Cleveland, Ohio, Issue 24, Community Police Commission and Police Oversight Initiative (November 2021)

Cleveland Issue 24
Election date November 2, 2021
Topic Local law enforcement
Status a Approved
Type Initiative	Origin Citizens

Cleveland Issue 24 was on the ballot as an initiative in Cleveland on November 2, 2021. It was approved.

A "yes" vote supported amending the city charter to make changes related to police oversight, discipline, and policies, including: the creation of the Community Police Commission to—together with the Civilian Police Review Board—oversee police conduct investigations and discipline, report and advise about police-community relations, and oversee police training and recruitment; requirements that the commission be demographically representative of the city; and changes to membership qualifications and requirements for the Civilian Police Review Board to include attorneys with experience defending victims of police brutality, give the mayor instead of the police chief the authority to remove board members, and require the board's budget to equal at least 1% of the police department's budget.

A "no" vote opposed this charter amendment to change provisions related to police oversight and discipline, including changes to the structure of and authority over the Civilian Police Review Board and the creation of a Community Police Commission.

Election results

Cleveland Issue 24
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		32,875	59.61%
No		22,274	40.39%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Measure design

The initiative repealed and replaced sections 115-1 through 115-4 and added sections 115-5 and 119-1 to the Cleveland city charter. The provisions concerned the organization and oversight of the Cleveland Police Department. A full summary can be found below.

Office of Professional Standards

The new version of section 115-1 restructured the Office of Professional Standards. The city charter specified that the Office of Professional Standards was overseen by the executive head of the police department, who also appointed the Office's Administrator. However, under the initiative's version of section 115-1, the Office of Professional Standards reports to the Civilian Police Review Board. Further, the initiative bars current or former police officers from serving as the Administrator of the Office, allowing the Police Review Board to nominate someone of their choosing. The initiative also required that the police chief (and the force at-large) comply with any requests for information that the Office makes within 30 days.

Civilian Police Review Board

Section 115-2 made changes to the nine-member Civilian Police Review Board. The initiative required that two members of the board should be attorneys with experience defending victims of police brutality, transferred the power to remove Board members from the executive head of the police department to the Mayor, and required that the Board's budget be equal to or greater than 1% of the budget allocated to the police department.

In addition, the initiative amended section 115-3 of the Cleveland charter, granting the Board the ability to initiate its own complaints against the police department, instead of relying solely on complaints brought to the board by citizens.

The initiative amended section 115-4 of the charter, which specifies the procedure by which the Board investigates complaints alleged against the Cleveland Police officers and officials. The initiative allowed investigations to address topics not originally brought up in the original complaint. Additionally, the initiative required that all meetings considering whether or not to act on a complaint be held in public. If the Board does recommend discipline, the initiative added a new requirement that the Chief of Police present "clear-and-convicting" evidence that the Board's recommendations are erroneous if the Chief does not want to comply with them. Lastly, this section added a new presumed level of discipline for "bigoted content, slurs, or language." If such behavior occurs, the default discipline was termination under the initiative's changes.

Community Police Commission

The initiative added section 115-5 to the Cleveland charter, which provided for the creation of a Community Police Commission. The Commission consisted of 13 members appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council, with one member being nominated by the Commissioners as director, pending approval from the Mayor.

The initiative specified that the Commission should be demographically representative of the city of Cleveland by metrics of race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. Further, the initiative would require that at least one Commissioner be knowledgeable about each of the following subjects:

• struggles faced by the homeless, limited-English speakers, and those with mental health or substance abuse disorders;
• people who have been affected by police violence;
• wrongful conviction and the exoneration of the incarcerated;
• people who have been affected by gun violence;
• prosecution of police misconduct and defense of those affected.

No more than three Commissioners may be or have been employed in law enforcement, including representing a police association.

Removal of Commissioners

The initiative defined a process whereby Commissioners could be removed from the Community Police Commission. For Commissioners who do not represent a police association, the Mayor would notify them of their charges, allow for a public hearing, and give time for the presentation of evidence and witnesses. If the City Council wanted to veto a removal by the Mayor, they could do so with a 2/3 majority vote.

If a Commissioner represents a police association, the Mayor would be able to remove them with or without cause. Further, Commissioners representing a police association could be removed by a simple majority vote of the other non-police-association-representative Commissioners.

