CC Minutes - 10/26/09 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

decision. She also felt that when people commented that if the council did not do one thing or another it would bring into question the work that would continue to be done on the CRB, it was disrespectful of the people who were there working. She believed they had good people working on the CRB who put a lot of hours into the work. Councilor Clark thanked everyone who came to speak to the council. He wanted to underscore how much he appreciated and respected Mr. Bonnett’s tone and manner. He said he could really respect someone who disagreed with him but did so from a position of integrity. He echoed the comments made by Councilor Ortiz. He had found it offensive to hear that if he did not agree with some of the people who testified, they could then define his motives and claim that he was “somehow ruining the system or putting it into question.” He found accusations that the council was not committed to police oversight to be harmful to the community moving forward together. He perceived the job as coming to a place of balance. He stressed that the council received a lot of input from a lot of different places in the community. He received many emails, some from the people who had testified and many from north Eugene, the ward for which he served as representative. He said the opinions he fielded were “wildly in disagreement.” He encouraged everyone to have the kind of conversation that left everyone’s integrity intact in the process of disagreeing about how they would “get there.” He also observed that a number of untrue statements had been provided as fact, particularly in regard to tasering incidents. He noted that there were cameras on the tasers that had been deployed at the May, 2008, incident. Regarding the incident, he underscored that everyone had a right to free speech and everyone had the right to be heard, but no one had the right to force people to hear them. Councilor Brown thanked everybody who had come to the meeting. He read a statement into the record. He opined that while the council wanted an independent police auditor, it sought to diminish the auditor’s authority by “a hundred small cuts” in ordinance amendments and it transferred parts of that authority to the police chief, the City Manager, and the municipal court judge. He averred that though the council said it would support the auditor, the council questioned the personal integrity and competence of the first two auditors. He asserted that though it was said that capable, experienced people were wanted to serve on the CRB, people who would conduct rigorous and thorough analysis, broaden the discussion, provoke thought, and speak “inconvenient truths,” were discarded when the council was “lucky enough” to get them. He alleged that they were doing everything they could to diminish the credibility and to ensure the failure of the civilian oversight process. He opined that their hypocrisy was subliminal, unspoken, and subconscious. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - September 9, 2009, Work Session B. Approval to Tentative Working Agenda C. Adoption of Resolution 4989 Affirming the City’s Commitment to Human Rights and Choice in Mental Health Care The City Council approved the Consent Calendar during the Work Session that preceded this meeting. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 26, 2009 Page 7 Regular Meeting