A hefty workload. In-fighting. Two lawsuits. Back to square one on a major hire. It’s been a rocky start for the Madison Police Civilian Oversight Board, which met for the first time in November 2020. The board will eventually oversee a new city agency — the Office of the Independent Police Monitor — with the power to influence and investigate the Madison Police Department. But it could be another year, maybe longer, until this new check on law enforcement is fully operational. Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores, vice chair of the civilian oversight board, acknowledges progress has been slow.
“I don’t think any of the board members knew what we were signing up for in terms of the time commitment and the amount of public scrutiny,” says Kilfoy-Flores. “We also didn’t have the built-in support from city staff that other committees get and that workload fell on us.”
She and other board members in late December thought they had reached a critical next step — the hiring of the independent monitor to run this new city agency. Byron Bishop, currently the manager of the city’s Equal Opportunities Division, was the lone finalist for the job. But on Jan. 3, Bishop publicly withdrew his name from consideration. The civilian oversight board will have to start the hiring process all over again.
“It’s a bummer,” says Kilfoy-Flores, who confirms this delays the board’s progress even further. “This doesn’t change the goal, though. We need to find the right person for the job no matter how long it takes.”
Madison is the first city in Wisconsin to have a Police Civilian Oversight Board and an independent monitor position. It’s taken years to get this far. Both were recommended by consultants at the OIR Group, which was paid $400,000 to perform a top-to-bottom review of the Madison Police Department after officer Matt Kenny fatally shot 19-year-old Tony Robinson in 2015. The review was completed in late 2017. After the police killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed, there was new urgency to create the independent monitor office and the Police Civilian Oversight Board. The Madison Common Council approved both in August 2020 with support from Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.
Former Alds. Rebecca Kemble, Shiva Bidar and Donna Moreland took the lead on writing the final language that created the oversight board and independent monitor office. Kemble says alders designed the board to include community members most negatively impacted by the police.
“The role of the civilian oversight board is to be a watchdog in the community over the police that isn’t controlled by the existing power structure,” says Kemble. “The other half is the independent monitor, which takes direction from the board about what needs looking into.”
Kemble says it was important that the board hire the independent monitor to ensure the position was truly separate from the usual influences of city politics. But that has proven a difficult assignment.
“That’s a lot to do as you’re trying to define what you are as an entity that’s never existed before,” says UW law professor Keith Findley, who as an alternate on the 11-member board participates in meetings but is only allowed to vote if someone is absent. “I think it’s understandable why it took some time. Once the independent monitor is on the job, the real work of engaging with the police department can begin in earnest.”
With the civilian oversight board almost singularly focused in 2021 on the hiring of an independent monitor, all of their other responsibilities outlined by city ordinance have been put on the back burner. Board members are charged with overseeing investigations into police misconduct, recommending changes to police policies, and filing annual reports. None of these tasks have happened in the board’s first year.
In creating the civilian oversight board alders were intent on getting people on the board who represent groups most negatively affected by police actions. The mayor and the city council appointed one member and one alternate each and the other nine members were nominated by community organizations: The Community Response Team, Freedom Inc., JustDane, NAACP, National Alliance on Mental Illness, OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center, UNIDOS Against Domestic Violence, Urban Triage and the YWCA.
Ald. Brian Benford says one of the board’s strengths is the diverse makeup of its members. But he isn’t shocked the board has struggled to reach consensus on issues.
“This group was tasked with a big job and to be trailblazers in setting up a new mechanism of community oversight of the police. There are a lot of dedicated people on this board with strong opinions and that’s a good thing,” says Benford. “I know and respect many of the personalities on that board. But when I first saw the list I thought, goodness gracious, this is gonna be kind of a train wreck.”
Former Ald. Isadore Knox, a member of the board who worked for Dane County and the state for 30 years, says that board members have a diverse set of opinions about the police and that they are reflective of how the broader community feels.
“We have people in this community that are totally supportive [of the police]. We have community members that are supportive but realize that there needs to be some reform to how the police department works. And then we have people that want to defund or even eliminate the police department,” says Knox. “Given the history of policing in the United States, that shouldn’t be a surprise.”
But the way board members are selected is now the subject of a federal lawsuit filed in June 2021 by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a conservative law firm and advocacy organization.
The ordinance which created the board “requires at least one member who is African-American, Asian, Latinx, Native American, and a member of the LGBTQ community.” It also requires “40 percent of members with lived experience with homelessness, mental health, substance abuse and/or arrest or conviction records.”
David Blaska, a conservative blogger and former county board supervisor, applied to be on the board and was not selected. WILL’s lawsuit alleges that Blaska was ineligible for nine of the 11 seats on the civilian oversight board because he is white and is a victim of “unconstitutional racial quotas.” Blaska calls the lawsuit a “slam dunk” and believes the oversight board should be eliminated.
