Post by Nigel Parry. The Board Meeting Blog is an unofficial citizen record of the meetings and does not reflect any official CPRB position or policy, and is simply offered as a quick way of keeping up with what happens at the board meetings. Watch full-length video recordings of all CPRB meetings at cprbpgh.org/for-public-record/video/
As there was no quorum at either March or April’s board meeting, the draft minutes from February’s meeting still need to be approved. The February draft minutes were passed unanimously.
Executive Director Elizabeth Pittinger gave an update. CPRB is 26 years old as of Saturday!
Pittsburgh has a new chief of police, Larry Scirotto, a former assistant police chief in Pittsburgh who was confirmed today. His declared focus is on resolving staffing issues, as the bureau is 100 officers down right now. Scirotto is talking about launching a new cadet program and getting more involved in recruitment.
Other priorities he has expressed interest in publicly are officer wellness, a concern for a long time, and reducing waste by going paperless. Ms. Pittinger remarked that these priorities seem sound. CPRB has not had a chance to meet the new chief yet. The process by which the City hired the new police chief was not transparent, and CPRB is weighing how to proceed.
A software company called B3 has been providing proprietary software and technical support to the Pittsburgh Police. This relationship is being reexamined as other technological solutions are being investigated, to encourage a new focus on crowd-sourced reporting for nonviolent crimes such as property damage and vandalism, to save officer time and allow them to keep focused on violent crime.
The new CPRB Community Liaison position has been posted and will hopefully be in place by late summer. A new administrative assistant position is pending and should be posted soon. An investigative position previously posted is being reconsidered, in the hope of finding new candidates.
The term notifications for the four CPRB board member positions up in November will be sent to the Mayor’s office and City Council by June 1st.
The case agenda being reviewed today is cumulative due to the lack of quorum at the last two meetings. See separate Case Action Agendas for details on how individual cases proceeded or were disposed of.
Last meeting, the board discussed a case in which training materials were requested by CPRB and the City is not complying while resisting a civil subpoena. CPRB solicitor Mr. Ward has been trying to resolve this without resorting to a subpoena. The City responded on Thursday May 4th that they would send CPRB publicly available published officer procedures, which falls far beneath what was requested. After Mr. Ward’s reply, the City has not responded since Monday, May 8th.
CPRB will no longer negotiate in good faith and will issue its subpoena. Both what the CPRB is asking for is legitimate and the CIty’s own policy requires it to provide the requested materials. The subpoena will allow the City twenty days to provide the requested materials.
CPRB Board member Mr. Robinson pointed out that CPRB will be issuing this subpoena at a time when we haven’t met the police chief yet, and asked for thoughts about whether CPRB should approach the new chief with this specific issue before issuing the subpoena. CPRB solicitor Mr. Ward agreed that this was a good point but noted that we have been asking for materials since November—six months ago—and suggested we do this as a courtesy while proceeding.
Ms. Pittinger said she would reach out to the new police chief but noted that because the process was already in motion, he would most likely simply refer this to the law department, which CPRB has been negotiating with to date, with frustrating results.
The next meeting will be held on June 27th, 2023.
Post by Nigel Parry. The Board Meeting Blog is an unofficial citizen record of the meetings and does not reflect any official CPRB position or policy, and is simply offered as a quick way of keeping up with what happens at the board meetings. Watch full-length video recordings of all CPRB meetings at cprbpgh.org/for-public-record/video/.
