COVINGTON, Ga. — Covington’s city council discussed the future of the city’s Citizen Review Board at the April 7 council meeting.
As an amended agenda item, Mayor Fleeta Baggett prompted the council members to share their opinions on the necessity of the board, with consideration for even disbanding the board on the table.
“At this time, we have had five people come and go off the board,” Baggett said. “Currently, the board is down two members. They’re supposed to have seven. The question…is whether or not, in light of how things have changed over the past few years with all the cameras, with only having to meet twice, where do we stand with the Citizen Review Board? Do we want to continue to have it?”
The Citizen Review Board has only existed for a few years, since its creation in April 2021, followed by all seven initial appointments being finalized in June 2021. The board was intended to operate like an oversight committee for the Covington Police Department (CPD). The seven-person group would weigh in on complaints that accused the CPD of overt use of force.
However, in the past four years, the board has been largely inactive.
CPD Chief Philip Bradford and Baggett both cited the board as having only met twice in three years. The mayor noted that this is inherently a good thing for the city because it means that the CPD is not receiving many complaints.
But the stagnant nature of the board and the limitations of the members’ authority have reportedly made it difficult to keep all seven seats filled.
“It’s so hard to even get someone to serve on the board because they just hear the complaint and hear how we handled it and then make a recommendation if we should’ve done something different,” Bradford said. “And with not having, I guess, the power or the authority to change anything, nobody wants to serve.”
The board members
Among even city officials, there appear to be misconceptions about how many active members are on the seven-seat board at this time.
Based on records provided by Audra Gutierrez, city clerk, the current board members are as follows:
Janet Goodman (appointed on June 21, 2021 by Mayor Steve Horton)
Greg Shy (appointed on June 21, 2021 by Council Member Hawnethia Williams)
Rosie Crawford (appointed on June 21, 2021 by Council Member Kenneth Morgan)
Barbara Brown (appointed on Nov. 1, 2021 by Council Member Anthony Henderson)
Austin Aldridge (appointed on Nov. 21, 2022 by Council Member Don Floyd)
Danny Wisner (appointed on March 20, 2023 by Council Member Fleeta Baggett)
Warren Gallop (appointed on April 3, 2023 by Council Member Susie Keck)
Wanda Dunham (non-voting member; appointed by Police Chief Stacey Cotton)
While Goodman was listed in the city records as being a board member, Gutierrez clarified that Rosalind Williams, secretary to the police chief and Citizen Review Board coordinator, has Goodman as no longer on the board.
At the council meeting, Baggett said that the board was “down two members.”
At the city council meetings, Bradford listed five people as being current members on the board, excluding both Goodman and Gallop. Bradford also added that Aldridge has “work constraints” that often keep him from attending meetings, and said that per the ordinance, he should not continue to serve on the board.
“Mr. Aldridge, with work constraints and whatever, he’s been to one meeting out of probably four that we’ve had,” Bradford said. “So really, by the ordinance, he’s supposed to come off.”
Ordinance 2.32.030 E8 in the city’s municipal code does dictate the attendance requirements of the board members.
“Members shall be absent from no more than three scheduled meetings annually without good cause shown as determined in the discretion of the chair. In the event the chair is absent from more than three scheduled meetings, good cause for such of absences shall be determined in the discretion of the mayor,” the ordinance states.
Gutierrez also clarified to The Covington News where Gallop and Aldridge are believed to stand with the board.
“I emailed Chief Bradford and indicated that Warren [Gallop] told the admin coordinator that he had taken a new job and will be traveling a lot and he “probably” would not be able to make the meetings,” Gutierrez stated via email. “He also stated due to being out of town, he wasn’t going to make the last meeting. Chief Bradford also stated Mr. Aldridge has missed several meetings. I do not believe either one of them has officially resigned.”
An open records request filed with the city revealed that Aldridge may be looking to stay on the board, despite Bradford’s musings regarding time constraints.
Communications between City Manager Tres Thomas and Deputy City Manager John King on March 25 and 26 show that Thomas asked King to contact Goodman, Shy, Aldridge, Wisner, Gallop and Dunham to “get their perspective and determine if they are committed to serving on this board.”
King responded that Dunham, Shy, Wisner and Aldridge were all committed to serving. Goodman had not returned a response, and Gallop reportedly replied that he wanted to serve but has a new job and is unsure he could meet expectations.
