In February 2023, Los Angeles City Council members Tim McCosker and Hugo Soto Martinez proposed updating the police disciplinary process to allow the police chief to fire officers and changing the makeup of the Board of Rights, a three-member appeals panel that considers serious disciplinary actions.
The goal was to create a ballot measure to fix problems created in 2017 when the last legislative session sent a bill to voters that weakened police accountability under the guise of strengthening it.
More than a year later, with just days to go until the November 5th voting deadline, City Council members and city officials are still arguing over the details, and it’s unclear whether any language on the ballot will be an improvement. With more than 16 months to work out the plans and details, it’s infuriating that the City Council has put this off for so long that we’re now on the brink of failing to hold police accountable again.
The delayed start meant that the details were worked out in committee and the deadline for voting was fast approaching when the full City Council directed the City Attorney’s Office to draft language for a new ballot measure to replace the old one.
Things appeared to erupt on Friday when McCosker and representatives from the LAPD and City Attorney’s Office argued, at times heatedly, before the City Council’s Rules Committee about whether the draft language reflected or misrepresented the council’s intent and whether it would best provide for police accountability for serious misconduct.
A few days ago, a member of the Board of Police Commissioners (a mayoral-appointed committee that sets policy for the Police Department) asked why the board had not been consulted about the new disciplinary proposal. Another member asked why the council could not go back to the police disciplinary system that existed before 2017, which appears to be allowed by the 2017 ballot measure. It’s a legitimate question.
Could city leaders have reached that end of the discussion and drafting process without consulting key stakeholders?
Council Chairman Paul Krekorian said the process took so long because leaders were “trying to balance employees’ due process rights with the chief’s authority to take immediate action in serious situations.”
That’s fine, but Los Angeles residents have a right to know whether the police disciplinary ballot measure they face in November is well-considered and whether it is less deceptive and better for the city than the erroneous Charter Amendment C that it would replace.
That’s the question city council members should be asking themselves as they consider whether to put the new measure on the ballot on Tuesday.