By Antonio D. French
Filed Monday, January 23 at 10:33 AM
At Friday's meeting of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, the controversial bill to create a civilian review board to oversee reports of police abuse got its second reading after making it out of committee the day before.
The Public Safety Committee, chaired by Alderman Terry Kennedy, the chief backer of Board Bill #69, voted on Thursday 5-2 in favor of the bill. According to supporters of the bill, voting in favor were Aldermen Bosley, Boyd, Carter, Kennedy, and Williamson (all of whom are black). Opposed were Aldermen Wessels and Vollmer (both of whom are white).
John Chasnoff, a member of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCR), the group credited with leading the current push for such a board, said in a press release that the group sees last week's events as a positive step.
"Its relatively easy approval shows the committee heard the many citizens and national experts who spoke at several hearings on the need for Civilian Review," said Chasnoff. "We are wary that opponents may try to weaken the bill through amendments which remove the requirement for elected members, starve the CRB through inadequate funding, or reduce its effectiveness through understaffing.”
The sticking point with discussions on BB #69 has been the selection of its members. Supporters have demanded that at least some members are elected by the voters. Opponents, including Mayor Francis Slay, have pushed for appointed members only.
PUB DEF has been following BB #69 for months. Here is a video we first published in December. It was taken at one of the meetings of the Public Safety Committee.
1 Comments:
Reading BB #69, you can then map the proposed four districts for elected members of the CRB. Though most CRB Districts are contiguous groupings of equal numbers of wards, District Three includes the 25th ward, which is not at all contiguous with other proposed wards in its grouping. A quick fix would be to put the 25th ward in District Four, and move a contiguous ward currently listed in Four to Three (i.e. 8, 11, 13 or 14).
12:40 PM, January 23, 2006
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