Syracuse Common Councilors are working to reactivate the Citizen Review Board so it can resume investigating complaints against police officers. Board vacancies and the ongoing search for a new administrator have all but halted CRB operations.
The CRB last met in early December. This week, councilors appointed a replacement for board chair Lori Nilsson and two others whose terms expired. Councilor-at-large and public safety committee chair Chol Majok says they’re making progress.
“That brings CRB to 10. So one is still missing," Majok said. "We have to find one more individual, which is already in the works. We have couple of candidates that are potential to bring the CRB board to full.”
The seats all need to be filled so the board can hire a new CRB administrator and support staff who resigned last year. Only the volunteer board, not the mayor or common council, can hire and fire the administrator. Majok says they’re trying to bridge the gap in the meantime.
“Since there are no staff, what we what we are doing is we are putting somebody in there part time on a temporary basis so that it helps the transition of finding the administrator and helping the administrator when they get here," Majok said. "Then we'll will empower the administrator to fill the rest of the positions.”
Meanwhile, cases continue to pile up, though Majok says others have jumped in to take calls and check emails.
“Since there's no one in the CRB to do it, we have pushed it to our clerk, to our secretaries, to really share that that responsibility," Majok said.
The staffing crisis is just the latest of the CRB’s challenges. Last year, criticism grew as the organization struggled to complete complaint investigations in a timely manner, hold hearings, and make a quorum at its board meetings. That prompted common council legislation to increase their oversight, but it was vetoed by the mayor citing the original law enacting the CRB as a citizen-controlled entity.