The board is intended to have one person appointed by the mayor, then three appointments from the east councilmembers – Susie Keck, Kim Johnson and Travis Moore – and three appointments from the west councilmembers – Charika Davis, Jared Rutberg and Anthony Henderson.
As it stands today the board currently only has four definite members – Brown, Crawford, Shy and Wisner.
Goodman and Gallop appear to be exiting, and Aldridge, despite indicating a desire to serve, may not be permitted to if the council chooses to enforce the board’s attendance ordinance.
As of now, anywhere between one and three positions on the board are expected to open up.
According to the city ordinances, the mayor and six council members have 60 days to fill a vacancy. If the mayor fails to appoint a board member within 60 days, the council can choose on her behalf, and vice versa if the council members fail to appoint their board seat as well.
Issues with the board
Other issues with the board continue to surface.
Once someone is on the board, they are designated with a term. This means that every time a new council member is elected, they would not just get to replace one of the board’s active members.
However, in the ordinance, the term lengths are defined as being rather circumstantial. The ordinance, in section 2.32.030 D1 reads:
“The initial terms of the members appointed by the mayor, one member appointed by the East Ward council members and one member appointed by the West Ward council members shall be for three years. All other initial terms shall be for four years. All terms after the initial terms shall be for three years. No member shall serve more than two consecutive terms.”
Per the ordinance, it appears that, of the seven appointees, three of the board members will serve just three years in their first term. The other four members will serve a four-year term.
However, these rules apply only to “initial terms.” Any terms after that will last only three years. It is unclear if the board intended “initial term” to mean every appointee’s first round on the board, or just applicable to the first terms of the seven people initially appointed to the board in 2021.
It is also unclear how the board chooses which members get a three-year first term and which get to serve four years, or if the decision is made ahead of time when the members are first appointed.
Shy and Crawford have been serving since 2021, which could indicate that they were not among the three chosen to serve initial three-year terms if that decision is made ahead of time.
The News attempted to reach City Attorney Frank Turner Jr. to clarify the interpretation of the ordinance and also asked Gutierrez if board members were designated term lengths upon appointment. Neither response was returned as of press time.
Another mystery lies with when the council should have, per the ordinance, filled the empty board seat(s), as it is unclear when Goodman’s vacancy began, if Gallop’s exit is official or if Aldridge’s missed meetings should have warranted automatic dismissal at that time.
The ordinance dictates that, when someone exits the board, their seat’s corresponding appointment authority (either the East council members, the West council members or the mayor) have 60 days to make a reappointment.
As of this writing, Goodman is the lone confirmed vacancy (previously appointed to the board by Horton). This means Baggett would have a second appointment to the board since she nominated Wisner while still a councilwoman.
Though per the ordinance, Baggett would be entitled to make this second appointment, the ordinance also says that the three East and three West appointees would be determined as a group.
Past councils have chosen to go about this process differently, with every council member appointing one corresponding member. With Baggett’s transition, it is not clear if the council will consider Wisner an appointee of the mayor or of the East.
With no clarity on how long seats have been empty, the board appears to have been left unattended for some time.
The council’s positions
With a number of issues facing the board, the council members all weighed in on their thoughts.
Henderson, Davis and Johnson all thought that the board should remain in existence.
“Although we may not have anything going wrong right now, but that’s not to say that five years or ten years from now that something may come across,” Henderson said. “And so just to have that outlet out there...I still think we need designated individuals at least, for this board, so the citizens can have access to give complaints to.”
Rutberg and Moore were more agreeable towards disbanding it if the board was becoming hard to maintain, but neither were particularly impassioned in saying the board should go.
“I’m okay with it if it’s not costing anything,” Moore said. “I’m just saying if it’s a matter of having people hard time to find to go on there, they’ve only met two or three times in the past three years – which is awesome – and several are saying ‘Hey I’m on here now, but I don’t want to be on here anymore.’ I’m just saying if we’re at that point, do you just do away with it and just go without it? But I also see that it’s not harming anything and it's not costing anything.”
Keck was absent from the meeting due to a personal matter. The News contacted her to determine her stance, but has not heard back as of press time.
Baggett declared that the board would begin a new 60-day appointment window, though it is not clear what the precise start date of the period is, as Baggett indicated she may not begin the timer until she returns from an upcoming trip. No council members objected to the suggestion.
This window aims to give the city time to determine who exactly is currently on the board and where vacancies need to be filled. It gives all council members two months to revitalize the board.
