The Dallas office of police oversight's independence could be codified in the city charter if Dallas voters approve that change.
That’s after the Charter Review Commission tried to finalize a long list of significant proposals during Tuesday's meeting — and amidst confusion over what the office can or can't do.
The commission approved a proposal to allow the city council to choose the director of the Office of Community Police Oversight.
The decision comes at a time of confusion within City Hall about what powers the oversight officeand Community Police Oversight Board — which investigates complaints against police officers — actually have.
“There has been a lot of conflict between the board and the city over the last several months,” Community Police Oversight Board Member Brandon Friedman told the commission during the meeting.
“My personal opinion is that a lot of that would be alleviated if this oversight position were under the jurisdiction of the city council and not the city manager.”
The commission also voted down the last several proposals aimed at changing the park board structure.
That decision came after almost 40 public speakers voiced their opposition to a measure that would have allowed the city council to appoint the park department director — rather than the park board. The proposal was introduced by Charter Commission Vice Chair Adam Medrano and Commissioner 13 Marshall Mills.
“When a department has a budget of over $114 million dollars and is potentially receiving another $345 million in bond proceeds, I think it’s prudent that the current structure be discussed and reviewed,” Mills said during the meeting. “Especially since this structure has been in place for more than a century.”
And during a ninth inning play, a vote to discard a proposal made earlier in the meeting that could change Dallas’ runoff elections to ranked choice voting — essentially listing out your candidates in order of preference rather than returning to the polls — was reconsidered and approved by the commission before it adjourned.
That means Dallas could eventually move to a ranked choice voting system once state lawmakers amends current policy to allow it.
The commission will have yet another meeting to finalize the rest of the amendments it didn’t discuss during Tuesday’s meeting. After it will deliver a recommendation to council but, ultimately Dallas voters will decide on what to change in the city’s charter.
Conflict alleviated
Friedman has been one of the more outspoken members of the city's civilian police oversight board. Recently the board has found out it's investigatory powers could be limited due to a new legal interpretation of the city code that governs it.
That recent legal opinion — which was anonymously handed down by the City Attorney’s Office — says the board can’t call for an independent investigation into complaints that have been deemed “no investigation” by IAD.
Now, members fear the result may be limiting how many complaints they see.
“We have no way of knowing whether its just because there aren’t any serious complaints in the last few months, or if there’s a different standard being applied,” Friedman told KERA previously.
During Tuesday's meeting Friedman told the commission he believes the system would work better if the director of the oversight office was picked — and reported directly to — the city council, rather than the city manager.
"The Office of Community Police Oversight is not one that provides city services like sanitation, street repair or permitting," Friedman said. "This is an office that oversees a city service, the responsibility for it therefore should fall directly under the city council."
And some commissioners seemed agree.
"You don't really get checks and balances when the same person who is appointing the police chief is also over the community police oversight commission," District 14 Commissioner Angela Hunt said during the meeting.
That proposition was approved and will be sent to the council for a final vote.
‘Protect other parks’
After several public speakers alleged political retaliation by at least one of the authors of the amendment intended to change the park board’s structure, Medrano had his chance to speak about the proposal. And he says it all has to do with a deal involving Reverchon Park.
“I promised myself that if I ever got a chance to try and correct this, I would,” Medrano said. “Its not to retaliate…its to protect other parks.”
Medrano said he started working for the park department before he ran for a seat on the school board or for city council. When he was working for the department he said there was just a few things that made him feel uneasy. One of them was the deal to privative Reverchon Park in near Uptown Dallas.
The deal was complicated. Throughout the process, Medrano said he wasn’t told about the contract before it made its way to the city council. There were two council votes before the contract was approved, but ultimately it never went through due to the financial downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $10 million dollar contract would have renovated around six acres of the park’s space — including a baseball field. D Magazine’s Matt Goodman reported at the time the deal “would have created a venue that could accommodate minor-league ballgames and concerts.”
Goodman also reported the city would have owned the venue and a private group would pay to lease the space over 20 years.
But the “backdoor” deals as Medrano called them, led him to introduce the measure to change the department’s structure. Commission Marshall Mills co-sponsored the proposal.
"Please don't change anything," current Park Board President Arun Agarwal said during the meeting. "They say 'please don't fix what is not broken' but I am saying more important, don't break what is working well."
The proposal was voted down by the commission.
A late move
Early in the commission’s Tuesday evening meeting the group seemed poised to bat down a vote to change Dallas’ elections from runoffs to ranked choice voting.
“Runoffs are extremely burdensome on our even most hardcore voters,” De la Fuente said during the meeting. “And this is exacerbated even more in the southern sector [of Dallas].”
De la Fuente and other commissioners agreed that ranked choice voting would help to alleviate some of that burden of returning to the polls multiple times in order to pick a candidate. But the commission was split 7 to 7 when it came down to voting — and the proposal failed due to a technicality.
That is until the proposal was reconsidered near the end of the commission’s marathon session. This time, the proposal passed the vote.
The commission may have one more meeting to ratify the entire set of amendments. But ultimately what’s been approved is what will be sent to the city council for approval.
After that, the council must discuss the proposals and figure out what Dallas voters will see during a charter election.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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