Rhodes Conway Takes on the Police Monitor

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway is showing courage.

Facing down a record $22 million deficit, the mayor outlined what she would cut if voters fail to approve a referendum allowing the city to exceed state taxing limits. Most of her cuts are mundane — closing ice rinks, cutting Sunday library hours, reducing brush pick up, that kind of thing. But one proposed cut stands out for its courageousness. Rhodes Conway would abolish the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, saving over $500,000. And even if the referendum passes she would still slash the office’s budget by almost $200,000.

In a sane world this would be a no-brainer. But this is not a sane world. I would be surprised if the mayor’s proposal survives the council budget process. Because this isn’t really about the cops; it’s about race. And when it comes to race, hollow symbolism is priceless and certainly worth a half million dollars.

But from a rational, good government point of view, there’s no defense at all for continuing to waste taxpayer money like this. Let’s review.

In the months following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis there was some appropriate soul-searching about how far we still need to go with regard to race in America. But there was also a lot of bad judgement. For a while it seemed like no idea was too crazy. Hard-left activists took that promising, tragic moment and squandered it with their calls to defund the police.

In Madison, among the blindly anti-police policies that cropped up was the Police Monitor. It never made any sense. It was a solution in search of a problem. For one thing, the Madison Police Department is among the most progressive in the country. Whatever cultural issues might haunt the department in Minneapolis, those were not a problem here. For another thing, there is plenty of civilian oversight already from the Police and Fire Commission — which actually hires, fires and disciplines cops, including the chief — the Public Safety Review Board, the City Council and the Mayor.

But a bad idea in concept became farcical in practice. The monitor is supposed to be overseen by a new committee (Madison has a lot of committees) called the Police Civilian Oversight Board. Together, the monitor and the board have demonstrated an impressive degree of incompetence combined with a stunning amount of arrogance. They’re not just doing a horrible job; they’re officious while they’re doing a horrible job.

Let’s review the record.

• When the board was created a last minute amendment on the council floor required that at least half the board be made up of Black members, a clear violation of law, which was demonstrated when the city was promptly sued and lost.

• Then the board took months just to get itself organized. When they finally were ready to start the hiring process for a police monitor they couldn’t get a single executive search firm to help them, a bad sign when you consider that these firms should want the business.

• So, they took the process in-house but dragged their feet and were less than transparent while board members took to social media to air their biases about the candidates, resulting in a discrimination lawsuit.

• When they finally did hire a monitor it came to light that, at a previous job, Byron Bishop had discriminated against an employee who he had had an affair with and he had owned a private security firm that had dropped the ball in supplying security personnel for the city’s first Freak Fest (something I recall all too clearly). One might pause here and wonder how well the board was vetting its candidates even as it took an inordinate amount of time in the hiring process.

• In any event, after Bishop withdrew they picked another candidate who thought better of it (how can you blame him?) and he also withdrew.

• They finally got down to second runner-up Robert Copley (now Robin Copley). Copley was hired more than two years after the board was established during a period when simply making that hire was the only substantive thing on its agenda.
• In the 18 months or so Copley has been on the job she hasn’t even produced a complaint process. Not that there have been any complaints to process, underscoring the wastefulness of the whole darn thing.

• And to reward themselves for all of that stellar work, the board voted to recommend that they should be paid thousands of dollars in additional “honorariums”, even though they are already the only city committee whose members are paid a stipend under city ordinance. (A couple more of the city’s 100 committees get paid a smaller amount as required by state law.)
• To top it all off, just last week the Madison police union filed a complaint against the board chair, Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores, alleging that she interfered with an officer who was arresting her daughter in a domestic dispute. Kilfoy-Flores is reported to have asked the officer, “Do you know who I am? I’m the Chair of Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board. You will be thoroughly investigated to make sure any of your arrests involving young black women will be thoroughly investigated,” according to the complaint, and “your discrimination tonight is obvious.” If only she had a complaint process to follow…

The whole thing has been a mess from the start. But even if it were being run competently it would be unnecessary. Maybe Minneapolis needs a police monitor. Maybe Milwaukee does. In Madison, there’s already plenty of civilian oversight over a department that doesn’t need much of it.

So, Rhodes Conway, who was once a strong supporter of the monitor, is doing the right thing by cutting it. If only her cuts would stick.