In the latest chapter of the ongoing Police Commission saga, City Council members voted to require applicants for the Police Commission to disclose any criminal background. Fine. But then they had to go and direct the city attorney’s office to keep those disclosures confidential, even though those answers will be factored into the public appointment process.
It’s as if the City Council keeps chomping down on ice cream despite having a toothache that sorely needs fixing.
After ousting Police Commissioner John Brady amid revelations that he’s serving unsupervised probation for a drunk-driving conviction, the council now wants to know all the dirty, sordid misdeeds of the commission’s applicants. The requirement may even be extended to prospective parks and planning commissioners.
Only thing is, they don’t want us, the public, to have access to the disclosures of prospective public servants.
If anything, we’d assumed that the council and City Hall executives had learned over the past month that transparency is more than a grimace-inducing exercise. It’s part of a long-term strategy for preventing the kind of political morass now creeping around Olive Avenue.
