you know this came forward for a vote um you know hoping that we could delay any vote on this until you know after you know november 3rd if i'm if i'm still here um but uh council member armitter no council member i just really no please please i just really would recommend that you really try to limit any kind of conversation or comments regarding any type of election results or outcomes because i think you put yourself in jeopardy of potential uh issues so thank you thank you for your concern thank you for your concern about it's not my concern i'm trying to run the run the meeting and trying to keep it on on the direction that it's going so as far as the timing goes if it gets postponed somebody can make a motion to postpone the reason for that really is irrelevant we have a process let's follow the process okay so now we can't make a vote we can't do our motion so right now in a work session we're just getting direction we're giving direction but you're the one that you're the one that stated you mentioned a motion so any motion no no what i'm saying this is all would all be later when it comes to a vote it this is simply you've been on council for two years you understand how this goes we give directions it comes up for a vote if you have any other concerns you can make them at that time at the time we have an action item it's that simple that's the way we've always done it exactly and that's what i'm confirming and thank you so to continue my conversation with mr cronig um i just wanted to confirm um that uh or to mention to thank him for mentioning that in the attorney general's opinion i happen to be of the opinion that they should have access to confidential information however it's also my understanding that as written as you mentioned they don't um i was hoping to bring that up later uh when it came forward for a vote i'm not even not even going to say something about the future um that would so i won't even talk about i'll try not to talk about anything after november 4th um which is hard uh but anyway council member i will say i will say wow i will say that that i will say that i acknowledge i hope that mayor protem understands now that what you are being asked to give direction on um does not you know it does not involve confidential information have them having access to confidential information i'm fine putting this forward as is in the hope that it's not going to get voted on until after november 4th council member armature that's all that is all wow all right we're going to wrap this discussion up council member briggs um your comments no mostly just uh for clarification because i i thought that when we started uh council member davis started out with the um the statement that having it this way it would be easier for the board to get information from the chief that he normally they normally wouldn't be able to get confidential so i'm just trying to i'm just trying to look for clarification on on what that statement meant versus the conversation we're having now council member davis yeah i think uh the other part of that statement i made was the committee's information the information the committee received from mike and from staff in making its recommendation is crucial understanding this whole conversation it's very easy for a council member or a member of the public or anybody else to demand the most open and uh transparent process uh to satisfy whoever they're trying to satisfy we can ask for those things but the law is very clear when you get into personnel matters and especially when you get into personnel matters governed by their very own section of the texas government code uh there are certain things you can do and certain things you can't do the committee and making this recommendation was fully briefed on every every back and forth of that every in and out of that and mike is very knowledgeable that's why he's here at the city he knows these these laws better than anybody who is here before him so if you go back and you watch those meetings or you read the backups you get an understanding of what's available to a civilian committee that is subject to open meeting laws that has all of its deliberations out in the public that that kind of committee can't sit there and parse out uh personnel matters and then properly advise the chief a committee that has the ability to see records it has the ability to have those frank conversations on personnel matters behind closed doors they have a they have the ability to do that in a way that isn't subject to challenge like mike just described for us so you can't have it both ways you can't say i want a toma committee that has these big you know webcast meetings everybody gets access to the records all that kind of stuff that doesn't exist that's not something you can do in texas if you want it to properly advise the chief on what to do on personnel matters and these use of force incidents under the current law you have to give them the ability to meet confidentially with the chief one of the things i just want to i hadn't said before that's real important uh is council member davis mentioned this committee did not recommend that this advisory board have access to these confidential files they understood what the limitations were and they never said we want this advisory board to review the investigations that the chief determined should not be sustained they never asked for that that authority and the chief can correct me if i'm wrong but that wasn't part of their recommendation um yeah the chief agrees with me that wasn't part of their direction on that they wanted access to all this confidential information they understood that and the majority of them recommended this advisory board with that understanding okay council member breaks yeah thank you that's what i understood but i i just wanted to to clarify before this goes forward that if the committee or the chief wanted to meet in a closed session to discuss something that that would be allowed yes but again there there's legal limitations as to how