Is this a minor administrative matter?

One of the core and hidden questions in Measure 26-91 is exactly how much future Mayors would get to do behind closed doors, if Portlanders vote to change our form of government. I’ve been guessing in Next Up at City Council most weeks, evaluating how many items on the Consent or Regular Agenda would be allowed without a Council vote or public notice if 26-91 passes. I counted 17 this week.

One such item has been pulled from tomorrow’s Consent Agenda by Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch. *361 Create a new non-represented classification of Police Internal Affairs Investigator and establish a compensation rate for this classification (Ordinance)

I didn’t highlight this item in my briefing on Sunday, mostly because I had no idea if it was important or not. [Update: Commissioner Leonard’s office says the Auditor hopes to have links to staff reports in the posted agendas shortly]

Here’s what Dan says about it today:

“City Council tomorrow is considering an ordinance that will take four sergeants out of the Internal Affairs Division and replace them with “non-sworn personnel” who have “experience” with investigations of misconduct.

This raises several issues:
1) Why is the City making a major change in the way police oversight is done with no public discussion? (There was no discussion of this at any of the previous Citizen Review Committee meetings)
2) Who will supervise the non-sworn personnel, and does this change their ability to get officers to submit to interviews?
3) If the Bureau is OK with non-police investigators, why not put them under the auspices of an independent review board?”

My further questions are: Do police officers support this change, and if so, how do they believe it will make the review system work better? What about the independent audit of Internal Investigations, that was funded in a previous budget and has never been done? Why is the City moving forward with changes, before doing the study? And why hasn’t the consultant been hired to do the study?

I understand the positions created in the Council agenda item aren’t new jobs needing new funding allocations in the budget – the Ordinance proposes to reclassify rather than create them. My assessment is that the Mayor would get to do this independently, without public notice or a vote of the Council, if Measure 26-91 passes. Does anyone disagree? And does anyone think that the long term public good would be better served by citizens, staff, and the rest of the Council not having the opportunity to comment on administrative changes in the way police officers are given fair opportunities to respond to complaints?