CU-Underground is in receipt of a concerning memo which was sent to all of the Champaign Citizens who volunteer their time to work on various boards and subcommittees of the City of Champaign. Targeted boards include the Board of Trustees of the Champaign Public Library, the Human Relations Commission, the Citizen Review Subcommittee for police complaints, and more than a dozen others. Such boards have been established and shaped over the decades by dozens of past elected city councils as a means to actively engage residents in the actions of the City of Champaign. Most boards and commissions far pre-date the current sitting council, with the oldest board being established in 1968. This network of boards and commissions is the City’s primary means for keeping in-touch with the public, and represents a centuries-long aggregation of efforts to do so.
The 7 page memo, sent out by Assistant City Attorney Kathryn Cataldo, urges the volunteer board members to limit their interactions with engaged citizens. The memo encourages boards to enforce time restrictions on public participation, and advises that board members do not respond to public comments. To make the memo appear less draconian, Assistant City Attorney Cataldo attaches a pamphlet featuring a friendly little dinosaur. However you sugar-coat it, this push is contrary to the purpose of the boards and commissions.
Fully understanding the significance of this memo, and the current state of volunteer boards in the City of Champaign, requires a deeper understanding of what has been happening over the past year at some of these board meetings. Many citizens have become frustrated with the lack of police oversight and the general apathy and corruption within the city staff members that oversee police and human rights violations. Numerous citizens have spoken about this at various board meetings during 2019, citing misconduct by multiple city employees and staff members.
At the October 15, 2019 City Council meeting, council member Clarissa Nickerson Fourman nearly threw a child-like fit when she announced that she had initiated a study session request to review the roles of City boards and commissions. Fourman was reacting to the comments of two members of the Citizen Review Subcommittee for police complaints who spoke during public participation that night. Fourman went on to complain about how Champaign Police Chief Anthony Cobb was put on the spot during a recent Champaign Citizen Review Subcommittee (CRS) meeting, thought it was Cobb who was craftily trying to dodge simple questions.
Fourman also accused commission members of not treating city staff with respect and overstepping their boundaries. She specifically cited the case of Community Relations Manager & Compliance Officer Rachel Joy, who was recently found to have been snuffing citizen police complaints so that they are never processed. Joy’s unscrupulous conduct, along with that of several other staff members, has been illuminated by multiple citizens during public participation at CRS and Human Relations Commission meetings.
The general movement of the sitting Champaign City Council appears to be in the direction of minimizing the impact of volunteer boards and squelching the speech and participation of citizens as much as possible. Clarissa Fourman’s “study session” appears to be a probing effort by the Council to see how they can reel-in and control the distributed arms of the Champaign City government. It seems the council wants to have the appearance of public engagement, without actually letting the public engage. At the same time, some city staff, namely those in the City Manager’s and City Attorney’s Offices, are seeing opportunities to reduce the abilities of citizens to bring to light misconduct of city staff. These entrenched interests are working to serve themselves, and citizens have a lot to lose.
UPDATE: A new article on this issue has been posted: Boards and Commissions Under Scrutiny by Champaign City Council
UPDATE 2: Assistant City Attorney Laura Hall Violates Her Own Rules on Public Input at Meetings