By Thane Grauel
WESTPORT — After years of legislative handwringing, the Representative Town Meeting has created a Civilian Public Safety Departments Review Board.
The town has a Civilian Review Panel, created by then-First Selectman James Marpe in 2020, to handle complaints against the police, fire and emergency medical services personnel.
The RTM’s action Tuesday replaced the authority of that panel, which served at the pleasure of the first selectperson, to the CPSDRB, which is now an ongoing, independent town body.
“The idea of a civilian review board has been before the town for many years now,” Stephen Shackelford, District 8, said at Tuesday’s RTM meeting.
“As most of you remember,” he said, “we tried, we considered a certain ordinance, proposal, repeatedly in the past term, ultimately voted it down and we committed, many members of the RTM committed at that point to continually look at the issue and eventually come up with an ordinance that we could pass into law.”
The earlier proposal was resoundingly rejected in 2021, and a subsequent effort to revise the plan a few months later also failed.
The new ordinance will not grant subpoena powers to the board, an issue strongly opposed previously by police officials.
Membership of the committee will include three people appointed by the first selectperson; a member of TEAM Westport; and two RTM-appointed members. A change from the earlier panel is that two selectpersons will no longer serve on the board.
“Lots of us people in town have been working on this,” Shackelford said.
“Long story short, we have what we think is a very strong ordinance that incorporates the learnings from several years of the Civilian Review Panel,” Shackelford said. The panel’s record, as well as elimination of the earlier plan for subpoena power, were cited during favorable reviews the latest version of the ordinance received during RTM committee hearings.
“We do owe a debt of gratitude from the citizens who were pushing for many years to get this passed,” Shackelford said.
“The ordinance we passed is not in the same format as some citizens had wanted it, but the very fact that they worked very hard, including four RTM members worked very hard trying to get something passed, I think helped keep us moving in the right direction,” he said.
Louis Mall, District 2, said that including all the committee meetings, some 2,400 man-hours were spent on the subject.
“There were a lot of people who made a lot of efforts,” he said. “I think that we did a great job.”
The measure passed unanimously, with James Bairaktaris recusing himself.
Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 35 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.
Now let’s see a similar body that handles citizens’ complaints against other town employees and elected/appointed officials for things like denied/delayed FOIA requests, unresponsiveness, unequal treatment, etc. The more I hear from people, the less concerned I am about the PD and FD and more concerned with the people elected/appointed to serve the town
Couldn’t agree more, John. I haven’t any concerns about our excellent emergency services personnel. But the rest? Oh boy.
This just seems like the usual diversion from what is far more urgent.
I have not heard a single bad word against our emergency services… not one. !not police, not fire.
So what is this “garbage”
But we sure as sh$& have other immediate issues to deal with nothing to do with our emergency services.
Westport ! Get a grip
On December 14, 2018 I met with First Selectman Marpe and Jeff Wieser to discuss a list of SIXTEEN items ranging from apparent falsified documents and resolution violations, to lack of public engagement and ethics violations.
The two overarching themes were:
1. What is the process and procedure to initiate and adjudicate an unbiased and transparent public investigation into wrongdoings and malfeasance by public officials and Town employees?
2. What is the disciplinary process and procedure within our Town government?
3. What processes are in place to protect the governed from those who are governing?
My understanding was (and still is) that any such complaint is submitted to the First Select-person’s secretary.
The crucial question is: What becomes of the complaint(s); what procedural methods are in place to ensure that effective actions are taken in a transparent, impartial, and public fashion; and what meaningful effects do those actions have upon discovered violations and the perpetrator(s) of such?
My concluding statement to Mr. Marpe and Mr. Wieser was this:
“What Westport deserves (and expects) is adherence to processes, procedures, and rules, transparency, prudence, fiscal responsibility and substantive public inclusion in decision-making that appears absent despite assertions to the contrary. Westport’s residents look forward to the next phase of this important conversation.”
The result of this meeting (and my followup written summary & reiteration) was: ZERO.
No doubt that in certain cities and communities effective oversight of Police is commensurate with their ability to detain, arrest, main and even kill. However fire departments and EMS? – give me a break. If the RTM really cares about meaningful citizen engagement, implementing what the RESIDENTS desire, and ensuring honesty and transparency in Town governance – all of which they assert – then they would get serious about the division of WESTPORT that actually requires meaningful citizen oversight.
Well said Jay. Thank you for the history. This is not a new issue.
Thanks very much this, Dr. Jay. Must we expect so little competence and integrity from our local government? Rather than accountability with carveouts, how about complete accountability?
Good luck getting anyone to become a police officer or now even a fire fighter or EMT. in this town. If anyone supporting this has an ounce of intelligence they will rethink it and dismantle this board. More leftist NYC style nonsense here in Westport.