detailed the chief can go into those confidential files and that's when when we did the briefing for the committee about those 18 use of force cases we did not include any information that could identify the officer or the date or anything that could tie back to the specific officer because those cases did not result in discipline of one day or more so i do think that the chief with this committee could give a very high level uh we had a complaint where a citizen alleged that he or she was tased when they were handcuffed we looked at it we determined they're independent witnesses who did not verify that and that's really about the the comfort level that i have in talking about a case even with this advisory board is to the level of confidential information anything beyond that we're starting to to run the legal risk that an officer of the association can file for an injunction and then the whole process gets stopped so i'm trying to give the advice of what i think is the what we can do right now and the most legally defensible okay well i appreciate that because there's been a lot of different things said so the clarity was very helpful i just didn't want to limit make sure that we weren't going to limit anything if the chief needed to to discuss something privately with with the advisory board and i guess also legal i assume that all of this falls under our ethics ordinance as well so any of those two years city council falling under family members anyone like that serving on this board it would fall under under those same same rules correct i'll defer to the city attorney of our other boards and committees this board is not included as part of the board of ethics i'm sorry under the conflicts of interest ordinance that we have and so none of those provisions would apply to this board so then the council member for two years would need to be a specific recommendation or anyone else any other thing that that we would like we would need to add to this we can do that that way but probably the better route would be to look at the ethics ordinance and specify that in that ordinance oh okay all right that'd probably be easier thank you what well it may be easier but as far as moving forward with this unless we can get that changed before this ordinance comes before us for a vote then it still wouldn't be subject to the ethics ordinance so if we vote on this in the next couple weeks unless we change the ordinance the ethics ordinance in the next couple weeks we need to put that specific prohibition in the ordinance so i'm going to say we we ought to work at putting that specific prohibition in this ordinance and then if it if it goes to where we move it towards the ethics committee or the ethics ordinance but i think if we want that in there we need to put it in there now so that we don't have a time gap or a time lapse okay so i'm we've heard i think staff has heard council member melzer go ahead apology have a question yeah thanks yeah sorry you know same still not perfectly clear on this issue i hear council member davis say if you want to have a you know very robust uh contribution on these topics that it needs to be that they need to be confidentially but then but then i'm hearing they're not going to deal with confidential information in which case why wouldn't it why wouldn't we want it to be subject to tomah and be done in public it seems like it's either one or the other and if it's definitely not dealing in confidential information then wouldn't it serve the interests interests of transparency and accountability to have it subject to tomah i don't even know i'm asking uh well you're you're obviously stating a preference for sure um i mean well or or actually or maybe you know uh council member davis might you know help clarify his intentions you know if i'm misunderstanding what uh his meaning was may i mayor of course so i'm i'm definitely not trying to speak for the the city attorney's office or kind of step on the advice they're offering on the legal ins and outs what i'm saying from my position as a council member is when these things happen when we have a lot of things going on in the media when you have potentially a police officer who's the member of an association who can challenge this committee's just like mike told us can challenge this committee's ability to do its work who is looking out for their professional reputation and if they're not in the wrong they certainly don't want misinformation out there about how they conducted themselves in a professional setting they have a right to to protect that reputation and they can do that legally they can use legal means to do that on the other side you have someone who uh who maybe was physically harmed you have somebody who feels they have certain rights under the law and they have legal the legal ability to assert those rights as well that uh that backdrop is behind every single one of these conversations that a committee like this would have and if you want the chief to get frank advice from the community then you're not going to do that in a way where everybody's lawyer is watching it on their computer at home and recording it and writing it down you're going to do that in a way that allows everyone to have a frank conversation to give frank input from the community and and that's why i think you can't have it both ways you can't have a conversation that's subject to toma and accomplish the goals of why we would want to establish an advisory board like this okay so let me go ahead go ahead paul well uh i'm just kind of puzzling through it and it's uh you know it's compelling uh but we're subject to toma but we also have the ability to go into closed session why wouldn't it operate something like that where if it does deal in not every single thing they do is going to deal with the fate of a specific officer some are policy i know right now we're envisioning it is all about reviewing cases but it may or may not be um and so what why wouldn't it operate the way we operate where if it does involve specific