All seven Urbana City Council members campaigned on increased police oversight and accountability, and four of those Council members made it one of their highest priorities. More than nine months into their terms, not only has the new Council failed to make noticeable progress in this area, the Council has taken a gigantic step backwards.
The City Council has always claimed very little access to police accountability and oversight. Except for the Civilian Police Review Board (2009), and some aspects of TASER review (2015), the Council has always allowed police policies to be fully controlled by the Police Department. There does not exist any protective law or legislative process – the Police Chief can change 99.94% of the police polices anytime he or she pleases, at any moment, without notice or review, and the Council seems content with that arrangement.
Last year, the Council did indicate some ambiguous agreement that changes to the Use of Force Policy would be brought to the Council, but Chief Seraphin’s surreptitious change to the TASER policy seems to indicate that such Council reviews won’t actually take place. The Fraternal Order of Police contract, approved in September, showed that police policy can even be changed retroactively.
One of the only checks the Council has had in past years is the ability to approve or deny the Mayor’s appointees to the police command staff. This meant the Council had an opportunity every year to reconsider appointments to the positions of Police Chief, Deputy Chief, and typically four Lieutenant positions. Since these votes had to take place at Council meetings, this also gave the public the ability to offer input.
On September 13th, 2021, at the urging of the Mayor, the Council significantly reduced their role in approving these police appointments. The Council will no longer review and approve any Lieutenant positions, and they double the appointment durations for the Chief and Deputy Chief. This means that instead of approving six police positions every year, the Council will only approve two positions every two years. They will also have less frequent review of City officials such as the City Administrator and City Attorney.
The Urbana Police Lieutenants will now be civil service positions, where they will receive almost no oversight.
The new staff appointee ordinance also makes the following change: instead of being “appointed by the mayor with the approval and consent of the city council”, it is now “advice and consent”. It would seem someone had something very specific in mind with such a change, but the implications aren’t entirely clear.
Documents related to the new appointment process can be seen at the end of this article. The following City Council members voted for the change:
- Maryalice Wu: Yes
- Christopher Evans: Yes
- Shirese Hursey: Yes
- Jaya Kolisetty: Yes
- Chaundra Bishop: Yes
- James Quisenberry: Yes
- Grace Wilken: No
Staff Appointments Memo from 8-12-2021 with Alternations
Urbana City Ordinance 2021-08-038 – Changing Police Appointment Process