The Boulder City Council voted unanimously on Thursday, June 15, to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would allow the Police Oversight Panel to pause its work of reviewing internal investigations into complaints of officer misconduct.
The directive comes after the Police Oversight Panel decided last month to halt this core function of its work in order to focus on revising the 2020 ordinance that created the panel.
If city council were to approve a moratorium, it would likely give the panel greater protection from mounting legal complaints. (One Boulder resident has already filed a code of conduct complaint against the panel alleging they are “staging a ‘strike’ against the citizens of Boulder they are obligated to serve” under city code.)
In recent months, the work of the panel has been thrown into upheaval: Residents have lodged legal complaints alleging panel members are biased against police, the Boulder City Council voted to remove a member, and a member of the NAACP Boulder County is suing the Boulder City Council over that panel member’s removal.
The city is hosting a community conversation on June 21 at 5 p.m. at the Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Theater to gather feedback from community members on changes they would like to see to the 2020 ordinance that created the panel.
The Police Oversight Panel has been a source of controversy for months in Boulder. Read our ongoing coverage here.