Item B: Meeting w/Police Comm. - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment C EUGENE POLICE EMPLOYEES' ASSOCIATION 777 HIGH STREET- SUITE 120- EUGENE, OREGON 97401 54D342~ 1814 - WWW.EPEA 1971.COM MEMORANDUM Date: May l0th, 2005 To: Eugene Police Commission From: Willy Edewaard - EPEA President Re: EPEA Review Model Proposal The Eugene Police Employees' Association is supportive of substantive changes in the City's current hiring and internal investigative practices within the police department. As the Police Commission has learned from its research and discussions with other cities which have some sort of external oversight, it is not the be-all and end-all to addressing citizen concerns about the police department, or to improving the systems which have resulted in the call for such external oversight. Many of the issues which have prompted the call for oversight are due to inadequate staffing and inadequate pre-hire screening mechanisms. Merely adding additional layer(s) of oversight will not produce the results sought after by the citizens of Eugene. The adoption of any model of external review will not succeed unless it is coupled with the additional hiring of police officers and additional, highly trained internal affairs staff. As an Association, we are committed to the values statements of our department and are committed, professional law enforcement officers. We are committed to a professional agency which is accountable to the public we serve, and respectful of the rights of the individual officers. To that end, we would propose a conceptual oversight model (which will still require some contractual modifications and officer protections) which is accountable to the citizens of Eugene and protects the rights of individual officers. External Auditor Model: Adoption of an oversight model which primarily focuses on an auditor's office will be both cost- effective and should result in a non-political, objective oversight of the police department's internal investigations.