By Christopher “Flood the Drummer®” Norris
3.11.18: Philadelphia – (Politics): On Thursday afternoon, I conducted a brief but wide-ranging conversation on the issue of policing with the President of the Philadelphia City Council.
Mr. Darrell Clarke, a Democrat in his mid-60s, isn’t a consistently loud voice for police reform; no lawmaker here is, for that matter. To that point, the City Council President confirmed on Thursday that 12 votes can’t even be drummed up to transform the Police Advisory Commission – a executive-order-based civilian oversight agency with subpoena power and not much else – into a permanent fixture of local government.
However, Mr. Clarke recently was able to corral 14 votes to pass a measure, co-sponsored by City Councilman Curtis Jones, Jr., to ensure that the aforementioned government agency doesn’t lack consistent funding, which has been a sustained complaint for years.
“It didn’t get a lot of coverage, but I think it’s important,” Mr. Clarke said of his bill, which proposes amending the Home Rule Charter to allow the PAC to receive an annual minimum budget of $500,000; it’ll be a ballot question in May’s primary.
The bill also authorizes Council to increase funding without doing an additional charter change.
Now that the money is available, Mr. Clarke says the next step is to have a conversation with the PAC’s Executive Director, Mr. Hans Menos, to clear up any ambiguity.
Mr. Menos, a social worker who took on the job late last year, indicated last week that he plans to use the money for policy analysts, given that the PAC, despite a popular misconception, isn’t the primary investigator of any complaint or officer-involved shooting.
Councilmen Clarke and Jones, though, when they made their arguments to the public for why additional funds were needed, implied a desire to see a more streamlined complaint intake process and quicker conclusions on investigations.
The PAC, compared to other government agencies here, is fluid in its infrastructure; that is to say it’s core competency and/or budget can, and has, shifted depending upon the mayor in office. That has Mr. Clarke – who many political insiders thought would seek the city’s chief executive role in 2015 – concerned.
“My concern is that every time… every mayor has a different executive order… every mayor has a certain level of commitment to funding.”
To talk with Mr. Clarke about policing, is to hear from a man who’s both aspirational and pragmatic. He speaks of the PAC as if it is something that’s evolving rather an entity whose name and function is written in stone. For example, he said forthcoming is a conversation about what ultimately will become of the PAC, in terms of its name and jurisdiction.
Mr. Clarke also spoke to his desire to augment engagement germane to the Police District Advisory Councils.
PDACs meetings can’t be exclusive to police stations, Mr. Clarke asserted.
“You got to expand the scope of that involvement,” he added.
To genuinely and organically engage with young people in particular, and to improve police-community relations overall, Mr. Clarke alluded to the use of community venues, though he didn’t specify which ones.
The pragmatic side of Mr. Clarke shows when he discusses the arbitration process, which is what many fired and disgraced officers have used to be rehired.
“Arbitration is clearly the issue… it’s frustrating on a lot of levels,” Mr. Clarke said, when responding to a question about Mr. Ryan Pownhall, the former officer who on June 8th, 2017, shot and killed Mr. David Jones, a black man, while he was unarmed and fleeing.
Mr. Pownall, who has an arbitration hearing set for late May of this year, is among 28 other current and former Philadelphia police officers who were on a secret ‘Do Not Call’ list – a roster of bad apple cops who were deemed to dishonest to testify – held by the former District Attorney, Mr. Seth Williams, who’s currently serving five years in federal prison for corruption.
The Council President wasn’t as chatty on this topic as he was with the PAC. Part of the reasoning is that Mr. Clarke doesn’t see this as an issue within his direct jurisdiction. Rules for arbitration are set in state law. But, as Mr. Clarke noted, the City does negotiate the contract.
The last time the City negotiated its contract with the police union, which was in the summer of 2017, no new or meaningful disciplinary measures were added.
Mr. Clarke, after our interview, was headed to mandated ethics training. And before departing, he said:
“I’m an elected official… we have oversight. Every city employee should have some level oversight as it relates to their job responsibilities. Apparently, some people don’t think that should be the case with police.”
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