New Police Review Panel on Hold Until 1989 : City Manager Waits on Instituting Prop. G to See If Prop. F Champions Sue

A new San Diego police review board, mandated by voters who approved Proposition G in November, is being held up at least until next month--and maybe indefinitely--as the city manager’s office waits to see if a lawsuit is filed to demand the review board called for by Proposition F, also approved by voters.

The city attorney has said that the review board called for by Proposition G should be created because it received more votes in a close tally.

But Proposition F supporters are considering a suit to ask that separate review boards be created under both proposals.

“If our research finds that a lawsuit is the most positive thing to do, then we’ll go ahead with it,” Barry Schultz, chairman of the Citizens for Effective Law Enforcement, said Friday.

A decision on filing a suit will be made in the next two weeks, he said.

Proposition G, which received 179,917 votes, was supported by a majority of the City Council. It would create a civilian review board supervised by the city manager and would be similar to the existing panel, except that the police chief would be removed from the process of selecting members.

Instead, the board would be chosen by the city manager, and its members would review police Internal Affairs’ investigations into officer misconduct. There would be no independent investigative authority.

Proposition F, which received 179,102 votes, was supported by Schultz’s committee and Councilman Wes Pratt. It would create a review panel with subpoena powers and the right to hold closed hearings while investigating allegations of police abuse.

Pratt said he believes both boards should be constituted because both received a majority.

“I disagree with the city attorney’s position on this matter,” he said. “It’s always been my belief that Proposition F passed. It passed in seven of the eight council districts.

“So, in my opinion, the city manager can have his own committee, but there should be an independent police review board put in place too. They both passed.”

City Manager John Lockwood sees it differently.

“The city attorney’s opinion is that only G passed, and so that’s the opinion we’ll be taking,” he said.

‘Everything on Hold’

He said he might have already created the new panel mandated by Proposition G except that he has been distracted by slow-growth issues facing the City Council and, more important, he is waiting to see whether the Proposition F supporters go to court.

“Everything’s been put on hold,” he said.

If a lawsuit is filed, the issue could be up in the air for months.

Lockwood said that, if a suit is not filed, he will begin in January to put together the panel called for by Proposition G.

He also said he won’t ask any members of the year-old Civilian Advisory Panel on Police Practices to serve on a new review board. Much of the impetus for a new review board came from the fact that many community leaders were unhappy that the police chief was allowed to help select the members of the existing board.

“We’ll make a clean break and start with some new people,” Lockwood said. “It’s in everyone’s best interest to start from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Pratt and Schultz denied that they were reacting out of “sour grapes” because their review board proposal did not receive as many votes as its counterpart.

“It was such a small percentage of votes that they got ahead of us,” Schultz said. “And secondly, most of the people, or at least many people, voted for both. So I don’t think it’s as clear-cut an issue as many people would say.”