[pjw] UPDATE/REMINDER: Insult to insult, police "union" wants to overturn oversight

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hello PJW supporters
I'm trying to keep you all in the loop about the progress of the Police 
Accountability Commission's efforts to create real oversight in Portland 
without sending every email from Portland Copwatch on the subject.

As noted in our November 16 email, the City plans to gut most of the PAC's 
proposal. The meeting between the City Attorney and former PAC members 
which took place last Monday included some good dialogue, some posturing 
and incorrect information coming from the City, and hints that maybe one 
or two items might get tweaked. Unfortunately they're relatively minor 
issues such as where the new Board will sit in the city's future 
organizational chart and whether the Board's staff can review just some or 
all Internal Affairs investigations.

Though that meeting ended with only 17 of 28 (or really 49) of PAC's 
concerns being raised, the City Attorney declined to meet again.

Below is the latest update, noting that the Portland Police Association is 
sharpening their knives to put the whole oversight system back on the 
ballot instead of welcoming the scrutiny as they claimed.

dan handelman
peace and justice works/portland copwatch
ps for those of you on both lists, sorry for the duplication

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:11:09
From: Portland Copwatch <copwatch at portlandcopwatch.org>
To: Portland Copwatch <pcw-list at lists.riseup.net>
Subject: [pcw-list] UPDATE/REMINDER: Insult to insult,
     PPA wants to overturn oversight

Hi
First of all this is another reminder that the City is taking feedback
on the Police Accountability Commission's plan for the new oversight
board, and the City's watered-down version of it, until Friday, at

doj-comments at portlandoregon.gov .

The SURJ PDX Police Accountability and Abolition action group (Standing
Up for Racial Justice) put out an action alert today with a summary of
what's happened with the PAC plan.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yTeFkmZa0d7ALl_D2eGNrqPuoV1e1WhWaqMFZgOEQBU/edit?usp=sharing

They encouraged me to share it with others, so if you want to send it to
your contacts please do.

But here's the big new news: The Portland Police Association, which
until now has been pretty quiet about the PAC and City's plans, paid for
a push poll which they are pretty explicitly wanting to use to overturn
ballot measure 26-217, which created the new oversight system in the
City's charter.

At least two media outlets have covered this story already.

The Oregonian article quotes PPA President Brian Schmautz.

  The union wants the City Council to refer the accountability measure
  back to voters.

  "If they do not, then we will do everything we can to find the
  signatures to do it ourselves," Schmautz said.

There are many problems, however, with the poll.

1) The PPA doesn't use the correct name for the group that drew up
the plans to flesh out measure 26-217-- they call it the PPAC instead
of the PAC. They conflate the Commission (which designed the Board
that will be put into place) with the future Board (which will examine
misconduct cases). They used misleading questions (or outright lies) to
formulate the questions.

For example, they claim that the original plan will "Allow members of
the Portland Police Accountability Commission to determine improper
officer behavior and punishment without reviewing training materials or
receiving legal background information." If you read the PAC's plan, the
Board members are required to undergo training before hearing cases.
They're probably just mad that there was no ride-along required, which
the City added in their plan anyway. (And which can and should be
stripped out-- even though it's in the existing US Dept of Justice
Settlement Agreement, the main reason the City's asking for input is to
send proposed amendments to that agreement...)

2) In addition to the explicit plan to push for the Charter to go back
to the voters, the Oregonlive article also reveals behind-the-scenes
threatmongering that the City Attorney didn't mention at Council (Nov
15) or the public meeting with the former PAC (Dec. 4):

  [Schmautz] said the City Council "went as far as they could legally to
  cut out the parts that were just, you know, not lawful, not based in
  due process and would expose the city to a lot of litigation."

  The board's funding, ability to impose discipline and rules around
  membership are enshrined in the city charter and changes require voter
  approval. The commission originally proposed a budget for the board
  equal to 5% of the Portland Police Bureau's annual spending, a plan
  Schmautz said the union opposes. The budget, he said, should be
  "consistent with the needs of the program."

(Notably, once again, the commission did not propose this budget, it is
in the Charter.)

3. The question of whether to divert funding from the Board to put more
officers on the street is also bogus, as there are currently 72 vacancies
and 104 officers in training, so what people are seeing now isn't
representative of what there's already money to do. In other words,
right now the PPB is only at 80% of its already authorized and paid for
size.

  https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ppb-staffing-report

4. I'm not sure what the data are for the city at this time, but if
feels to me as if having 25% of the respondents making $150,000 or more
gives it a skewed perspective (7% less than $25K, 18% 25-50K, 19% 50-75K
12% 75-100k and 16% 100-150K).

A 2023 report by the PBA-- I mean the Portland Metro Chamber-- shows
median household incomes from 2021 being between $60,000 and $105,000--
or only about 31% of those who took the poll, while $100K an over make
up 41%.

https://portlandmetrochamber.com/resources/2023-state-of-economy/

There's slightly good news in that those polled were asked whether the
oversight system will make Portland more safe or less safe. The largest
bloc (42%) said more safe. Only 18% said less safe, while 23% said
neither and 17% had no opinion.

The other story ran on KOIN-TV.

https://www.koin.com/news/portland/new-survey-reveals-portlanders-thoughts-on-police-accountability-12122023/

Because it is based on the faulty info in the PPA's poll, it is also not
very accurate.

dan handelman
portland copwatch