City pushes back on bill to reform FPC
In a public hearing with state lawmakers Thursday, the City of Milwaukee pushed back against aspects of proposed legislation with bipartisan support that would significantly reform how the city’s Fire and Police Commission functions.
Senate Bill 117 would require the commission to operate with nine members and that two of them be selected from a list of candidates supplied by unions representing nonsupervisory police officers and firefighters.
When similar legislation was proposed in 2017, Mayor Tom Barrett called it “an attack on the city.”
The new bill was introduced in mid-February by Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, and five Republicans, including Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, the chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety.
Other aspects of the bill would tighten term limits on commissioners and give the Common Council power to appoint commissioners when the mayor fails to do so in a timely manner.
It’s part of a package of seven bills that mainly focus on the use of force in law enforcement. Together, the package would formally ban chokeholds across the state except in life-or-death situations, stipulate how use-of-force incidents are reported and require the Wisconsin Department of Justice to collect and publish data in such incidents.
All were the subject of a special public hearing for Wanggaard’s Senate committee at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Student Union on Thursday.
“The reason that this legislation is happening is because, with all due respect, the mismanagement, the failure to do the appointments that need to be done,” said Taylor, who ran against Barrett for Milwaukee mayor in 2020 and has criticized him for dysfunction at the Fire and Police Commission before.
“I am concerned that we have a Fire and Police Commission that has shown itself to be in chaos,” she said.
The bill comes after a rough year for the commission. For three months it has made no progress on selecting a new, permanent police chief; the previous chair of the commission resignedduring an ethics probe into his conduct; and the city could be on the hook for a potentially large settlement with former police Chief Alfonso Morales after the commission demoted him last summer without giving him due process.
Jordan Primakow, the legislative fiscal manager for the City of Milwaukee, said Senate Bill 117 would remove local control over its public safety oversight board and give outsized power to police and fire departments over their own disciplinary processes.
He pledged support for some aspects of the bill, such as more public meetings about hiring police and fire chiefs. But Primakow primarily took issue with provisions that place union-approved commissioners on the board and disciplinary panels.
He said Barrett and the Common Council have already demonstrated an interest to have retired public safety professionals on the commission. Requiring union-approved commissioners to sit on disciplinary panels could create conflicts of interest, he said.
Primakow indicated it would be more acceptable for the bill to require one former police and fire professional each on the commission, but at the discretion of the mayor and without union involvement.
Taylor did not push back against Primakow’s comments, but Wanggaard challenged the idea that two union-approved commissioners on a board of nine members represented an “outsized” influence. He said the commission needs more expertise on public safety.
“It is so important to have someone there who understands what the process is,” he said.