A Joliet City Council committee next week will take another look at a proposed citizens review board for the police department, which could be sent on to the full council for a vote.
The proposal for the review board has been in the works for months but first became public last month when the Land Use and Legislative Committee basically shelved it for its next meeting.
That meeting is at 4 p.m. Wednesday, and committee Chairman Terry Morris said he expects a vote then to send the proposal on to the full council for a final vote.
Just what the citizens review board will look like, however, still needs to be determined.
Activists who proposed the creation of the board have contended the city proposal does not give the citizens review panel enough powers and have argued its structure could be biased towards police interests.
Mayor Bob O’Dekirk recently suggested that it be made an extension of the existing Board of Fire and Police Commissioners, an idea that drew resistance from the activists who are in the process of creating their own proposal.
Morris, who agreed to consider the mayor’s suggestion, said Thursday that he does not favor attaching the citizens panel to the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners.
“I don’t believe that’s a good direction to go in,” Morris said. “I think it should be independent.”
The option, however, has been written into the flexible proposal that the committee will review next week, Assistant City Attorney Chris Regis said.
“I inserted suggested changes,” Regis said, adding that the proposal now includes potential amendments for the committee to consider.
Other potential changes added to the proposal include the number of board members and the method of selecting the board.
“It didn’t require a comprehensive rewrite,” Regis said, noting that the proposal is now written in such a way that the committee can choose which options it wants.
The committee agenda has not been posted yet. But Regis said it was due out Friday, when the amended proposal for the Citizens Review Board can be viewed. The city posts agendas on its website, joliet.gov, and the agendas typically include links to the specific proposals being considered at the meetings.
Suzanna Ibarra, chair of Will County Progressives, said she and other activists who have been pushing for the development of a citizens review board have developed their own recommended changes.
“We have a complete list of proposals,” Ibarra said.
She criticized the board structure proposed by the city as “weak. It gives nobody the power to do anything.”