(From Press Release) – The City of Davis is conducting a public forum on Thursday, December 7 to talk about community perceptions on policing and engage in a discussion on police oversight models and principles. The meeting will take place at the Davis Senior Center, 646 A Street, at 6:30 p.m.
It is anticipated that the meetings will start with a short presentation and then move into a series of questions to elicit input from attendees. Anyone interested in police oversight issues is encouraged to attend.
At the November 7 City Council meeting, with a focus on renewing police oversight efforts, the City Council approved the hiring of consultants Barbara Attard and Kathryn Olson. The consultants will guide a community involved process to help Davis evaluate the current Independent Police Auditor Oversight program and to ultimately recommend a number of potential models that fit Davis, given its size, history of policing and community needs.
This meeting will be the first of two community meetings and will be in addition to smaller forums that will be held over the next two months. The smaller forums are geared to engage disproportionately impacted community groups. The overarching objective of the consultants is to understand the needs and concerns from the widest sample of perspectives possible.
From the July Council Meeting…
Mayor Robb Davis moved forward a plan that was approved unanimously by council. It calls for the hire of a short-term consultant to review the current system along with recommendations from the 
Human Relations Commission (HRC).
The city would participate in up to five public or sponsored forums with the consultant there as a content expert. “Davis-based facilitators could provide structure for community dialogue at the meeting, but the consultant would help group the conversation with accurate technical information/input.”
Mayor Davis indicated in his proposal that the consultant would use his or her own experience, public input from forums and input from the Davis Police Department itself to recommend one to three options that would seem to fit Davis given its size, history of policing and community needs.
Recommendations, his proposal stated, “should include model contract and scope of work” for the auditor, and details of the role that other entities might play and how “they might change from what is currently in place.”
I wonder if the “mowing while black” story will be brought up again?
Keith
I wonder why it is that your sole comment is not about the potential benefit of an open process such as this for the community, but rather what appears to me to be derisive.
“Keith
I wonder why it is that your sole comment is not about the potential benefit of an open process such as this for the community”
Do you really? I don’t. Like his railing about taking a knee brought even more attention to the BLM, he has now made sure that the lawn mowing incident is remembered. Bless these frightened souls, they are their own worst enemies.
I applaud the mayor and council for this effort, while having severe reservations about the buy-in from police.
I think the Vanguard already does a pretty good job at that.
Tia, don’t you think it’s time we should move forward instead of drumming up over and over and keeping ourselves mired in incidents that happened many years ago, sometimes decades ago?
I think this is about moving forward. What is the best form for police oversight in Davis? My view has been some mixture of a professional investigator with a public body component.
Keith, you don’t seem to want to move on but rather hold on to the notion that others are holding on to the past as a way of discrediting their sincere efforts to make a concrete change for the better. I’d appreciate your contributions a lot more if you could find a way to offer proactive ideas on how to improve policing here in Davis. If your opinion is that it is of the very highest caliber and above improvement just say that.
Keith
In this particular discussion, you were the only one to bring up an “old incident”. I see the proposed process as a means of moving forward. What I would not see as moving forward would be to pretend that because I don’t have problems with the Davis police personally, that no one else does. I also believe in an inclusive process in which every individual who has bothered to become engaged enough to show up at such a meeting is able to have their opinion expressed and respected whether I ( or anyone else agrees with it or not).