Eight months into his first—and, unless things take a dramatic turn, perhaps only—term as Springfield's mayor, Domenic Sarno seems to have retreated to his City Hall bunker. As the list of crucial matters left unattended by his administration steadily grows, Sarno has had little to say, aside from the occasional protest that his seeming lack of action masks a deep, methodical thought process, that decisions are on the way.
But as the months pass—and the well-placed smacks from his political rivals accumulate—questions mount: What is the mayor doing to restore adequate library services to the Mason Square neighborhood, which had its branch stolen away more than five years ago? Why isn't he pushing for more accountability from the city's controversial towing contractor (whose owner, it should be noted, has political ties to the mayor's office)? Why hasn't the administration done more to get the city's police complaint review board off the ground?
On that last matter, Sarno has at least made some token gestures. After City Councilor Jose Tosado, and numerous residents, repeatedly questioned why the Community Complaint Review Board, established last year under then-Mayor Charlie Ryan, had been inactive since Sarno took office, the mayor held a press conference announcing new appointees and insisting the board was a priority. Those assurances did little to appease critics frustrated by Sarno's refusal to reappoint a full-time administrator to oversee the board. (After taking office, Sarno fired Melinda Pellerin-Duck, Ryan's appointee to that position, and handed its responsibilities to his chief of staff, Denise Jordan, despite warnings that, for the board to succeed, it needed the full focus of its coordinator.)
But even if the board finally does become active, long-time activists say, it will still be a pale imitation of what the city needs: a board that truly represents the community, with the power to have a real effect on the often-rocky relationship between Springfield's police and residents.
The community review board will fill a void created by the dissolution of the city's Police Commission in 2004, part of a move to force out then-Police Chief Paula Meara. After Meara accepted a lucrative buy-out, the chief's position—which had the protection of civil service—was replaced with a commissioner, who serves under a contract. In the process, the Police Commission was also disbanded.
That left the city without any public mechanism for reviewing public complaints about the police—a gaping hole, given the tense history of police/community relations and high-profile cases of alleged police misconduct. In 2006, the city hired consultants from Northeastern University to recommend a civilian oversight model for the city; the result was the Community Complaint Review Board.
The new board also became part of a settlement between the city and the Pastors' Council of Greater Springfield, which had filed a complaint with the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination on behalf of Douglas Greer, a principal at a city school. In 2004, Greer charged that he'd been beaten by city police who found him in his car while he was suffering a diabetes-related seizure; the officers said they were simply restraining him. The Police Commission cleared the officers of wrong-doing, and Greer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, which he dropped in exchange for a $180,000 settlement from the city. In addition, as part of the settlement, Ryan signed an executive order creating the review board.
The old Police Commission was hardly a universally beloved institution; critics often charged the board, whose members were appointed by the mayor, with favoring police officers over residents. Still, compared to the new board, the commission had "more heft," in the words of Tim Ryan, a former city councilor (and son of Mayor Ryan) who chaired the group for its final two years.
The commission, Ryan noted, served as the SPD's employer, and oversaw the handling of both external complaints and internal matters, such as an officer disciplined for violating department rules. The group made binding decisions about hirings and firings, promotions and disciplinary actions (although officers did have the right to appeal those decisions). And while public complaints were first investigated by the department's Internal Investigations Unit—as they will under the new board—the commission could hold its own hearings and impose its own discipline.
The scope of the new board is much more limited. Members will review IIU reports but lack the power to conduct their own investigations or subpoena evidence or witnesses. And while they can make recommendations for action to the commissioner, it's up to him whether to follow them. (In addition, the board will not handle internal discipline cases, as the commission did.)
"They have no statutory authority," said the Rev. Talbert Swan II, a member of the Pastors' Council. "They can't go back and say, 'You know what, we want to ask this witness questions.' & They're a watered-down version of the former Police Commission."
Swan is not advocating a return to the old commission. For one thing, he said, that body had too few members (five), and, because they were all appointed by the mayor, they lacked real independence.
While the new board has more members—nine—they, too, are all mayoral appointees. Swan said he pushed during the pastors' negotiations with the city for the members to be elected by residents, perhaps through the neighborhood councils. That didn't happen, though, and the resulting agreement, Swan said, was too vague, and left the door open for the board to be shaped by Mayor Ryan and then-Police Commissioner Ed Flynn. "It's really a rubber-stamp committee," Swan said.
Swan said he plans at the next Pastors' Council meeting to press the group to demand a stronger review board than what's in place. "I don't know what action the council will take on it," he said. "But with or without the council, I intend on pushing for a model that has some teeth, that has some statutory authority, that actually can do some independent investigations on police misconduct cases, and not just settle for a board in a name only."
This isn't a new battle for Swan, who has spent years speaking out about allegations of police brutality and misconduct and the general tensions between the SPD and young people of color in the city. But it's a lonelier battle than it used to be, he said.
"One of the things our city has successfully done is to quiet those who have spoken with a loud voice about police reform, police brutality and those types of issues," Swan said. "Slowly but surely those individuals found themselves at points of scrutiny in their own personal lives, they found doors being closed in their faces, and they decided the level of activism they were doing was not worth the personal loss. There's very few persons left that are willing to put their neck out there on the chopping block.
"It's not like the '90s, when you had a number of us out there," Swan continued. "Now it's at a point where any of us who are willing to say anything are just kind of flapping in the wind by ourselves. At least before we had several other strong members of the community to stand behind us."
Swan is not encouraged by the defensive posture the Sarno administration has adopted when questioned about the board. "One of the real issues for me is that the administration has not looked at the criticisms in a constructive manner," he said. "They've interpreted those of us who've been vocal about this as [attacking] the character of individuals. & I don't think anyone was trying to impugne the integrity of anyone on the review board, nor was anyone saying Denise Jordan didn't have the right abilities to be the administrator. What we're saying is the civilian review board is too important to receive a limited amount of time from a chief of staff who already has a thousand things on her plate."
Swan pointed to Jordan's bristly public comment that the new administration was working on establishing the board and she had "no intention of moving hastily simply to satisfy the timeline of others" as an example of the administration's unwarranted defensiveness.
"There are many of us who've been pushing for police reform like this for the last 15 years," Swan said, and the city has been talking about creating a board since the Police Commission was disbanded. "It's not like the clock started ticking when Mayor Sarno took office in January," he said. "It's not like time stopped on every issue—this is a continuation of a process that started three years ago. It hasn't only been seven months. It's been three years."
Sarno did not respond to an interview request from the Advocate.
mturner@valleyadvocate.com
