Miami-Dade voters won’t decide on civilian police review board
Reviving Miami-Dade County’s police review board hit another setback Tuesday when five commissioners blocked the vote needed to send the proposal to voters in November, but the oversight panel could still see new life by the end of the summer if Mayor Carlos Gimenez doesn’t issue another veto.
Because of procedural rules, sponsor Barbara Jordan need nine of the 13 commissioners to vote for a November ballot item amending the county charter to require a civilian oversight panel for the largest police department in the Southeast.
But she only needs seven votes to pass a law reviving the board, and on Tuesday Jordan promised to be back soon with a win with legislation Gimenez will support. While a reviewpanel law could be overturned by future commissioners, enacting it would bring back an oversight board that last convened in 2009.
“This is not over. The fat lady hasn’t sung,” Jordan told commissioners after the ballot item failed on an 8-5 vote. “If the mayor is true to his word, we’re going to have an independent civilian panel in August.”
Like other review panels in Miami and across the country, the board proposed by Jordan would have no disciplinary power over the county’s police department. But the commission-appointed board could hold hearings on alleged misconduct, give citizens a public venue for complaints and issue reports on incidents as well as recommendations on law enforcement policies and practices.
Tuesday’s defeat for Jordan was the latest loss in a two-year fight to revive the county’s Independent Review Panel, which lost its funding and shut down during a 2009 budget crisis when the county’s mayor was former police director Carlos Alvarez.
Miam-Dade’s police union opposes Jordan’s latest effort, and the five Republicans on the officially nonpartisan board have provided the “no” votes needed to block its revival during a summer when demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd during a Minneapolis arrest gave the issue new momentum.
Gimenez, a Republican candidate for Congress in Florida’s 26th District, vetoed Jordan’s legislation to revive the review panel in 2018, and again in July.
For her latest review-panel legislation, Jordan agreed to drop the subpoena power for county employees that Gimenez said was his main objection to the first version. Last month, Gimenez issued a statement urging the commission to consider Jordan’s “reworked legislation,” and a final vote is scheduled for Aug. 31.
COMPLAINTS ABOUT BUDGET, REDUNDANCY
Commissioners opposing Jordan’s proposals had various complaints, including the lack of a firm budget for the new county-run oversight panel and claims that Miami-Dade already had enough methods for investigating police misconduct through internal affairs and state investigations.
Jordan’s initial legislation showed Miami-Dade spending about $700,000 a year on the panel, less than the $1 million the county placed in the 2021 budget to revive the Orange Blossom Classic band competition.
Esteban “Steve” Bovo, one of three commissioners running to succeed Gimenez in November, said he opposed the review board because of the anti-police message it would send.
“Our police department should not be compared to what we saw in Minneapolis,” said Bovo, who won the police union’s endorsement in the 2020 mayoral race. “I think this is a condemnation of our police department, and all of the work that’s been done over the years.”
Joining Bovo in opposing the referendum on a review panel were Commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Joe Martinez, Rebeca Sosa and Javier Souto. Bovo’s rival commissioners in the Aug. 18 primary in the mayoral race, Daniella Levine Cava and Xavier Suarez, joined the rest of the board in voting “yes.”
In previous meetings, commissioners had already approved three ballot items for November: one making the Inspector General’s office part of the charter, one allowing quicker elections for commissioners who resign to run for office, and one allowing MiamiDade to hold nonpartisan elections for certain posts, including sheriff, if Florida courts reverse a prior ruling requiring partisan contests.
County rules require a twothird vote to add more than three county questions to a presidential ballot, which allowed five commissioners to block Jordan’s police-board referendum for November.
Jeanne Baker, a longtime advocate for the panel and a leader of Florida’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued commissioners should give residents the chance to decide on more police oversight. “Allow the people to vote,” she said. “You shouldn’t fear that.”