Reform panel might go public
BRIDGEPORT — A group of elected officials, city staff and activists meeting about policing reforms may have to either reconsider how they do business or dissolve to avoid breaking state Freedom of Information rules.
“We’re going to speak to the working group and decide what next steps they want to take,” said City Council President Aidee Nieves, who recently organized the
effort with Councilman Scott Burns. “The decision will be made by the entirety of the group.”
In an effort to further the council’s previously stated goal of improving the police department and officers’ relations with the community, Nieves and Burns convened a 10-person “collaborative” with representatives from Mayor Joe Ganim’s office, the police force, the police commission, the health department, FaithActs for Education, the Greater Bridgeport NAACP, Bridgeport Generation Now and the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance.
Participants were to spend the next three to four months holding private,
twice-a-month teleconferences.
But a representative with the state Freedom of Information Commission this week informally advised The Connecticut Post that such meetings — so far three have taken place — may have to be public, with publicly available agendas and minutes.
Thomas Hennick, the FOI Commission’s public education officer, Monday in an email wrote that in his opinion, if Nieves and Burns were acting in their official capacity and not just as “concerned citizens,” then the collaborative “would be ... subject to” the Freedom of Information Act.
He emphasized that only the commission could issue a legal ruling on the matter should a complaint be filed. No such complaint has been
filed.
After learning of Hennick’s view from The Post, Burns phoned Hennick to further discuss the matter and said Friday he tended to agree.
“I think we’re going to change the structure of what we’re doing,” Burns said. “I think we need to revisit it.”
Not only have Burns and Nieves made it clear they were acting in their capacity as local legislators, but they have been using their municipal emails and city technology to organize and facilitate the collaborative’s meetings.
Burns said there are a few options, including asking the full council to vote on formalizing the working group or having one of the council’s subcommittees — such as budgets, which Burns chairs, or public safe
ty — instead take on the work.
But Nieves had previously said the point of establishing the collaborative was to allow other officials and community leaders to have an equal seat at the table, rather than simply making suggestions to a council committee.
Burns emphasized that he and Nieves had told the rest of the legislative body about their plans and had received little push back. Councilwoman Maria Pereira in an interview last week complained the effort was too secretive for such an important topic.
“It’s not like we’re trying to get away with something,” Burns said Friday, adding: “My view is we’ll take whatever steps we need to to make sure we comply and if it changes the nature
of the work, it changes the nature of the work.”
Nieves on Friday hoped that if the collaborative continues and its teleconferences have to be public, that their efforts will be equally productive: “One of my concerns when we first started was, because we’re all coming from different perspectives, if the conversations being public was going to cause people to be guarded. We had to build trust in our conversations and understanding each others’ perspectives before we start doing these publicly.”
The police reform group had also been criticized by Justice for Jayson, a movement begun following the 2017 shooting death of 15year-old Jayson Negron by a rookie Bridgeport officer. Justice for Jayson was part of a several-day summer en
campment/protest outside of police headquarters and last Friday some members gathered outside of Nieves’ home, calling for eliminating law enforcement altogether.
Mikaela Adams, a Justice for Jayson representative, in an email Friday when asked about the collaborative said the “secret” meetings should be public. She questioned whether enough of the collaborative’s members were critical of the police.
“If this committee is transparent and open to the public, it allows for a more challenging discussion instead of just agreement,” Adams wrote.
Over the weekend Justice for Jayson and Pereira said they plan to file a formal complaint about the collaborative with the state Freedom of Information Commission.