After hearing criticism over the pending Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) contract for several months, the members of the Urbana City Council have decided to, once again, ignore calls for change.
On Monday evening, the Council will almost certainly vote in favor of another three year FOP contract which has provisions nearly identical to their prior contract. In fact, the only notable reforms to policing that have occurred under the current Council (and in the upcoming contract) have been radical increases in the amount of taxpayer dollars being directed toward the Urbana Police Department.
The City of Urbana has had a steady or decreasing population over the past 20 years, but police spending continues to increase at a significant rate. The Council approved $1.34 million in bonuses less than four months ago, and they are on the verge of approving nearly $1 million in additional police pay with this week’s vote.
It wasn’t long ago that the millions spent on Urbana’s Police Department was in the single digits. In 2019 it was $9.57 million, but now it is $12.55 million, and that figure is before $606,000 in new 2023 bonuses (approved in November 2022) and before the Council’s upcoming vote to increase police pay even further.
At the same time that they have been pumping additional funds into the Police Department, many Urbana Council members continue to say that they want the police to handle a much smaller workload by moving many types of calls for help (such as mental health and domestic crises) to different services entirely.
However, massive increases in the police budget (almost 40% in four years), in a town with a stagnating population, does not seem consistent with that goal. It is true that violent crime increased during a ~12 month period after the beginning of Covid, but that hasn’t turned out to be a long-term trend. Just four months ago, Urbana Officer Michael Cervantes said that shootings were already down 53% from the 2021 figures.
Since the announcement of a “new” FOP contract in December of 2022 (which apparently was a surprise to some or most of the City Council members), Urbana residents have been attending Council meetings to express their dissatisfaction over the Council’s failures to pursue police reforms. At this past week’s Council meeting on March 6th, the members of the public spoke against the FOP contract for about 45 minutes straight, and no member of the public supported the contract (video of the entire City Council meeting is provided below, set to start playing at the beginning of public input).
Despite public resistance, the Council voted to move the 2023-2026 FOP contract forward to the March 13th City Council meeting for final approval. Chaundra Bishop, Jaya Kolisetty, James Quisenberry, and Shirese Hursey voted in favor of the FOP contract, while Grace Wilken was the only one opposed (Chris Evans and Maryalice Wu were not present).
In 2020 and 2021, all seven Urbana City Council members and Mayor Diane Marlin included police reform in their campaign promises, frequently citing the importance of items like transparency, accountability, and de-escalation. At least four of the sitting City Council members (Bishop, Kolisetty, Evans, and Wilken) campaigned with a primary focus on police reform, and all seven Council members and the Mayor confidently declared during their campaigns that the Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) was in dire need of reform.
In about six weeks, the sitting Council will surpass the halfway point of their four year terms. However, aside from moving massive sums of money into the police department, none of the Council members have attempted to introduce any legislation that would actually alter how policing works in Urbana. No attempts have been made by the Mayor or Council members to create legislation to strengthen the CPRB, even after multiple pleas by the public and the CPRB Chair and Board members.
Despite having the power to do so, the Council members have not attempted to create any ordinance to alter how the City handles police records requests, retention of police reports and complaints, police hiring practices, police discipline, police complaint review, police use of force review, police training requirements, civilian review boards, police use of force policies, or any other issue related to policing aside from funding. The Council did not even include police reform in their list of strategic goals which was passed unanimously in April of 2022.
The only possible exception to the above claim occurred in 2021, when the Council voted on a slight change to Urbana’s police complaint form, but the change never actually happened. At the time of the vote, the alteration was already required by Illinois State law, rendering the Council’s vote pointless (or very late, at best), the Police Department refused to change their complaint form even after the Council vote, and then the Urbana City Council continued to ignore the fact that the Urbana Police Department was both violating state law and their FOP contract agreement.
Some Council members have defended their inaction by claiming that they do not have the authority or ability to create laws related to matters of policing, but those same Council members have failed to cite any jurisprudence which would validate that claim. Such a position would also suggest that previous City Councils were acting unlawfully when they created the CPRB, made yearly decisions about appointments of police command staff, and dictated police TASER policies.
Aside from disinterest, confusion, changes in their platforms, or perhaps having simply been dishonest in their original campaign promises, part of the problem may be that the newer City Council members simply don’t know how to accomplish any of their goals. In the two years they have been seated, the four Council members who campaigned as progressives seem to have learned that they can sometimes introduce discussion items onto meeting agendas, but things rarely progress beyond that point.
Without an actual ordinance on the table, there can’t be a motion, a second, or a vote. If Mayor Marlin’s staff aren’t willing to write an ordinance for the Council’s consideration, then someone else needs to write it. Nothing is stopping them from doing so, but none of the Council members who claim to want fundamental change appear to be willing to actually write down (in a proposed ordinance) the change they desire, so it can never actually undergo a vote.
On March 6th, Mayor Marlin responded to criticism over the FOP contract by claiming that the Council had passed multiple “resolutions” related to policing. Unsurprisingly, these “resolutions” have not resulted in real changes, since resolutions are not laws and do not actually perform or require any action. When politicians create a “resolution”, it often means that they intend to take no further action on the matter – the resolution stands as a symbol that there wasn’t sufficient desire to actually pursue real legislation.
The reality is that things in Urbana are much more problematic than mere inaction by the City Council. Urbana has been cited in numerous illegal schemes to conceal police records – several lawsuits regarding Urbana’s illegal concealment of police regards are currently ongoing (see here, here, and here). Urbana City Officials have issued no explanation for their felony destruction of 40 years of police complaints, Urbana Officials have completely scammed the public in regards to police use of force review, and Urbana’s current Police Chief has illegally repealed police TASER review entirely. This is just a short list of examples of the type of conduct that has taken place with the knowledge and apparent approval of the current City Council members.
The proposed Urbana, Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Contract for 2023-2026 is provided below. A repository of prior Urbana FOP contracts, dating back to 1999, can be seen on the Urbana Police Department Records page on ILDocs.com.
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