Matt Leslie
A meeting of the Police Oversight Proposal Committee (POPC) has been scheduled for 7:00 p.m., Monday, July 15 at the Fullerton Public Library’s Osbourne Auditorium. The library is located at 353 W. Commonwealth Ave, next to City Hall. The Osbourne Auditorium is downstairs on the west side of the building. POPC is a grassroots group of concerned Fullerton residents. It is not an official committee affiliated with the City of Fullerton.
POPC has developed a draft resolution intended to institute civilian oversight of the Fullerton Police Department through the formation of a Police Commission. The resolution has been submitted to the city.
Members of the public interested in pursuing this agenda or learning about the current status of police oversight in Fullerton are welcome to attend the meeting.
The city council has so far held one study session on the subject of police oversight since the death of Kelly Thomas over two years ago. A discussion item about the subject is projected to take place at the August 20 meeting of the city council, though no final decision is evidently expected at that time.
fullertonrag.com 
The City Council, by ordinance, shall establish a Civilian Law Enforcement Oversight Commission consisting of not less than five (5) nor more than nine (9) members appointed by the City Council. Members of the Civilian Law Enforcement Oversight Commission shall serve without compensation for terms not to exceed two years as established by ordinance, and members shall be appointed for not more than three consecutive full terms. Fullerton City employees and persons employed as peace officers or custodial officers in Fullerton or any other jurisdiction shall not be eligible to be members of the Civilian Law Enforcement Oversight Commission.
(b) Members of the Civilian Law Enforcement Oversight Commission shall serve at the pleasure of the City Council. At large appointments may be removed at any time by a majority vote of the City Council. Direct appointments may be removed at the discretion of the appointing City Councilmember
Based on thetwo paragraphs above, the oversight commission will be completely wothless. We all know that if members are appointed by the scoundrels on the council, and serve “at the pleasure” of the council, then only friends of the concil’s various members will be appointed to do exactly as the council and their minions including the city and PD “employees” dictate. In other words, nothing significant, so either figure out a better answer, a commission independent of the council and PD et al, or just forget it, as it is it’ll be a huge and dangerous joke on those who naively file complaints thinking it’s real and that they’ll get real answers.
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POPC kicked around the idea of electing commission members, but settled on commission members appointed by the council for two reasons. 1) If the commission is not doing their job, the voters of Fullerton can pressure the council into appointing better commission members or risk not being re-elected or even recalled. 2) If the commission were to be directly elected by the voters, there would be the opportunity for the Police Unions to hand-pick and fund commission members. (This is not unlike what was attempted in the last city council election.)
POPC does not support what was proposed in Anaheim and was alluded to by Chief Hughes during the Study Session, that the Chief of Police appoint the commission members.
Other ideas are welcomed and I would appreciate your participation on Monday night at the library.
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