Urbana Mayor Marlin to Choose New Police Review Board Member Amidst Storm of Misconduct Allegations

On May 5^th, 2020, Mayor Diane Marlin announced that she will be accepting applications for a vacant seat on Urbana’s Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB).

Grace Mitchell, the Chair of the CPRB, and a member of the group since its founding in 2007, has resigned her position after widespread criticism from the public that the board has gone rogue from their mandate as written in City ordinance.

Within the past year, residents have become more vocal about the CPRB’s faults, which include failing to file quarterly and annual reports for over 5 years. Mitchell also pressed the board to stop reviewing most Taser usages, a CPRB responsibility which is mandated by law.

Within the past six months, the public has also come to learn that the Urbana Police Department has not been submitting copies of civilian complaints to the CPRB, which means that the board has not been maintaining their complaint registry. Perhaps the most malignant realization has been that Urbana City staff and Urbana Police, including Chief Bryant Seraphin, have been actively finding creative ways to deny civilian police complaints, which means that they will never even have a chance of being recognized as valid complaints by the CPRB.

All of these contentious issues means that tensions are high among the Police Department, the CPRB, and engaged residents. At recent City Council meetings, many residents have argued for a restructuring of the existing CPRB Ordinance. There is no questions that the new CPRB chair, Mikhail Lyubansky, has a difficult road ahead of him. Whomever is chosen to fill the currently vacant board seat had better be prepared for the storm ahead.

Mayor Diane Wolfe Marlin, who holds an unwavering political alliance with the Urbana Police Department, has been a central target of criticism for how the City handled the Aleyah Lewis arrest. All eyes will be on Marlin as she makes her choice. After Marlin chooses someone for the vacant CPRB seat, the City Council must approve.

The last notable position in which Marlin was charged with assigning a replacement was that of Dean Hazen’s City Council seat earlier this year. Hazen, a retired Urbana police officer who was staunchly against the creation of the CPRB, cut a deal of some sort with Marlin to transfer his seat to the Chief of Police for Parkland College, William Colbrook.

Marlin advertised the vacant CPRB seat on Facebook, and has given interested residents until May 20^th to submit their applications.