oh good afternoon counselors and good afternoon to the public whoever has joined us i guess i could take my mask off um i'm councillor borrego and this is the albuquerque city of albuquerque city council study session today is monday december the 20th 2021 and we are joining you live via zoom it looks like members of the public will have the ability to view the meeting live on youtube at https semicolon backslash backslash youtube backslash 6k f g e n n z um dash 2g the live stream can be accessed from them from most smartphones tablets or computers um counselors can you all hear me thank you um so counselors we have two items on our agenda this afternoon one is approval of our summary minutes of may 24th 2021 so i would entertain a motion well before i do that i just want to make sure that all counselors are joining us and i think that everyone is on and if you haven't joined us you will be joining us soon i'm sure so um i have i need a motion for agenda item a um approval of our minutes so can i have them moved madam president looking lovely as usual um do i have a second counselor sena thank you for the second so um do i need a roll call yes okay go ahead i miss ortega yes councillor benton yes councillor davis councillor gibson yes councillor harris councillor jones yes counselor pena yes counselor santa yes counselor borrego yes that passes unanimously thank you counselors so our next order of business is a discussion regarding the resignation of cpo board members and i'm for the study session and remember this is only for discussion counselors but i thought it was uh imperative that we discuss this and as we move forward also i'm hoping that some of our newer counselors are on are listening to this but as you know we have received several resignations and i thought it was it would behoove us to just talk about how staff maybe should be moving forward so i'm going to turn it over to mr um melendras our attorney and our director to discuss that particular agenda item thank you madam president and counselors um so as i think folks are aware the civilian police oversight agency board is a nine-member board it was constituted generally in its current format back in approximately 2014 and replaced the prior police oversight board since that time the city council has populated the board with appointees over the years using a process that the ordinance calls for which essentially calls for city council staff to vet the applications um and to submit folks to be appointed to the board by the city council recently four members of that board resigned so now uh it is sitting at five members presently another member will be up for reappointment early next year and another member will be turned out the ordinance that establishes this board has not significantly been updated for several years however there is an ordinance in the legislative process to bring some needed updates to this board and to the ordinance that governs how they governs how they function and that will be before the council at some time early next year that will be a really good opportunity for the council to evaluate some of the aspects of the organization and the board that might ultimately help in keeping these seats filled and hopefully reduce turnover in the future i'm sorry counselors i was muted um i also see that uh miss diane mcdermott has joined us and miss mcdernet would you like to add anything to this discussion uh thank you president baraco and fellow council yes i do think that the ordinance needs some pretty significant revision i also think some selection process needs to be revised to select uh board members that are able to uh it's a unique board member who is able to dedicate the amount of time that's necessary and have the skills to do it and so we've got some great board members but unfortunately not all board members can really satisfy the time there are other board members that over the years have not always been the most ideal candidates so it's just a matter of i think a better selection that needs to occur and some ordinance revisions overall counselors do you have any questions for either mr melendra's or miss mcdermott i do have a question ms mcdermott can you just specify i'm sorry i saw counselor sena go ahead counselor sena oh thank you madam president um you know i think some of the concerns um even when we heard even in the court hearing um with the department of justice and meeting with members of our monitoring team i think that so far staff has really stepped up in this process in vetting potential candidates i think we have changed a lot of this i think now it's really a discussion of what other benefits can we really be providing when it comes to incentivizing others to also participate for those that don't have really the traditional work schedule to allow this type of flexibility i think that the sponsors of the revisions of the ordinance you know we have all come together and have these discussions about what we can be doing better whether it's reducing some of the times in terms of certain trainings that's not required by the casa but rather by ordinance is something important that we have all looked at and i don't want to belabor that because i think that that's a discussion that will be done when the ordinance comes to council um but i do want to mention you know i did have some concerns from folks in really on my comments as to this last uh report that was given for our sam semi-annual report given by the cpoa um and so for my question to ms mcdermott is when that report was released and stated why there was and something i don't want to also belabor much more than what was already done because we certainly dug through that at public safety when the report came to public safety and also against a council