individuals that they have the ability to go into closed session and still be subject to toma generally i from my position i think it would be because that would be 99 of the agenda you know if um unless they were to take on some of these other these other things um i mean it would be post agenda let's say it's 99 99 more so um yeah and it looks like uh mike's back on screen so it looks like he has a response too but from from my position it would be it would undermine the the usefulness of the committee it wouldn't do the job that we would be asking it to do if it was subject to toma and one of the things that occurred to me when when we talk about confidential information uh i'm not just talking about a police department personnel file we may be talking about someone's criminal history or medical treatment so as council member davis mentioned the ability for the chief to have a candid conversation with the board members not in a public setting when it involves a plethora of different types of information that are confidential under state or federal law forget about the ia internal affairs investigations it just occurred to me there's other types of confidential information as well so um we need to take that into consideration okay i'll give direction now uh you know my my direction is in favor of of the recommendation and that they have the ability to go into closed session for uh topics dealing with an individual you know just as council would but that they would otherwise be subject to toma and i'd also uh i'm very comfortable with the suggestions that mayor portem uh offered uh on other matters and uh one just last item i don't think it needs to be part of the ordinance necessarily but just a suggestion for a procedure is that when when council members are doing their nominating that the nominations are shared pretty right away with with capsule bios just so that we can be attentive to ensuring the chief continues to get that you know breadth of points of view from the community so that you so that members can be aware of you know what voices are missing okay all right um chief did you have a you sat back down the chair i don't know if you had a comment on the discussion on confidentiality or toma or anything like that but just wanted to give you an opportunity if not that's that's fine no sorry don't okay uh yes go ahead as michael has presented there's a lot of different forms of confidential information and the reason in some in certain cases why they cannot go into closed session to discuss that is because it may not fall under one of the exceptions to closed session under toma and that's what really makes this committee much different than a lot of the other committees including this council okay all right yeah i'm i mean we could hash this out but we're gonna i think staff's going to take the input they're going to bring back an ordinance and it may be the very same one and people will just be making amendments and we'll just vote and see where it goes because obviously i don't think there's necessarily a consensus for any one particular proposed version i guess for me what i'm hearing is that um well what i don't want to have happen is that our public safety personnel are subject to a greater scrutiny of public dissemination of their private and confidential information than than anybody else is and so therefore uh texas open meetings act has specific as the city attorney said specific uh exceptions the rule is everything's public and open they give exceptions to able to go into closed session and from what i'm hearing is that some of that confidential information that may come up i mean good heavens if you're talking about people's treatment or anything like that there's no way that should ever be public unless there's some type of uh you know law or something we we need to they have the right to privacy as anybody else does so i think we're going to have to figure that out because this advisory board to me when when it was created wasn't to start looking at a police officer's entire life it was to look at how can we look at the issues that are facing our community and how can we work together as a community with the police department to to continue to improve and to continue to be aware of the needs of the community and that's what i see that this ordinance is really taking but i'm glad this conversation is happening because this is how you avoid unintended consequences that can be very detrimental to someone so uh i think that's that's what uh we need to really be focused on as well all right i'm gonna take a couple more questions and comments and then we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up because i don't think we're gonna come to a consensus on this so staff's just gonna have to put something together council member melzer yeah i just want to clarify what i what i what i actually said was they would have the power to go into closed session for anything dealing with individuals and that otherwise there would be subject to tomah so in other words i'm not saying you have to follow the tomah rules for when to go into closed session i'm saying anything dealing with individuals i'm quite in agreement with uh the sentiment you just expressed okay so then i need to understand what you just said because i i thought what you're saying is you want this committee to be subject to tomah rules to texas open meetings act like every other committee okay so well is that is that correct no that's not what i said i said they should have the ability to go into closed session for anything dealing with individuals but that council otherwise okay otherwise otherwise they would be subject to tomah okay well but you can't be subject to tomah except you're only subject to the exceptions that you can go into closed session about now if it fits into one of the exceptions of closed session within tomah that's fine but what i heard michael say yeah okay do what now that's not my recommendation my recommendation is anything dealing with individuals they can go to closed