The Albuquerque Tribune

Tuesday, August 11, 1981

Banner headline news article

Lack of support provokes police board head to quit

by Jack Ehn

Tribune Staff Writer

    The chairman of the city’s 3-year-old Police Advisory Board has resigned, citing lack of support from Mayor David Rusk and “just about everybody else we deal with.”

    And remaining members of the 11-person board may soon resign en masse to protest their plight, said Don Jeffries, the chairman.

   

    Jeffries was to meet with Rusk, Police Chief E.L. “Whitey” Hansen and others today to discuss the complaints.

    “We’re just not getting any support. If we’re going to have committees like this but nobody pays any attention to them, then they just shouldn’t exist. If they continue to exist, people should pay attention, it’s as simple as that,” Jeffries said.

    Rusk said he would “discuss with the chief and the board what their role is.”

    He would not talk about the matter in detail but said the group “was conceived by the City Council during a highly emotional time in the city, and the original issues the group was set up to respond to have been largely dealt with.”

   

    The Board was created in 1978 following widespread concern over police-brutality cases that were under scrutiny at the time. Its job was to improve relations between police and the community and to give citizens better access to the department.

    Jeffries said the group has lost support from four major groups:

1. •“It seems like all the liberals who first were behind the group and put a lot of energy into it have lost interest,” he said. These include former board members, the group’s founders and citizens who liked the idea, he said.
   

2. •The board has been fairly aggressive about holding community meetings to discuss police issues of concern “but attendance has been dismal,” he said. I’m not really surprised about that -- it happens all the time with boards -- but I’m a little disgusted that we made the effort but that it fell flat on its face.”
   

3. •The Police Department itself “went out of its way to ignore the board,” he said. He said his first taste of this was during the board’s first community meeting, when a police staffer told the audience that “they should think of the board as a last resort for grievances. I couldn’t believe it.” Police officials could not be reached for response.
   

        “I don’t want to take away from the department’s efforts. They were very diplomatic and taught
        us a lot. After all, we were kind of an albatross around their necks,” he said.

1. •The mayor himself did not support the group, Jeffries said.
   

    Several people have resigned from the board since it was founded, but the major has taken for or five months to replace them. This makes it difficult to reach a quorum sometimes, he said.

    He said it has been “almost impossible” to get someone with a poor attendance record kicked off the board, even though city regulations say a person who misses three meetings in a row should be relieved.

    Besides that, the major “made a number of assurances to the board I feel he didn’t fulfill,” Jeffries said.

    Nancy Pasternak, board member, said the group took pains to bring police and low-riders together for meetings. She said the board understood Rusk was gong to help set up some kind of event where the two groups could mingle and get to know one another better.

    Jeffries said he understood the major had made other, similar, commitments, “but time went on and on and nothing happened. It was very embarrassing to us.”

    Rusk said the police meeting with low-riders occurred in June, and since then he has been on vacation and on a business-courting trip to Japan.

    “There has been an excellent relationship between the Police Department and car clubs and I want to build on that, of course,” he said.

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Albuquerque Journal

Friday, August 14, 1981

Page 1 - Metro Section

Police Advisory Board Chief To Quit in Protest

by Rick Nathanson

Journal Staff Writer

    The future of the Police Advisory Board may be decided today when board members meet with Mayor David rush and Police Chief E.L. Hansen to try to iron out differences.

    Board Chairman Don Jeffries says he will hand in his resignation and indicated other members may follow his example if the afternoon meeting is not fruitful.

    Hansen declined comment until the meeting today.

    The Police Advisory Board was chartered by the City Council on June 6, 1978.

    The group came into existence at a time when numerous cases of alleged police brutality were being scrutinized. The board’s chief function was to improve police-community relations and provide a forum for citizen to speak to members of the police department.

    The board tried to achieve its goals by holding regular meetings every month in the presence of police officers and citizens, addressing citizens’ concerns and giving advice to police officials.

    Jeffries contends, however, that because the board has only advisory powers, it cannot exert any pressure to have its advice taken.

    He also accuses the department of patronizing the board and he says the major is generally disinterested and non-supportive.

    “The first thing I pushed for, with support of the board, was to hold community meetings. The first meeting was in November 1980 in the Southeast Heights. At that meeting, an officer got up and make the statement that the advisory board should be viewed as a last resort.”

    Jeffries says he and other board members were “somewhat insulted when police officers took over the meetings.”

    “They were rather patronizing and they made it seem that we were holding the meetings for their sake and advocated that we should support police policies.”

    Some of the problems, Jeffries notes, were a result of administrative problems on the board. But this, he adds, could and should have been rectified by the major.

    According to Jeffries, the board has a rule that any member absent from three consecutive meetings can be dismissed from the board.

    “Some of our members didn’t come to meetings. In the past, there were three or four vacancies at one time and it took between four and six weeks to get them filled by the major.”

    The 11-member board consists of two members at-large appointed by the major, and nine members from the different council districts chosen with the consent of the city councilor for that district.

    Jeffries says he doesn’t think the board should be dissolved. Rather, he would like its function altered.

    “The way it is now, if they (police officials) don’t want to take our advice, then that’s as far as it goes.”

    Jeffries will be looking for assurances of support from the mayor and police chief at this afternoon’s meeting.

    “If assurances are’t made to their satisfaction, some of the board members will resign. I’m going to resign in any case. I’ve personally had it.”

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