Duties of the Commission

Section 115-5 of the initiative defined the duties and authority of the Commission. The most notable duties of the commission under the initiative were as follows:

• serving as the final authority on whether or not certain disciplinary action against an officer is sufficient;
• interviewing and recommending candidates for police commander and inspector general;
• establishing and auditing police recruitment and training practices;
• directing the investigations of the Civilian Police Review Board, specifically towards any officer against whom a lawsuit has been filed;
• participating in community outreach and understanding police-community relations in Cleveland;
• proposing legislation or executive policy for adoption in Cleveland;
• publishing reports to keep the community informed about the Commission's work.

The initiative required that no "person, group, or organization including the Chief of Police, the Director of Public Safety, the Mayor, the executive head of the police force, other Division of Police employees, and other city officials" be allowed to create "interference or non-cooperation" with the Commission's stated duties.

Discipline of Police

The final part of the initiative added section 119-1 to the city charter. Section 119-1 explicitly granted the Chief of Police the authority to discipline police officers in any reasonably justifiable way, including demotion, suspension, or termination. This section also specified that the authority of the Chief of Police to discipline officers is subject to review by the Civilian Police Review Board and the Community Police Commission. In addition, it conferred the right to a hearing and due process to any officer demoted, suspended, or terminated, for more than 10 days.

Text of measure

The full text of this charter amendment is available here.

Support

Citizens for a Safer Cleveland led the campaign in support of this initiative.

Supporters

Individuals

• Justin Bibb, candidate for Cleveland mayor
• Ross DiBello, candidate for Cleveland mayor

Organizations

• The Fairness Project
• Ohio Organizing Collaborative
• ACLU of Ohio
• Black Lives Matter Cleveland
• NAACP Cleveland
• More Than a Vote

Arguments

• Latonya Goldsby of Cleveland Black Lives Matter: "We can’t allow the police to continue to police themselves. We know that that process does not work. Because these shootings have always been justified. No matter what actions that officers had taken, no matter what policies or procedures that officer may have violated ... We don't think that Issue 24 is going to push officers out of the city of Cleveland, if anything, it should attract a better quality of police officers to want to work."

• Justin Bibb, candidate for Cleveland mayor: "We spent nearly $30 million in the last 10 years settling police misconduct claims. Nearly 100 of our residents have been killed by police. We’ve got to change the culture.”

• Retired Cleveland police officer Richard Jackson: "Citizens are the only ones who can give the police department a grade on what they’re doing, the police department can’t grade themselves. And when the consent decree is over, we won’t have a monitoring team to give them a grade, so we have to rely on the citizens to give them a grade."

• Keizayla Fambro, civic engagement director for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a part of the Citizens for Safer Cleveland Coalition: "For far too long, we’ve seen police officers assault and kill black and brown people without consequences. When police departments aren’t accountable to anyone but themselves, it leads to even more dangerous decisions, hurts families and deepens the distrust in our community.”

• Subodh Chandra, civil rights attorney: In response to arguments that lower numbers of complaints about police officers indicate Issue 24 is not necessary, Chandra said, "Those falling [officer conduct complaint] statistics might be because people don’t have enough confidence in the system to even file a complaint anymore because they know the chief can overrule the civilian police review board’s recommendation, and he has."

Opposition

Opponents

• Sandra Williams, Ohio State Senator and mayoral candidate
• Kevin Kelly, Cleveland City Council President and mayoral candidate
• Basheer Jones, Cleveland City Councilmember and mayoral candidate
• Dennis Kucinich, candidate for Cleveland mayor
• Jeff Folmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen Association

Arguments

• Jeff Folmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen Association: "I think we are held accountable. I think we have cameras that hold us. We are the most disciplined in the state of Ohio, by far... We have cameras, the Department of Justice is watching us. The safety director and the chief, they are disciplining. We have OPS where we can go to civilian reviews, and we have a civilian review board. We are watched constantly; we are under the microscope. We're short of 150 officers right now. I got 300 officers eligible to retire, if this passes and we get the civilian review group in there by the first quarter of next year, we can be done 400 officers."

• Sandra Williams, Ohio State Senator and mayoral candidate: "I think the best way for us to come up with a system where everyone can be somewhat happy with is to sit down at the table and to start looking at this the way they are in Columbus."

• Kevin Kelly, Cleveland City Council President and mayoral candidate: "But to me, where it really falls down is the issue of discipline and who gets to do the discipline and how is this board held accountable. I know how you get rid of the mayor after four years. It seems like it’s more difficult to remove a member of this citizen committee than it is to remove the mayor of the city of Cleveland at the appropriate time. While it is likely well intended, there are many flaws in it that I cannot support it."

