Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board, which has lost half of its board members in recent months and has been navigating limits on its authority, will meet with the City Council on Sept. 11 to discuss potential ordinance revisions.
If you’re new to this issue, read more about recent resignations and how outgoing members say systemic changes are needed if the board is to achieve its stated goals. Inez Gonzalez, who recently resigned as PCOB executive director, told Charlottesville Tomorrow in July that it would be easier to rewrite the ordinance rather than continue using “the existing patchwork of documents that currently govern the board’s operations.”
The PCOB has long struggled to live up to the vision that residents and activists lobbied for, leading to frustration and some referring to the PCOB as a “graveyard” and “a farce.”
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City Council and police oversight board to discuss proposed ordinance changes
Interested in police oversight and proposed changes to ordinance governing Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board? The board and City Council will hold a joint meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11 at CitySpace, 100 Fifth St. NE, Charlottesville.
The meeting is open to the public and will include a public comment session. View the agenda and details on how to attend virtually here. To get into details of proposed line-by-line changes, read the full agenda package.
According to the agenda package for the Sept. 11 meeting, the recommendations Acting Executive Director James Walker will present are relatively small: allowing staff to carry out certain duties on the civilian board’s behalf, clarifying language, removing redundancies and reorganizing sections for easier use. The recommendations do not change the board’s powers but ask the City Council to let the city manager delegate some office functions to the director.
Taken together, the recommendations would not address existing big-picture conflicts between law and policy, unrealistic expectations of the volunteer board or the “practical dynamics of the collective bargaining environment,” one of the presentation slides said. However, PCOB staff have drafted a series of options on how those issues might be addressed, it said.
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More about the PCOB
After losing half its board members, Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board is losing its executive director
Inez Gonzalez resigned effective Aug. 15, urging the community “to put differences aside and work together to codify what has been achieved in practice here in Charlottesville.”
Half of Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board has resigned, and some say it’s time to start over
The current board asks too much of unpaid part-time volunteers, many of whom may not realize how demanding the role can be, explained Inez Gonzalez, the PCOB’s executive director.
Charlottesville’s civilian board that oversees police is at a crossroads — unable to independently investigate and unsure what city leaders want it to accomplish
The Board might be more functional than many similar ones across the country, but locals who fought for its creation say its current limitations feel like a betrayal.
Charlottesville denies that sharing a lawyer with the Police Civilian Oversight Board is an issue
The Board plans nonetheless to look for a new lawyer, says chair.
While the police oversight board struggled for access to police records, its attorney was also representing the city
Police Civilian Oversight Board chair said its attorney was unable to be “a zealous advocate.” Neither the law firm nor the city were available for comment.
Eight months after Charlottesville police stopped sharing records with oversight board, member says the city’s compromise doesn’t ensure enough transparency
The PCOB is concerned that the new guidelines give the police too much latitude to continue withholding records.
It took five years, but the board of civilians that oversees the Charlottesville Police Department has its first case
The board was formed after the violent white supremacist rallies of 2017 — and took years to gain power to investigate cases of alleged police misconduct.
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