Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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were sought to reflect the community. He noted that he sat on the Police Commission and was a “huge fan” of the EPD. He wanted a new facility for the officers, he wanted more officers and for them not to have to do enforced overtime, and he wanted money to come into the department that showed the respect that they deserved and earned. He averred that what the community asked the police to do was “amazing” to him and how they did it was “a point of civic pride.” He felt that the oversight system was critical to the relationship they had within the community and the department. He said if they were going to try and have the community vote for more bond measures, there had to be a level of trust. He perceived the refusal to appoint Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson as diminishing that trust. He had heard it rumored that Ms. Wilkinson might be reappointed, but Mr. Brissenden might not. He opined that the loss of either of them would put into question the council’s support of police oversight. Fred Hamlin , P.O. Box 2871, favored the empowerment of the University of Oregon’s Department of Public Safety (DPS). He believed that the council was on the right track. He thought it could be expanded significantly. He averred that “obviously in this day and age” there would not be more money for police officers or corrections facilities. He declared that the more eyes they could put on the street to do the job and free officers to do other work, the better off everyone would be. th Ronan Kelly , 660 West 20 Avenue, spoke in favor of the reappointment of Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson. She had experienced violence in her life and considered herself not to be naïve about public safety. She averred that the people she feared the most in Eugene were the police. She opined that the town needed a strong review board that was not afraid to criticize the police. Majeska Seese-Green , P.O. Box 1214, Ward 7, urged the council to support the reappointment of Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson to the CRB. She said it was necessary to have a balanced board. She opined that without the two of them, it would not be “nearly what the public would consider a balanced board.” She averred that if the board was already made up of a majority of people who thought like Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson, she would be testifying in favor of appointing people from a completely different point of view. She declared that this “kind of balance” was necessary for the public to have trust in the oversight system. She was also concerned that the community panel used to review the CRB applications seemed like it “was practically in secret.” She understood that it was not really secret, but she averred that “it might as well be when nobody knows anything about it.” She wanted them to conduct the review more publicly and transparently in the future. She said she had submitted a public records request for copies of the deliberations. She noted that one person who had served on the panel was a member of the EPD Internal Affairs (IA) division. She opined that this represented a conflict of interest, because people such as Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson had been critical of IA. She suggested that someone other than the IA employee and, perhaps, not a representative of EPD should serve on the community panel. Michael L. Quillen , 2735 Kismet Way, Ward 8, was very concerned by the “rapid use” of tasers by the EPD. He said following the community impact case and in light of the two recent cases of tasering, he would urge the council to adopt a moratorium on taser use without a reasonable belief that a deadly weapon was present. He declared that arms and feet were not weapons and police should be trained to deal with citizens; more confrontation was not needed. He asked them to imagine that it was their son or daughter who had been tasered and taken to jail. He asked them to imagine how they would feel. He cited the recent incident in which two foreign students had been tasered. He averred that this was not the image that the City would want to present to the rest of the world. He asked the council to “clean up” the taser issue. He urged the council to reappoint Mr. Brissenden and Ms. Wilkinson to the CRB. He opined that any other outcome of the decision would amount “to cherry-picking pro-police members of the CRB” and this was not what external oversight was. He felt that the signal that was being sent to the community was that it was the police who were running the CRB. Randy Prince , 2990 Onyx Street, supported the reappointment of Mr. Brissenden to the CRB. He felt that some people did not think Mr. Brissenden was nice enough. He had seen the interviews and noted that Mr. Brissenden had not smiled much. He averred that Mr. Brissenden was forthright and had provoked some people. He understood that MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 26, 2009 Page 4 Regular Meeting