Emanuel slows down on plan to abolish IPRA

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hitting the brakes on his plan to abolish the Independent Police Review Authority to solicit public input needed to “repair the relationship” between citizens and police.

The mayor had originally planned to introduce the ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Top mayoral aides have been holding closed-door briefings that raised more questions than they answered, aldermen said.

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), a former Chicago police officer-turned-firefighter, has raised concerns about people with no background in either the law or policing exercising multiple layers of oversight over police officers already in a defensive crouch.

“You’re pretty much sending `em out there to go on kind of a witch hunt for police officers,” Napolitano has said.

But that was before a group of civic leaders led by Police Board President Lori Lightfoot, who co-chaired the mayor’s Task Force on Police Accountability, demanded meaningful public input that apparently prompted the mayor to slow the process down.

On Thursday, Aldermen Ariel Reboyras (30th), chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Comittee, and Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th) wrote a letter to the “Coalition to Follow Up on the Police Accountability Task Force” outlining plans for a pair of “subject matter hearings” on July 6 and 7.

The purpose is to solicit public input and take testimony from “subject matter experts” that will “inform the crafting” of ordinance language and “make the reforms even stronger.” A final ordinance is now expected to be introduced at the July 20 City Council meeting, the letter states.

“We believe that taking this extra step to engage the public will ensure that the final ordinance language reflects the views, voices and deeply-held beliefs of Chicago citizens,” said the letter signed by Reboyras and Ald. Carrie Austin (34th).

The aldermen stressed that the “overwhelming majority” of police officers do their jobs well and with integrity under “dangerous conditions.”

But, they said, “When misconduct occurs, we must have a system in place that brings real accountabiity through a process that every Chicagoan can trust.”

Lightfoot said she has had “zero communication” with either the mayor’s office or the City Council about public hearings. But, she said, “It is absolutely critical that there be meaningful public engagement where the public can actually give substantive input.”

Testimony from subject matter experts “of which there are many in Chicago” is also essential, she said.

Given the complexity of the police accountability ordinance and the multiple layer of police oversight the mayor promised, it’s unclear whether Emanuel’s ordinance would have been ready to go in time for Wednesday’s meeting in any event.

In other words, the demand for more public input may have come at a convenient time.

Earlier Thursday, Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), the mayor’s City Council floor leader, hinted at just that.

“I do know that they’ve been working hard to have the Council understand where they’d like this to go and they’ve been taking suggestions. But I’m under the impression that they just don’t have it ready yet,” O’Connor said.

“So, if they were to introduce it, it would be a recognition that they’re introducing it maybe as a placeholder, but it would still have more work to be done,” he said.

Also on Thursday, a dozen community-based organizations claiming to represent all 50 wards announced plans to develop a “comprehensive, community-driven public engagement initiative around policing and police accountability.” They urged aldermen to postpone consideration of the mayor’s ordinance until that community-driven process is complete.