AMHERST — Calling continued delay “ridiculous,” a town safety committee is renewing a call for the Town Council to move forward on a plan to create a Resident Oversight Board to independently investigate and analyze actions by town police officers.
With a Town Council subcommittee so far unable to bring a recommendation forward for the model that would be used to create such an oversight board for both the police and Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service departments, despite being referred competing proposals last November, the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee has written an open letter advocating for expediting this process.
“Every serious body that has studied this question in Amherst has arrived at the same place: the ROB should exist, and it should have real authority,” the committee, chaired by Debora Ferreira, wrote. “We ask the council to act on that consensus now, in the open, and without further delay.”
In its appeal, the committee noted that Amherst should have a board similar to what exists in Springfield, Cambridge and Boston. The board should be consistent with proposals designed by the Community Safety Working Group, with subpoena power and authority to compel sworn testimony, and with at least five members, four of whom would be Black, Indigenous and people of color. There should also be an adequate operational budget and member training.
The committee observed that the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission system doesn’t “substitute for, or diminish the need for, local oversight.”
The letter comes after a June meeting of the council’s Governance, Organization and Legislation Committee with KP Law attorney Janelle K. Austin as it reviews the proposal for a board that supporters say would ensure equitable and effective public safety that moves toward eliminating systemic racism.
The subcommittee has been weighing two models: a review model, which is much more common for smaller communities, and the investigatory model, which could lend more legitimacy, but would need full-time, independent investigators who are trained and either on staff or on retainer.
But that council subcommittee’s August meeting indicated members aren’t close to making a recommendation.
District 2 Councilor Lynn Griesemer said that a concern is all three oversight boards were created before the POST Commission, and the recommendation from the Community Safety Working Group was also made before the state panel was formed.
“I find myself, after listening to the attorney, totally questioning what it is we could recommend,” Griesemer said.
District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, who chairs the subcommittee, said there is a “hard spot we’re in” and it may not be possible to return to the Town Council with a recommendation.
District 3 Councilor George Ryan said there are many questions he would like answered, including whether an oversight board might conflict with the work of the POST Commission, what the experience of the three communities with an active body similar to Amherst’s proposal has been like, and whether it has changed with the advent of the POST Commission, and what the possible costs are to the community.
Devlin Gauthier said she could ask these types of questions, but it’s uncertain how soon they could be answered and a proposal brought back to the Town Council.
At a recent Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, Ferreira said she is “beyond angry” that councilors appear to be questioning whether the town should have a Resident Oversight Board. Ferreira said the concerns are the POST Commission doesn’t deal with microaggressions, bias and low level racial incidents.
“It’s just a ridiculous place for these town councilors to be,” Ferreira said.
Amid the debate over a Resident Oversight Board, councilors got a letter in March from the Amherst Police Supervisors and Amherst Police League, the unions representing command staff and rank-and-file members. Representatives for those officers said that while they appreciate the sentiment from the community, continuing would be an “ineffective use of the town’s limited resources and interfere with officer morale, jeopardize the proper administration of discipline and open the town and ROB members up to litigation and liability.”
