Aldermen back IPRA chief to lead COPA
Independent Police Review Authority chief Sharon Fairley maintained Tuesday that she’s not angling for the permanent job of running Chicago’s new Civilian Office of Police Accountability — not even after a handful of aldermen suggested just that.
“You deserve to stay there,” Ald. Ariel Reboyras ( 30th), chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, told Fairley during a budget hearing.
Ald. Anthony Napolitano ( 41st) is a former police officer- turned-firefighter whose Northwest Side ward is home to scores of police officers who believe COPA will be stacked against them.
But even he told Fairley, “I have a lot of confidence in you. You’re doing a great job.”
Fairley will preside over the transition from IPRA to COPA that’s expected to take until midyear at the earliest. She also will serve as COPA’s temporary chief because Mayor Rahm Emanuel has postponed indefinitely the appointment of a civilian oversight board that will choose the new permanent COPA chief.
Asked Tuesday if she would like to make that arrangement permanent, Fairley said, “This transition is so big and so important, that’s all I can focus on right now. We have so much work that’s going on to get this agency off to a right start, I want to get that done. Then you can ask me that question,” she said.
But, “It’s always nice to get positive feedback,” she said.
Fairley has good reason to be pleased. She got pretty much everything she wanted, including a guaranteed budget and the power to hire independent counsel.
Advocates have complained that the $ 8.4 million IPRA budget virtually guarantees that investigations of police wrongdoing will drag on for months or even years. COPA’s budget will be “closer to $ 17 million,” Fairley said.
To counter fears that the agency will not live up to the name, Fairley is putting together a “community advisory board.” Only this time, it’ll be made up of independent activists, not the usual suspects.
“It includes community activists, such as Will Calloway. We have membership from affected families, [ including] Mr. Farmer, whose son was the subject of an officer- involved shooting. We have some activists who are in the legal community,” Fairley said.
“For me it’s like, what’s the point if we’re gonna have a bunch of yes men,” she said. “That’s not the point of it for me. The point is to get really good and helpful feedback and advice.”