By John Schwing

WESTPORT — The Representative Town Meeting’s Ordinance Committee on Tuesday referred a proposed ordinance to establish an independent Civilian Police Review Board to a vote by the full RTM, even though several members criticized “ambiguity” in the proposal’s language.

The meeting, conducted via Zoom, once again was marked by heated exchanges between Kristan Hamlin, a former RTM member who is one of the lead petitioners supporting the ordinance, and committee members.

It was the committee’s second meeting within a month on the proposal.

Although the committee voted unanimously to refer the proposal to the full RTM, several members said they have reservations about the ordinance and want the full legislative body to deliver a final verdict on the much-discussed plan.

The proposed ordinance, with several revisions, closely mirrors a similar proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected by the RTM last October.

And at least one RTM member, Louis Mall of District 2, indicated he expects the latest version to suffer the same fate.

Mall, who is not an Ordinance Committee member but joined the meeting as an observer, said after two years of meetings on petitioners’ efforts to establish the board, the current drive is “a huge waste of time and taxpayers’ money,” referring to several police officials who joined Tuesday’s meeting and earlier sessions.

Mall also defended the Civilian Review Panel, an alternate group that serves at the discretion of the town’s first selectperson. The group — empaneled to review complaints against emergency-services personnel — recently began meeting for the first time with its full complement of five members, two of whom were appointed in March by the RTM.

That positive assessment, however, was not shared by Hamlin, who contended the panel’s members are confused over their role and already have asked if their charge can be changed.

Mall and Assistant Town Attorney Eileen Lavigne Flug sharply disagreed, saying Hamlin “mischaracterized” the panel’s meetings.

The panel’s chairman, Harold Bailey Jr., who is also chairman of TEAM Westport, became another point of contention between Hamlin and others. 

When Hamlin mentioned earlier statements by Bailey favoring an independent review board, she was cut off by Brandi Briggs, the committee chairwoman, and Flug. They noted that Bailey had circulated an email in advance of their session — which he did not attend — saying that he did not want his views on the currently proposed ordinance characterized by anyone else and would “speak for himself.”

But most of Tuesday’s committee discussion, prompting many questions, concerned the “hybrid” model that would grant the Civilian Police Review Board both investigatory and review powers over civilian complaints against police.

Police Chief Foti Koskinas said that he continues to “strongly disagree” with that format. He said he has been unable to identify any similar “hybrid” board that can serve as a model for Westport’s board.

At his request, Lieut. David Wolf, the department’s communications officer and a lawyer, explained the ordinance would apparently give the board authority both to investigate and review complaints at the same time. That, he said, would relegate any police investigation into complaints to minor status, particularly since the board would have authority to re-interview complainants and witnesses already interviewed by police.

Hamlin insisted the board must have the right to conduct “de novo” interviews — conducted without reference, or prejudice, to prior interviews by police — to assure that complaints against police are handled from an “independent” and “neutral” perspective.

But language in the proposed ordinance drew repeated questions from committee members over what they said was a lack of clarity and questions over what appeared to be parallel, or contradictory, roles for the board and police officials in processing complaints.

Hamlin responded that the ordinance language was as straightforward as possible, and if committee members had questions about its clarity, they should have reached out so those concerns might have been addressed prior to Tuesday’s meeting.

At the end of an hour and a half of review, and argument, committee members — most of whom expressed reservations about the ordinance language — voted to pass the proposal to the full RTM for a final decision.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.