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Re: Opinion of City Attorney Regarding Civilian Review Model July 8, 2005 Page 5 impact the City's ability to sustain disciplines in arbitration or to defend lawsuits, and the confidentiality, public records and open meetings issues such review would raise. On the other hand, the Commission decided that creating the potential for those impacts was not warranted in cases other than "community impact" cases. In addition, the Commission determined that the CRB's limited resources would best be focused on "community impact" cases. Consequently, the Commission's model allows the CRB to review non-"community impact" cases after they are closed, and to recommend policy, procedural or operational changes for future cases. The model does not, however, allow the CRB to affect the outcome of those cases. The City can legally empower the CRB to reopen any kind of case, but this would require the board to revisit the policy decision that has already been made. Moreover, giving the CRB the ability to reopen the investigation of a closed, non-"community impact" case on the request of the complainant would encourage a "we'll know it when we see it" approach to choosing cases to be reopened, rather than requiring that the cases meet predetermined, objective "cause" criteria, and would impact the Police Chief's authority to manage his/her department. If you have questions or concerns, please let us know. HARRANG LONG GARY RUDNICK P.C. - CITY ATTORNEYS 'S~aron A. Rudnick (_/ ~ ~Z-'d