when we received it but just because it has been some issue among board members can you go through why is it that there was 22 complaints that were closed as compared to 104 complaints closed in the last reporting period out of that report um well as i had mentioned at the public safety and unfortunately i didn't have all my notes in front of me in preparation the question but the a variety of reasons uh kovid's certainly being part of it lower staffing we only had two investigators through a significant portion of that time um a large volume of complaints that required a decent amount of of involvement um protests so we were focusing on certain protest complaints that took priority so there were some issues there um those are things that are off the top of my head without having the information in front of me thank you for that i know that i've kind of spurred this question on to you but i just want to make it clear what is the board's role in reviewing many of these complaints or just out of this report in reviewing this report what is the expectations when it comes to learning of some of these numbers whether or not it was 22 or not i'm sorry you broke up there a little bit but i think your expectation you wanting to know what the board member's role is is that what i understood that's right okay so the board members the purpose of reviewing complaints for the most part should be to take information from those complaints and look for policy trends policy changes that could be recommended that's the big picture the work that the board should be focusing on as opposed to some of the more detail-oriented things that opportunity is available for a citizen to file like an appeal if they are not satisfied with the the findings of that particular complaint they have an appeal rights that they can dive in and discuss that individual complaint but the overall purpose of reviewing the the cases would be for understanding policy recommendations which either come from the investigators if we see some kind of an issue or from the board members themselves and the purpose of reviewing um the various cases so that's kind of the big picture overview is to look for for policy issues thank you for that and you know again i think that through our revisions of the ordinance and overall discussion among counselors um even with uh the doj and particular um interest groups when it comes to the casa i think that it's you know really important to really convey the expectations of the board um it's something that i have stressed it's something that i have said but it's something that i've also mentioned when it comes to the sustainability of this board um especially that this special session was called specifically to talk about the sustainability of this board um i think that that's what's important um you know i have of course many other comments and i think that hopefully a lot of the revisions will help um especially since um other counselors will be carrying on that that revision of that ordinance and i know that council benton is one of them and counselor bassan and i know that counselor benton has his own statements and questions but i just want to make sure that you know we have had this discussion and i know that even council has changed their own processes to select these board members to really convey the expectations i think that in terms of time that we ask this many times over of those that seek to serve on any boarding commission to make sure that this is really a time commitment and it is a volunteer time even though this board is one of the most important boards that we have um in the city but i think that you know we can step up as a council to lend support however it is also up to those that are seeking to sit on this important board to also under understand that expectation uh when they willingly sign up so i think you know when it comes to sustainability hopefully we will have some course correction on that with this update as i stated however again it is really important um conveying this message to the board even in reviewing of our last report uh what we can do better and why we have to do better not just because of the court but also because our community expects it of us so thank you thank you councillor sena councillor benton thank you uh madam president um and uh and thank you uh councillor santa for all your work on on this effort um um of course and as well as council basan you know um i know that you understand ms mcdermott that the current bill of 78 is a work in progress you know we're certainly want to continue the debate over that and you know moving forward i think it's right to move that forward into the new year um uh but what's your general take are we in the right going in the right direction on that we know we you know we've really wrapped our brains i think uh collectively in the sponsors of this um so do you think we're on the right track uh you know i'll leave it at that and i'll say if we're not then we certainly and even if we are we certainly want to keep the doors open to discussion with you uh madam president and and councilor benson yes uh i do think that the ordinance revisions are going down the right path from what i've read there are some things that probably would still be wise to tweak and adjust but i definitely think there are some things that are in the in the right direction one of which being that the citizens have the right of an appeal and that the board is more reviewing for informational purposes on the front end rather than a signing off on the findings because that is a very time intensive process and it doesn't make a lot of sense for citizens to file an appeal to the very same body that already delved into their case and made a decision so having the front end go