2nd Special Meeting Tomorrow Re: ORPD Investigation

At 3:40p.m. today, council was informed that we will have a second special meeting tomorrow night following our work session at the Central Services Complex behind Kmart. The agenda, located here, mirrors an email councilmember Callison sent to all of council last night which is also very similar to an email BOE member Angi Agle sent us this morning. Both are pasted below.

Per Council rules, “All council meetings shall be open to the public and citizens shall have a reasonable opportunity to be heard.”

From: “Callison, Kelly” <kcallison@oakridgetn.gov>
Date: April 19, 2015 at 9:15:26 AM EDT
To: City Council <CityCouncil@oakridgetn.gov>
Cc: “Watson, Mark” <MWatson@oakridgetn.gov>, “Krushenski, Ken” <KKrushenski@oakridgetn.gov>
Subject: MTAS ORPD Review

Lets all take a deep breath.  Obviously this entire process has gotten off on the wrong foot because of poor planning on our part – using the “our” to imply all of us – city, council, etc.

I believe the effort is worth saving and can still move forward.

1. We ask Rex Barton to create a new random list of officers to interview.
2. We determine who in the police department can coordinate the schedules of those officers selected to be interviewed.  Clearly in the past MTAS has worked through the police chief to coordinate schedules, but in our case that is not appropriate.
3. We establish a temporary email account (gmail.com works well) to receive inputs from other interested citizens. This will allow “someone” to go through the responses received and assemble them for presentation to Rex/MTAS for possible inclusion in their report.  We would only accept emails that provide the name, address, city of the sender like we do for comments from citizens at the beginning of our council sessions. I am obviously open to suggestions about who that or those someones are.

Kelly

Electronic communications with officials and employees of the City are subject to Tennessee’s Public Records Act.

From: Angi Agle <agle@bellsouth.net>
Date: April 20, 2015 at 10:27:16 AM EDT
To: <ccouncil@oakridgetn.gov>
Subject: MTAS Review

Members of Council:

 

At this point there is nothing about the MTAS review on the agenda for Tuesday’s meetings, but it seems likely to come up, given last week’s events.

If Council needs to change or clarify anything, I’d like to submit the following suggestions for your consideration:

• That the MTAS review start over, with a new drawing of names.  Someone other than Chief Akagi should be designated to arrange scheduling.
• That MTAS have some mechanism – electronic submission is fine – for collecting comments from people other than those selected.  However, real names and contact information should be required, in the event that MTAS needs to follow up with them.  Names do not need to be included in MTAS’ report.
• It might be wise to include retirees (though only those who retired after Akagi’s arrival, to eliminate “hearsay”) in those who are allowed to submit comments.   But, retirement date should be included, as there could be a difference in the quality of information from someone who worked for him for three weeks, versus someone who worked for him for three years.

While I’m sure there will be those eager to assign blame for the false start, it’s probably not productive.  Just accept that mistakes were made and start over – since no interviews have taken place, it shouldn’t be a problem.  Remember, this review is about the department as a whole, not any one individual. 

Thanks,

Angi Agle

Electronic communications with officials and employees of the City are subject to Tennessee’s Public Records Act.