After the removal of Grace Mitchell from the Chair position of the Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB), Urbana residents had high hopes that the new leader of the board, Professor Mikhail Lyubansky would be able to turn things around. The CPRB had fallen into a decade-long state of dysfunction and had recently received a myriad of complaints from residents, well summarized in a Public i article authored by community watchdog Christopher Hansen.
Lyubansky chaired his first meeting on June 24th, 2020, and announced his resignation from the board just two months later on August 26th. Before taking the reins, the University of Illinois Psychology Professor said he was enthusiastic about helping promote change in Urbana’s police review process. However, it did not take long before the task became “unsustainable”. Lyubansky cited time and family commitments as his reason for leaving the board.
“It has become evident to me that the time commitment required of the chair at this moment in time, is not sustainable for me. When I was recruited to the CPRB by Alex Bautista in April 2016, it was essentially a commitment of about 5-6 hours per quarter, or about 25 hours for the year, not including various training activities.”
Lyubansky said that after taking the Chair position, “there are some weeks where I’ve spent more than 25 hours on CPRB related activities – more than the previous year.”
Lyubansky did not explain why he was resigning from the CPRB altogether, rather than simply stepping down from the Chair position.
Lyubansky is the fourth person to leave the CPRB in as many months. Grace Mitchell, Darius White, and Grace Pelmore also left the board this year. Pelmore had only attended one meeting before resigning without explanation. The board is normally composed of seven members.
The CPRB was joined by two brand new members at the August 26th meeting: Katrina Kindle and Tony Allegretti. Before Lyubansky’s resignation at the end of the meeting, this was the first time since January that the CPRB had a full roster.
The August 26th, 2020 CPRB meeting can be viewed here (Lyubansky reads his resignation letter at the very end of the meeting):
