Question 1. of the 2006 City Council Questions to Candidates
Would you support the creation of a Police Review Board? If you support the creation of a Police Review Board, would it be directly elected by the voters and operate with subpoena power?
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Ruth Asmundson: I believe that the Police Advisory Committee, announced by City Manager Bill Emlen last week, and ombudsman with which the City Council will contract, will provide appropriate additional oversight of the Police Department.
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Stan Forbes: I support what the Council has adopted and hope it will be successful in its aims. If elected, I will closely watch to see that it works or else consider changes. I do not support an elected body with subpoena power.
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Lamar Heystek: I support independent citizen review. I am open to the details. The buy-in of all concerned parties is crucial.
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Rob Roy: I would have adopted a seven member independent board consisted of five members that are appointed by each individual council member, one member appointed by the UC Davis student government, and one by the Davis Police Chief. I felt that would have allowed for diversity and accountability. But the council felt differently and adopted the Ombudsman position. I would like to thank the council for making a move in the direction of having a more balanced review of the police department through implementing deciding upon the ombudsman although I fear that it will be inadequate due to the obvious lack of diversity or deliberation that occurs when only one person is doing the review. I am optimistic about the so called five tier plan of police oversight that the council has been doing so I will watch carefully at how successful it is and if in six months people are not seeing change then we need to open up this can of worms again because regardless of whatever someone's opinion is on the recent highly publicized "fender-bender" case it still cast Davis in a bad light and we need to recoup our image to be sure that diverse people want to come and live in Davis.
Beyond oversight, I want Police officers need to be members of the community. If crime happens to rise in Davis I want police officers thinking, "the streets are not as safe for my own kids," and not simply, "I have more work to do." So that means giving our police officers, firemen, and teachers first dibs on the new affordable houses. If you work in Davis you should be able to live in Davis. Officers are currently leaving Davis, not because of a political climate, but to work for communities they can afford to live in.
But Davis cannot take safety nor our sense of community for granted so police should not get a free pass on the process of checks and balances but we need to be sure there are enough well qualified, sensitive to diversity, officers patrolling the streets. We have to recognize police are humans and therefore not perfect so we cannot simply stand for police we must stand for justice.
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Michael Levy: The City recently established a Police Review Board. The three individuals selected have excellent credentials and experience in this arena. In conjunction with the ombudsman, and the Citizens Advisory Board, I believe they will serve our community well.
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