After Burlington voters decisively rejected a proposed charter change that would have created a new civilian police oversight board last year, city councilors went back to the drawing board.
For months, a sub-committee of the City Council worked through long meetings to arrive at a compromise — a slightly expanded role for the existing police commission — hoping to bring another charter change proposal to Burlington voters this Town Meeting Day.
But even the significantly watered-down proposal is facing pushback that may prevent it from landing on the ballot in March.
On Dec. 26, two members of the sub-committee pitched their latest proposal to the police commission. But after both Police Chief Jon Murad and a member of the Burlington Police Officers Association, the union for rank-and-file officers, voiced concerns, the majority of the commission urged the council to slow down.
“This is not ready for a charter change,” Carolyn Hanson, a member of the commission, said during the December meeting. “A charter change is a big deal. It’s kind of like amending your constitution.”
In an interview last week, City Councilor Ben Traverse, D-Ward 5, who helped draft the new proposal, said he thinks the charter change could still make it to the March ballot.
“We’ll see whether or not there’s a path to make some additional changes to garner that broad consensus to place it on a March ballot,” Traverse said.
Burlington has for years debated whether and how to change the way it oversees the police department, including managing complaints against and discipline of officers. The existing police commission, a panel of seven civilians appointed by the City Council, reviews department policies, use of force reports and complaints, but it can only offer advice on how to handle those complaints.
In 2020, Councilor Perri Freeman, a Progressive, led an effort to introduce a charter change that would have created a civilian oversight board with the power to discipline or remove any of the police department’s members, including its chief. The effort arose after protests that called for the firing of three police officers accused of using excessive force. Mayor Miro Weinberger vetoed the proposal.
Last year, a group of residents revived the effort by gathering enough signatures to put a charter change proposal closely resembling the 2020 version on the Town Meeting Day ballot.
Proponents of the 2023 ballot item, including a group called People for Police Accountability and Progressive city councilors, said the initiative was a way to restore trust in the police department, while opponents called it an overreach. It was voted down, 6,653 to 3,864.
The current proposal includes a more moderate approach, choosing to make incremental changes to the existing police commission rather than create an additional board.
“This proposal doesn’t go as far as I had wanted it to go,” said Councilor Gene Bergman, P-Ward 2, who supported last year’s version. Even so, at the Dec. 26 police commission meeting, he called it “both a compromise and an important move forward.”
Traverse told the commission that in large part, the language is “memorializing existing practice” that may have been outlined outside of the city charter in places like department directives or executive orders.
Among the more significant changes is a line which gives the mayor more direct power over the police chief, stating that the chief is “subject to the authority of the mayor as chief executive officer and the ordinances and orders of the city council.”
Traverse told the commission that the representatives of the mayor’s office were often involved in the sub-committee’s discussions and that Weinberger has expressed interest in having expanded authority over the police chief since about 2020.
“In effect what that means is that the police chief would not be insulated from the mayor’s directives in a way that’s different from other departmental heads,” Traverse said.
Weinberger’s office did not respond to repeated inquiries about the mayor’s current stance on the draft charter change.
Later in the meeting, Chief Murad pushed back strongly against that language.
“This clause in effect obviates every other recommended change, because the clause means there’s no need to use the phrase ‘chief of police’ in these documents at all because every decision ultimately becomes that of the mayor,” Murad said.
Detective Joseph Corrow, speaking on behalf of the officers’ union, agreed, saying the mayor should not have any role in police discipline.
“The mayor is a political figure,” Corrow said. “The mayor is going to cave, unfortunately, to public and/or political pressure and that should not be in any place when it comes to somebody possibly being terminated or receiving a substantial amount of discipline.”
Despite that concern, Corrow said the draft language is “on the right track,” but he suggested that aiming for the March ballot was too soon.
Another significant change in the current proposal is a new process for resolving a department complaint — whether it’s received internally or externally. If a disagreement between the commission and the police chief arises about how to handle a complaint against an officer or the department, then by a two-thirds vote, the commission would be able to elevate the matter to a three-person panel to be appointed by the mayor. As currently written, the panel would need to be made up of two people with law enforcement, human resources or labor law experience as well as one member of the general public.
Corrow said he thought the language about the panel should include more detail about what law enforcement experience meant. He also said the panel should be made up of five people.
During the Dec. 26 meeting, members of the police commission listed their specific concerns before Hanson called for a delay, which the commission supported in a 4-1 vote. The motion called for the draft charter change be turned over to the commission for consideration and suggested changes.
Traverse told the commission he thought all the criticisms could be worked out in time for the March ballot.
On Thursday, he said the council’s last chance to approve any proposed charter change is its meeting on Jan. 29. A public hearing regarding the charter change proposal is scheduled for the next council meeting on Jan. 16.