“It’s bad policy and bad law. It’s illegal,” says Blaska. “I’m opposed to racially-based institutions. You can quote me on this: ‘Who, really, are the racists in this fight?’”
Ankita Bharadwaj, another member of the civilian oversight board, declines to comment on the lawsuit but sees a different flaw in how the board is selected.
“I feel tokenized because I fulfill the requirement of the city ordinance that there should be at least one Asian on the board,” says Bharadwaj, who was born in India. “I am that Asian on that board. But I cannot speak for East Asia and Southeast Asia because Asia is a very big continent…. The issue is not understanding the intersectionality of the identities. And that is something I feel we as a community need to change.”
In December, former military police officer Eric Hill filed state and federal discrimination complaints against the city because he was rejected as a finalist for the independent monitor position. Hill told the Wisconsin State Journal that he found “29 separate instances of biased, defamatory statements — occasionally containing obscene language — impugning my race, gender and former profession, among the social media accounts of seven out of the 11 voting members in charge of hiring for this position.”
Kilfoy-Flores says these legal challenges are an attempt to intimidate members of the oversight board and derail the new Office of the Independent Police Monitor.
“They are nothing but distractions,” says Kilfoy-Flores. “It’s sad that city resources will be wasted dealing with these [lawsuits].”
The civilian oversight board has also made headlines for trying to give its chair a hefty bonus. In November, the board debated whether to give chair Keetra Burnette a one-time honorarium for her work hiring the independent monitor and leading the board. The money would come from the funds budgeted but not spent in 2021 for the monitor position.
For the vast majority of city committees, members do not receive compensation. Those on the civilian oversight board receive $100 per month plus reimbursements for child care. At a Nov. 10 meeting, the board’s executive committee debated which members should be given a one-time honorarium payment, ultimately approving $10,000 for Burnette for her work as chair.
During the meeting, Burnette advocated for why she should receive the honorarium — an apparent violation of the city’s ethics code against using a public position “to obtain financial gain.” She disputed that other members deserved additional compensation. Burnette did not respond to Isthmus’ request for comment.
Burnette told the executive committee that the independent monitor, once hired, would be responsible for providing staff support to the oversight board. But during the months the board has operated without an independent monitor, that duty has fallen to her and compensation was deserved. No one disputes that Burnette has filled a gap in leadership that threatened to delay the board’s progress. Burnette said she would be “happy to calculate the honorarium” payment based on what the independent monitor would be paid for the same work.
“It’ll be a helluva lot more than $10,000,” Burnette told the executive committee.
Board member Ananda Deacon said the pay was warranted because “as people of color we are trained to accept that our labor will be unpaid and that going above and beyond is expected of us.”
Knox praised the chair’s work, but argued it was “irresponsible” to give a board member a lump sum of money in this manner.
“A lot of people volunteer their time to serve the good of the public,” Knox said. “What’s the reputation of this board going to be…if we compensate ourselves more and we haven’t even hired a staff person yet.”
Bharadwaj also objected to Burnette’s honorarium because it was “a conflict of interest” and “unethical.”
Yet the full board on Nov. 18 voted 7-0 with three abstentions to recommend a $20,000 honorarium for Burnette. Kilfoy-Flores said she was concerned that alders might balk at the honorarium because it’s $5,000 more than what city council members are paid annually. Council president Syed Abbas confirms alders have not introduced a resolution to act on the honorarium recommendation and he hasn’t heard of any plans to do so.
The oversight board will begin the new year by restarting the hiring process to find an independent monitor. WILL’s lawsuit is moving forward, with a jury trial tentatively scheduled for November 2022. No timeline has been set for resolution of Hill’s discrimination complaints. Deputy City Attorney Patricia Lauten says her office is “confident that when the investigation is concluded it will show that Mr. Hill’s military service played no part in his failure to move on in the hiring process. As this is a current litigation matter, the city has no plans to comment further.”
Despite the oversight board’s troubled first year, its fans remain confident of its promise. Michael Gennaco, head of the OIR Group, says the independent monitor office will be a “game changer” once it’s in place.
“We’ve seen an increase in cities across the country looking into creating independent monitor offices since the death of George Floyd,” says Gennaco. “But there’s still only a handful of cities that have it fully implemented. Madison may very well serve as a model for the country.”
Board member Maia Pearson, who also serves on the Madison school board, says she is looking forward to providing a new “community-centered” tool to hold the police accountable.
“I’m optimistic that we will soon start figuring out the details of our long-term role,” says Pearson. “My hope is, by this time next year, that we would have the independent monitor office set up, and that we as a board will know what our responsibilities are moving forward.”
And Kilfoy-Flores is certain that the hard work of the civilian oversight board in its inaugural year will pay off.
“I know we can make a difference in the community,” says Kilfoy-Flores. “We will make Madison a safer place for everyone and we are on the path to get there.”
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores.