through for the most part and just have an informational aspect to it and then the citizen has that appeal right and there's an audit process that you know would still be entailed i think that's a wiser direction which will help the board be more focused on the bigger picture things and not drain their time as much thank you i believe that and we are working towards getting that in there if it's not in there already thank you thank you councillor benton um i just wanted to acknowledge miss mcdermott for stepping up and really helping out um as our director in this area left and took on another job and you know i just want to acknowledge you for that because that was a huge responsibility to step up to i also want to mention that i see um and i just saw her and she just went away miss galloway um i know that you can't speak because this is intended for the council but certainly um and i i won't be here but um the next council president and certainly our director chris melinda malendras would accept any comments that you might have regarding the structure as we move forward with this board and i just also want to acknowledge counselor sena for her work i know she's still there but i don't see her on there she is um just and you know i mean this isn't this was a really difficult um um sort of arrangement i guess you could say um coming from the court and putting it together and and you know there's bound to be some ups and downs but um hopefully with the new um proposals for that are coming forward in the next with the next council um those you know some of those things can be tweaked and and the responsibility for the people that do volunteer to be on this board um the time commitment um you know the just generally the responsibility that they have is it you know can't be stressed enough i guess so from that perspective and that's kind of why i wanted to have this study session because i thought it was important that we acknowledge that you know the people who were on the on the board who did resign i mean they all had their own reasons as we saw in their letters but moving forward you know we can only move forward at this point but we can learn from the past as well so um i just wanted to mention make those comments counselor busan you look like you want to say something so i i'm looking at you again thank you madam president i'm just acknowledging i agree and i think that we're on the right track i look forward to the new proposed ordinance and some of the i hope relief that it will bring to the board uh while making it a little bit more achievable for aligning it with the casa rather than an extra burden any other counselors counselor sena thank you madam president i'll just say one more thing i think that especially since i won't be able to carry on some of the discussion i think that some of the revisions even in the ordinance um something that's important to me and not just the sustainability but in my view how this board may change over time because we're seeking to accommodate of course we are not looking for folks to have phds um this is the civilian police oversight for a reason in that we want community members to really step up to give that you know everyday person's perspective when it comes to interactions with our police officers but at the same time they're also acting um hopefully as impartial judges and so you know as my change in part of the ordinance would also have the oath of office i think it's important that this board is treated um differently because it is so important and hopefully that those changes will be continued on and for this next incoming council and i do acknowledge that uh the current serving board members are really stepping up especially now with other members having resigned that they're stepping up to fill an even larger gap i know that in terms of covet has always presented challenges um in the times that even i myself have been in office but i think that right now we're we as a council have also appropriated for more investigators uh we have tried to meet with members to see what other relief measures we can provide so i hope that the new incoming council will really take that on so thank you thank you councillor senna i don't see any other comments from counselors it appears that chris sullivan did you want to say something chris thank you thank you john um all i wanted to say is we um we've been working really hard behind the scenes trying to get this board staffed and hopefully by the council meeting in january we should have a few people up and we're going to try to work over break and get them forwarded to director mcdermott and vice chair galloway so hopefully the process will work really well i've identified six or seven people and council staff will be interviewing them hopefully in the next two weeks thank you mr sullivan and i just want to acknowledge chris because he has done quite a bit of work around this for the last several years and you know his leadership and professionalism has been um one of the things that we look to so um and and miss galloway if you would just mention to maybe some of the other cpoa board members if they have comments i'm sure the next council would be listening and wanting to hear what those are in order to to uh solidify that structure a little more so i'm sure they'd be open to those comments you can direct those to chris melendras our director and uh he would be accepting those on behalf of the next council so with that counselors we're going to unless there's any other business we are going to go ahead and adjourn this study session and get ready for our uh three o'clock council meeting and i just want to remind counselors that there's a different login for the city council meeting so thank you all thank you all for joining us