Dozens of community activists packed Tampa City Council chambers to urge council members to push back on Mayor Bob Buckhorn's recent move to establish a civilian review board that will examine cases of possible police misconduct or discriminatory practices.
And their pleas were heard.
After hours of discussion on the issue, the council voted 6-1, with Councilman Charlie Miranda, a strong Buckhorn ally, dissenting, to develop its own proposal for an independent board that would review issues and incidents related to policing. The move could be a sign of tensing relations between the mayor and council, which first began to show when Council Chair Frank Reddick threatened to block new Tampa Police Chief Eric Ward's appointment if the mayor's administration didn't halt the practice of targeting blacks on bicycles for minor infractions (Reddick, who hasn't been shy about butting heads with the mayor, later relented).
Council members were particularly miffed about the way he executed his announcement — he didn't keep them in the loop, and only made his plans known via a last-minute press conference last Friday, they said.
And just like the activists, they criticized the board's makeup, which would consist of nine people the mayor would appoint (two of those being alternates) while the council would only be able to appoint two.
"I have spoken to the Chief and I have told the Chief that I don't accept his recommendation," Reddick said. "You can imagine seven members trying to appoint two people. It would take all day."
Not only would the mayor's plan diminish the council's power, the makeup of the board, whose members would have four-year terms, could be homogenous and subject to total turnover with every new administration, said Councilwoman Lisa Montelione.
"We as a council and a city are establishing a procedure and a board that will be in place long after we're gone," Montelione said. "I don't know if we should rush into something that's going to be here long after we're gone and trust people we're never met…We don't know who the mayor's going to be and we don't know how those appointments are going to be doled out."
The model the council approved, which they'll discuss later in a workshop, is quite different, at least in terms of the makeup of the board. They're proposing that each council member appoint someone to the board, and the mayor and police chief each appoint two.
Before the vote, Ward defended the model he chose, which was based on the model St. Pete is using for its board. He said he studied various types of civilian review boards throughout the country, and this seemed lilt the best fit for Tampa.
"It's just the framework that they adopted in St. Pete," Tampa Police Chief Eric Ward. "We have nothing now so we have to put something in place, and that's a great model to put in place."
Reddick said Ward wasn't at fault for the disagreement, and alluded to another source of frustration on this matter, presumably the mayor.
"We appreciate you're thoughtfulness," Reddick said. "It's just sad that it was circumvented by someone else."
Their discussion morphed into something bigger than the subject at hand. The decision to form its own civilian review board was the culmination of extensive discussion of whether to attempt to override the mayor's executive order, or if the council should strike out on its own.
"It's very important what is happening today. It's important for this council and future council," Councilwoman Yvonne "Yolie" Capin said. "If we don't have this discussion we're depriving the people of what they voted for."
Miranda and Councilman Harry Cohen were reluctant to challenge the mayor. Cohen reiterated an earlier quote of his stating concern about a power struggle between council and the mayor, one that would ultimately lose.
"If we don't go down the same road as the mayor, we will either be tied up with litigation or we will create things that don't have the effect that we desire," he said.
Reddick criticized city attorney Julia Mandell for not notifying the council of the mayor's decision to form the board ahead of the Friday press conference in which he made it public, and other council members said Mandell, whom Buckhorn appointed, might have a conflict of interest in advising both the mayor and the board.
"I personally think you've done a disservice to the council," Reddick told Mandell. "It basically reminds me that we've been a puppet of this administration. And I'm tired of being a puppet."
Reddick asked whether the council can pass its own ordinance establishing a board, to which city council attorney Martin Shelby said it was completely within the council's authority.
"A strong mayor does not mean a weak council," he said.
Miranda then went after Shelby, accusing him of being misleading in a variety of situations, including, strangely, lying on his resume about going to acting school in New York.
"I don't appreciate an ad hominem attack by any member of council," Shelby said, later calling Miranda's comments an "attempt to smear and destroy my reputation."
The at-times dramatic debate followed hours of public comment that largely railed against the mayor's proposal.
Joyce Hamilton Henry, director of advocacy for ACLU of Florida called for transparency, accountability and improved relations with the police department.
"We want a civilian review board that responds to the needs of the community, that provides input from the community," she said. "What has been proposed by the mayor is an ineffective model and is a rubber stamp for existing policies and practices that the community is saying is problematic. This is an opportunity to address these problems. We are calling on you, our elected officials, to do the right thing for our community."
Bleu Rainer, an activist for Fight for $15, relayed the story of a friend of his. He said she was pulled over with $1,400 in cash slated for rent and other bills. After being pulled over, he said, Tampa police seized the cash.
"Now this friend of mine is homeless," Rainer said. "That's all she had to pay her bills, her light bill and any other bills that she needed to pay."
Having a fair, transparent process by which his friend's case could be reviewed could have remedied — or prevented — the problem, he said.
Others warned that the community won't respect the process.
"The mayor's preemptive strike is disturbing," said Mike Pheneger, head of the Greater Tampa chapter of the ACLU, "simply because it lacks the authority to investigate, it lacks the authority to hear witnesses, it lacks the authority to subpoena people and documents to investigate issues of police misconduct and investigate issues of police policy that affect the community that has been eloquently described by a number of speakers here today."
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.