Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh vetoed a move by Common Councilors to give themselves more control over the city’s police watchdog agency.
The Citizen Review Board, which was created in 1993 as a way to review complaints about the Syracuse Police Department, has been criticized for taking too long to conduct investigations. So lawmakers voted last month to give themselves the power to appoint the CRB administrator, as well as give the city clerk oversight responsibility. In an interview with WRVO, Walsh said he’s not ready to agree to that.
"What their proposed legislation includes may be part of the solution, but I think that given the magnitude in the amount of time and effort that people have put into the CRB over the years, it warrants additional time, additional opportunities for the public and the community to engage in the process to share their concerns and importantly their ideas,” Walsh said.
<b>Following last month’s vote</b>, Councilor Chol Majok, who voted in favor of the legislation, said the members of the CRB wouldn’t be touched.
"We are not touching the board," Majok said. "The board is the way it is. We are bringing the administrator closer so that the supervision of the administrator is closer to us. We also, when it comes to replacing and bringing on and hiring an administrator it's going to be a shared responsibility between the board and the council as it always has been."
<b>Earlier this month</b>, CRB chair Lori Nilsson said the changes take away the meaning of the CRB.
“The Citizen Review Board is the citizen review board, not the Common Council review board and the proposed legislative changes, in my opinion, don’t make that a citizen-controlled board,” Nilsson said.
In his veto message, Walsh specifically called for specific approaches to improve the efficiency of the board. They include making CRB board members and the administrator more accountable, as well as creating an advisory group to work with the Council and Board, proposing modifications to ensure the CRB can accomplish its goals.
“I think if the answer is easy, we would have found it by now,” Walsh said. “We know that communities across the country have struggled with these types of entities. So again, we want to take time, we want to listen, we want to seek out subject matter expertise and work together to work on the solutions.”
The original proposal passed 5-4. Lawmakers would need 6 votes to override the veto.