• Basheer Jones, Cleveland City Councilmember and mayoral candidate: "My take on it is I appreciate what the group is trying to do, but I disagree with removing power from the mayor and the safety director."

• Retired Cleveland police officer Gregory Pollard: "Mandating council, who we elect, those of us who vote, we elect them and you’re going to take the power away from them. If Issue 24 is approved officers could leave the Cleveland Police Department."

• Greater Cleveland Citizens for Public Safety: "No one wants to be a Cleveland police officer anymore. The good ones we have left will quit if Issue 24 passes.”"

• Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams: "(Issue 24) takes that power out of my hands, out of the safety director’s hands, and puts it in the charge of civilians that have no training in policing … and the citizens of this city deserve better."

Background

Police-related ballot measures in 2021

See also: Notable local police-related ballot measures (2021)

In 2021, Ballotpedia covered a selection of local police-related measures concerning police oversight, the powers and structure of oversight commissions, police practices, law enforcement department structure and administration, law enforcement budgets, law enforcement training requirements, law enforcement staffing requirements, and body and dashboard camera footage.

State	Jurisdiction	Title	Election date	Description	Result
New York	Albany	Proposal 7	November 2	Increases the authority of the Community Police Review Board over investigations and oversight of complains against police	a
Texas	Austin	Proposition A	November 2	Requires a minimum number of police officers and certain police training and sets demographically representative hiring practice guidelines	d
Washington	Bellingham	Initiative 2	November 2	Prohibits facial recognition and predictive policing technology	a
Colorado	Denver	Referred Question 2G	November 2	Transfers the power to appoint the Independent Monitor to the Office of the Independent Monitor, which is responsible for disciplinary investigations concerning the Denver police and sheriff’s departments, from the mayor to the Citizen Oversight Board	a
Minnesota	Minneapolis	Question 2	November 2	Replaces the police department with a department of public safety in the city charter	d
Ohio	Cleveland	Issue 24	November 2	Changes the oversight structure of the Cleveland Police Department	a
Michigan	Detroit	Proposition P	August 3	Revises the Detroit City Charter, with multiple changes to the Detroit Police Department included	d
Texas	Austin	Proposition C	May 1	Establishes the position of the Director of Police Oversight in the city charter	a
Texas	San Antonio	Proposition B	May 1	Repeals provisions allowing police officers to collectively bargain with the city	d
Pennsylvania	Pittsburgh	Ban No-Knock Warrants Initiative	May 18	Requires police to knock on a door, announce their presence, and wait at least 15 seconds before entering a residence to execute a warrant	a
Pennsylvania	Allegheny County	Prohibit Solitary Confinement Initiative	May 18	Prohibits the solitary confinement of persons held in the Allegheny County Jail	a
Illinois	Oak Park	Police Defunding Advisory Question	April 6	Advises the city to defund the police department	d

In 2020, Ballotpedia identified 20 police-related measures in 10 cities and four counties within seven states that appeared on local ballots. All 20 of the ballot measure were approved.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing local ballot measures in Ohio

To put a charter amendment on the ballot in an Ohio city, signatures from registered voters equal to 10% of votes cast in the city at the last general election are required. Cleveland voters cast 62,702 ballots at the election on November 7, 2017. Therefore, the signature requirement for a charter amendment in 2021 was set at 6,270.

• Citizens for a Safer Cleveland sponsored this initiative. They launched the signature petition drive on April 20, 2021.
• On June 16, 2021, Citizens for a Safer Cleveland submitted about 13,000 signatures to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
• On June 25, 2021, the county board of elections announced that 5,886 of the submitted signatures were valid.
• The group had 15 additional days to collect enough valid signatures to make up the difference and qualify for the ballot.
• On July 7, 2021, the committee submitted an additional 3,208 signatures for verification. The committee needs 384 more valid signatures from this additional batch of raw signatures.
• On July 16, 2021, the committee announced that the additional signatures had been verified and the initiative had qualified for the November ballot.

See also

Local measures

• Local measures in 2021
• Local law enforcement on the ballot
• Local charter amendments on the ballot
• Cuyahoga County measures

Ohio

• Ohio 2021 local measures
• Local ballot measures, Ohio
• Cleveland, Ohio

News and analysis

• State and local preemption conflicts
• Measures advancing national agendas

External links

Suggest a link

• Search Google News for this topic
• Cuyahoga County Elections Office website