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SJPD Problems PersistACLU walks out of Task Force meeting; Campos attacks Reed's handling of IPAby Erin Sherbert on Apr 27, 2009Councilwoman Nora Campos is challenging Mayor Chuck Reed...again. Late Friday, the District 5 councilmember put out a memo containing her own two- cents about how the council should go about filling the position of the Independent Police Auditor. Thirsday night Reed fired off a memo suggesting the council review and look at the 57 candidates who initially didn’t make the cut to become the next IPA. In that memo, the mayor pointed out that restarting the whole process will take six months at the very least. Campos’ response Friday raised questions about why the mayor would want to go back and review candidates that were not deemed qualified IPA in the first go-around. “This memo is to give the council understanding of why those candidates were excluded to begin with, says Rolando Bonilla, spokesman for Campos’s office. “We want to make this process as open and transparent as possible so we don’t feel we have to rush to fill the position for the sake of filling the position.” In related business, community members on San Jose’s Public Intoxication Task Force were making a point when they got up and walked out of the door of City Hall in the middle of the meeting Wednesday night. Skyler Porras, director of the ACLU, read a statement on behalf of other community groups on the task force, including the NAACP and the La Raza Roundtable, stating that they had nothing further to talk about until the city and police department agreed to release at least half of the 4,000-plus arrest records they have requested. The members have insisted that these records will help them produce a better and clearer picture of why a disproportionate number of Latinos were arrested for public intoxication. “While the City determines if and how to fulfill our basic information request we community stakeholders will understandably be unable to provide additional feedback,” Porras read aloud. “To be clear, we are not resigning from the task force, and [we] look forward to finding common ground that will allow us to move forward.” She and other members then got up and walked out of the committee room. It was after they left that the remaining members of the task force—which include other community leaders, the police chief and the district attorney, did something they have not been able to accomplish since the group was formed in January: They started having a productive conversation. The remaining members didn’t flinch. They carried with the evening agenda, talking about various alternatives to arresting people for public intoxication. by Erin Sherbert on Apr 27, 2009 |
 ACLU's Skyler Porras walked out of the Public Intoxication Task Force meeting in protest Wednesday, joined by several other community groups. |
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