Cleveland City Council is expected to vote tomorrow on putting revisions to the city’s Civilian Police Review Board on November’s ballot. The board settles use of force cases against police officers. This morning council’s safety committee heard a review of the measure and approved sending it to the full council.
The measure includes expanding the number of board members from seven to nine, including one member between the age of 18 and 30. And it would expand the training the members receive and impose term limits. The changes are part of the consent decree with the Justice Department. It charges that the review board does not effectively hold officers accountable, and there’s a backlog of cases. Civilian Police Review Board Chairman Thomas Jones says the proposed changes should help.
“Adding more members to it certainly allows to make sure that we have a quorum each time the board meets. We have a vacancy, so we currently only have five members right now, six members, I’m sorry. So we really need three more.”
Council needs to decide on the measure this week to get it to the board of elections by September 9th. If voters approve the measure this fall, city officials say all nine board members should be seated by February of next year.
