HOORAY FOR POLICE AUDIT PECULIARITIES

Not so long ago, Peter Goodman exposed the peculiarities of a contractor and a contract for animal rescue services.  As an animal lover, I say, “hooray for Peter.”  Now I hope for a “hooray” from him for noting peculiarities about the OIR contract for a police audit.

Peculiarity 1: The OIR proposal commits 20% of the time of each of five people, three of them principals, or a fully loaded, full-time equivalent, to work costing no more than $75,000 annually, or $37.50 hourly.  For most non-teaching professionals in any part of the country, not to mention California, these figures are suspiciously low.

Peculiarity 2: The contract requires a great deal of work, much focused on cases handled by Internal Affairs, “to ensure [IA’s] investigations were complete, objective, thorough, and fair and that findings and actions taken in response to the investigations were appropriate.”  For $75,000, OIR can review few cases thoroughly, and its report on IA investigations and reports can be neither comprehensive nor reliable.

Peculiarity 3: City Council wants both “detail” and “trends.”  Depending on how many cases OIR reviews, Council cannot have both for the cost.

Peculiarity 4: Council, by limiting cases for review to those completed since 1 May 2021, ruled out prior completed cases back to the last police audit in 2018.  It thus ruled out my case exposing IA and LCPD deficiencies in investigations and responses, despite the Mayor’s promises to me and to City Council that it would be included.

Peculiarity 5: Council’s stipulated date apparently is not an agreed-upon provision of the OIR contract.  The City Clerk’s responses to my IPRA requests, based on reports from the City Manager’s, City Attorney’s, and Police Chief’s offices, have denied any such documentation.  Any informal agreement by handshake or wink-and-nod would be an improper way for the City to conduct business with a contractor.

Peculiarity 6: OIR’s commitment to make comprehensive assessments satisfying demands for “detail” and “trends” of cases for little money is hard to square with its purported professionalism or quality of its work.

Peculiarity 7: So many peculiarities.

In tomorrow’s work session, Council will discuss matters relating to police reform and the police audit.  The discussion should be an interesting one.  Hooray?