Board of Aldermen 08-10-2021 Page 25
such a good idea. The thing that I’ve noticed in this debate is that people have become very passionate about it — the
Police Department, the Police Commissioners, the people who support them. Some of our fellow Aldermen have become
very passionate in their defense of the Police Department and their insistence that there is no problem and that nothing
should be changed.
It’s been pointed out that in the past there was a situation where aldermen were being investigated and they tried to end
the investigation. Chief Hefferan spoke to us in detail about that. | have a lot of respect for Chief Hefferan. I’ve thought
about that case and that case needed up not being a local prosecution. It was the FBI who prosecuted that case. It was
a federal indictment and the three aldermen involved ended up pleading guilty and being convicted by a federal court. So
| think the answer to avoid the number, it’s against the law to try to influence a police investigation. If one of us tries to do
that, the police ought to report us and charge us with a crime. If the police feel that local control is going to subject them
to interference, that’s one answer. The other answer is they can refer these investigations when it involves local people.
They can refer it to the Attorney General’s office. Let the Attorney General’s office do the investigation. Remove it
completely from local interference.
Something that the police talked to me about that did resonate with me is the idea that their recruitment, their selection of
officers, their compensation of officers, the promotions, all of that sort of thing is governed by the Commission. Of course,
they’ve got the collective bargaining agreement that they have to abide by. They say if there’s too much — if the Aldermen
are selecting the Commissioners that they feel that there’d be interference there and they may have a point there. There
are pros and cons to this.
The things | want to make clear is whichever side you're on, please it does not serve you well to try to read the minds of
the people on the other side. People who disagree with you to accuse them of having nefarious motivations does not
serve you well. | hope that both sides — in the future we all remember that. Each of us has opinions and we’re all trying to
do what’s best for the city. Accusing the Mayor of proposing legislation without going through the aldermen first, well
that’s the way it works. The Charter says the Mayor has the right to propose legislation just as we aldermen have the
right to propose legislation. To say that the citizens are going behind the backs of the aldermen by starting a petition
drive, well that’s their right. That’s in the Charter. The voters have the right to make a petition. The idea that it hasn’t
been vetted enough, | understand that argument but how much time do you think it needs. This started in May. We've
had May, June, July, August. We're going to have September, October. Both sides can make their arguments to the
voters. | don’t know why it would take a year or two to educate the public about this issue.
As you can tell, I’m struggling with this. | see both sides. | have trouble taking this away from the voters saying...when |
hear an alderman say he hasn't had a chance to really do his job, well this has been hanging around since May. Any of
us and some of you did — some of you who are not on the committee went to the committee meeting. We all had the
opportunity to go to the committee and express our opinions. If we feel that this may be a good idea but it could be
improved, we could have gone to the committee with our ideas and suggested amendments. It seemed like the people
who didn't think this was a good idea were intent on not letting it proceed. | guess I’m coming down on the feeling that the
voters ought to have the opportunity to express their opinion. If they vote this down, there will be other opportunities if we
want change propose something that may be better in the future. We're not saying that this should pass by putting it on
the ballot or just allowing the voters and both sides, | think, will have ample opportunity to make their arguments directly to
the voters and let the voters vote in November. | guess I’ve decided to allow this to go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for
letting me think out loud once again.
Alderwoman Kelly
Thank you. Can you hear me? Sorry.
President Wilshire
Yes
Alderwoman Kelly
I’m going to say things that | have said both times in Personnel meetings and I'll try to keep it brief because | think many
of the aldermen have already done a good job of explaining the pros and cons here. | was an initial co-sponsor to this bill.
It made sense to me on the surface that local control we appoint everything else and getting into a community
conversation with the people who are involved from the Police Department, to neighbors, all of those things it became
clear very quickly that everybody has different opinions on this and so a number of people on the Board have alluded to
the fact that we talked about having a working study group that would look at this and really have this whole conversation
regardless of how this vote goes down tonight, regardless of whether it goes on the ballot by citizen petition which is their
