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New Oversight System Could Be Delayed,
Further Weakened by Police "Union" Ballot Measure
A Handy Timeline for Curious Community Members

In late February, the Portland Police Association (PPA) filed two ballot initiatives with the City of Portland. One would require more funding for officers and "street level response," a misleading title making it seem as if they support the program known as Portland Street Response (jury's out on that one). The other would strip authority, funding and independence from the Community Board for Police Accountability (CBPA), which was enabled in 2020 by the City Charter and designed by the Police Accountability Commission (PAC) from 2021-2023. The PPA's news releases indicate they relied on their disingenuous push poll which asked people questions that did not accurately reflect the PAC's plan (PPR #91). The City Attorney, who must have known that this effort was afoot, failed to report to two different community oversight bodies that the PPA had filed the measure. If this all seems confusing, that may partly be by design. Here is a handy brief timeline to help figure things out.

1982: City Council passes the first civilian oversight system, the Police Internal Investigations Auditing Committee (PIIAC), which consisted of three Council members and Citizen Advisors, to review appeals of misconduct complaints. The PPA filed a ballot initiative to overturn Council's plan, but it survived on a 50.1-49.9% vote.

1999-2000: By now PIIAC was expanded to be all five members of Council with 13 Citizen Advisors. Three times, Council voted to find officers had violated policy and Chiefs Moose and Kroeker ignored their recommendations (PPR #24). After a disastrous police crackdown on Portland's May Day march, Mayor Katz appointed a Work Group to overhaul PIIAC.

2001: The recommendation for a strong, independent body was watered down by Auditor Gary Blackmer, who instead created the "Independent" Police Review (IPR), which had the authority to conduct its own investigations but not to compel officer testimony (PPR #26). Attached to the IPR is the Citizen Review Committee, a seven member (later expanded to nine, then 11) board that, like the PIIAC advisors, hears appeals of misconduct cases and can also pass them forward to City Council.

2013: A year after the US Department of Justice finished its investigation finding Portland Police use too much force and fail to hold officers properly accountable, IPR conducts its first independent investigation (PPR #60).

2020: Following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the racial justice movement in Portland helps buoy Ballot Measure 26-217, proposed unanimously by City Council, to an 82-18% victory (PPR #82). The measure changed the City Charter to create an Oversight Board with power to compel testimony, investigate serious misconduct and other allegations "as they see fit," and even discipline officers. The measure says the Board must be funded with the equivalent of 5% of the Police Bureau's budget, have a diverse set of members excluding officers and their direct families, and not be subjected to political interference.

2021-Sept. 2023: The Police Accountability Commission, 20 community members selected by Council, spent 20 months designing a plan of how the new system would work, including the now 40 year long tradition of misconduct appeals and suggesting all cases involving community members be investigated by the CBPA's professional staff, dubbed the Office of Community-based Police Accountability (PPRs #85-91).

April, 2022: The DOJ Agreement is amended to require that the City institute the new system as voted on in 2020 (PPR #87). The PPA, an "intervenor" in the DOJ case, tells the judge they think the amendment is fair, adequate and reasonable.

Nov. 2023: The City Attorney's office, which has missed multiple deadlines under the DOJ Agreement, rushes to meet a 60 day timeline (which they themselves agreed to), obliterating roughly 82% of what the PAC recommended, including removing appeals, suggesting that officers should help select CBPA members, and removing most misconduct allegations from their purview (PPR #91).

Feb. 7, 2024: The PPA files the first version of their ballot initiative. At a Citizen Review Committee meeting, Deputy City Attorney Heidi Brown does not mention this development, but notes the city is negotiating the implementation of the CBPA in talks with the PPA (see ipr article).

Feb. 20: After the first version of the initiative is rejected for constitutional reasons, the PPA files a second version.

Feb. 21: Brown presents to the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing and fails to mention the ballot measure.

March 12: The ACLU of Oregon files a ballot title challenge because the City Attorney's proposal says the initiative would "change" the authority, membership and budget of the Board, when in fact it would strip its powers to compel testimony and discipline officers, force them to accept law enforcement as members, substantially cut its budget, and strip City Council of the ability to approve policy recommendations for the Bureau. The PPA files its own challenge because they think their original title, touting their proposal that the Board help with recruiting and training officers, is more accurate.

As we're writing this issue, the outcome of the ballot title challenges is unknown, If the PPA agrees to the final version as decided by a judge, they have until July to gather over 40,000 signatures. The City says they plan to go ahead and implement the CBPA anyway, presumably their watered-down version and not the PAC's, though how that would work if it is then overhauled by a November vote is unclear.

May, 2024
Also in PPR #92

Portland Copwatch
PO Box 42456
Portland, OR 97242
(503) 236-3065/ Incident Report Line (503) 321-5120
e-mail: copwatch@portlandcopwatch.org

Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.

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