session anything that anything else subject to tomah you said that can't be done i don't know if that's the case or not we'll have to get advice on that well that's what i'm after but councilmember councilmember melzer i'm trying to understand if you're saying to be subject to the rules of tomah but not necessarily the laws of tomah so you can have exceptions to go into closed session free because you're like trying to have it both ways either they're subject to the rules of tomah under the state statutes or they're not and so what you're saying is i want them subject to it except if it has to do with personnel information or some confidential information about someone personally they can go into closed session i don't disagree with that as long as that information can isn't is within the exception well let me uh you know maybe help with uh sort of a for instance uh if they're going to talk about a policy needs to have been posted in advance you know can't talk about it with a quorum outside of the meeting all those kind of things sure uh so all those kind of good you know good government practices that go with tomah that said uh confidentiality you know we would empower them to act with confident you know to meet confidentially on matters dealing with individuals all right so okay so i mean i don't know why it's true that like you can't you can't have it both ways well because i think those are pretty clear differences okay well because i think you're you're missing a very nuanced situation here so i'm going to give you an example if it says if it says in the ordinance that these meetings are subject to tomah texas open meetings act and and erin correct me if i'm wrong in any of this that i'm saying you're not saying subject to it uh but you're not really have to follow it it's subject to the state law texas open meetings act so they're they want to talk about it to achieve go ahead no go ahead sorry okay well all right so so to achieve what i'm after uh if i mean i don't know if there's a consensus for it or not but let's say everyone totally agreed uh it could happen that uh to achieve that you would enumerate the um the rules that are in toma and say these these rules are to be followed for for matters the committee takes up uh yeah uh with uh and yeah we would just import those those rules okay so there's and i appreciate that clarification because when you say subject to toma what that means to me is you are you are held to operating that committee holding those meetings by and pursuant to state law what you're saying is we want to use toma as sort of some guidelines and and create these guidelines for our committee to follow but that we then want to have some other guidelines referring to confidential information but in no way are we saying that that committee is legally subject to the texas open meetings act pursuant to state statute is that what i'm hearing you say yeah i think that uh you know you have guided me to that as the way to achieve the outcome of transparency and accountability and confidentiality where appropriate okay so yes okay councilmember armater yes i just want to thank councilmember melzer i really appreciate you know your kind of attempt to explain that thank you i just want to state for the record that um nothing that any act of council could do could undo the power of hipa uh that protects the privacy of people who are in therapy or under treatment for any reason so that is a powerful law and just opening something up to the texas open meetings act is not going to mess with hipa okay i just wanted to state that for the record so it's a waste of time for us to even contemplate that as a possibility well and that's why i don't understand why officer mental health is included in that list quite frankly um okay uh staff you've got uh several different marching orders so uh probably what i would say is make your best guess or just bring the ordinance back as it's written and then we can all begin to craft our own kind of versions and and it'll go by amendments i'm sure there'll be amendments made and we'll vote on those amendments based upon probably some base template and we'll get through it just like we do everything else i can't remember on the agenda if there's concluding items on this agenda is there is there not there's not okay all right any other questions or comments yes council member davis um mayor if i can make staff stuff just a little bit easier maybe um i don't think i weighed in on a couple of things that council member hudspeth uh throughout there that council member melzer also spoke on um i can uh i can get behind the prohibition on council members uh within two years of their service i think that's a good idea um i can get behind the idea of like an observer maybe a non-voting person from the uh neighboring jurisdictions or jurisdictions that are concurrent with ours uh unt tw and t and tcc that makes sense to me um some of the other stuff i maybe i'm not keeping it all straight in my head but um i start to lose the thread after those things i think the way we've got it written is pretty good there's also a call for a specific conclusion of the other association my hesitation there is that the other association doesn't enjoy legal status they have uh they're an association um they represent a membership and that's they do a great job doing that but i hesitate to include them by name just because they don't have the same legal status as the other association if the association were to were to change uh if they were to go away or be replaced by another association if an additional police association were to come about they wouldn't have a seat at the table it's just not quite the same um they don't do quite the same function in the city okay okay all right uh anything else and we'll probably have that discussion uh when this comes back all right i see no other chief any final comments no sir thank you all thank you all right thank you all we will adjourn our meeting then at 134 on october the 5th 2020 thank you all so much