Portland's mayor wants to hire a consultant to help organize and train a new community police oversight committee, a group required by a city agreement with the U.S. Justice Department but which has yet to be formed a year after the city disbanded its predecessor.

Michael Cox, spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, said the city had hoped to hire the consultant in February then appoint members to the new Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, with it up and running in the summer.

But the city's initial request for bid proposals, due Jan. 8, apparently didn't draw enough "quality responses,'' so the solicitation was canceled Jan. 30, Cox said. A new request for proposals has been issued, partly to seek a larger pool of applicants including small businesses, according to the mayor.

A selection committee of city employees, along with mental health and racial equity advocates, has been formed, but the mayor's office declined to identify the members by name.

A U.S. Justice Department investigation found in 2012 that Portland police used excessive force against people with mental illness. The negotiated settlement with the city, approved by a federal judge in 2014, calls for changes to Portland policies, training and oversight. A central part of the settlement was to have independent oversight by community members.

Jason Renaud, a volunteer with the Mental Health Association of Portland, said clearly the old Community Oversight Advisory Board, known as COAB, needed "reworking.'' The old board disbanded in January 2017 due to internal conflicts and the lack of feedback from former police chiefs, city officials and federal officials to more than 50 policy recommendations its members crafted on police use of force, improving police encounters with people in crisis and ways to combat bias-based policing.

But to have no public discussions on the bureau's efforts to improve its interactions with people with mental illness for more than a year, a significant part of the four-year old city settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, means the "opportunity to build trust has been missed,'' Renaud said.

According to the city's request for bids, the new committee will independently assess the settlement agreement, make recommendations on how police can improve its community outreach and bureau policies, develop relationships with diverse communities in Portland, host at least quarterly town hall meetings, and share public grievances with the Police Bureau.

The new committee also is expected to hold two meetings a month, with at least one of those meetings open to the public, though its up to the committee to decide which one the public can attend.

The hired consultant would help communicate to the public the development of the new committee, establish an "equitable process'' for recruitment and selection of members, plan a retreat for the committee, ensure "group cohesion'' by setting ground rules for the committee and a vision for their work, and facilitate its public meetings. The person will have experience working with the mental health community and skills to "navigate challenging and controversial subject matter,'' according to the mayor.

No firm budget was provided. Those seeking the position are directed to estimate the cost of such services and submit a proposal to the city by March 12. The city anticipates selecting a person or firm by early April, with work to start April 16.

Because of the city's past legal challenge, an annual hearing on the status of reforms before a federal judge was canceled last year and delayed for more than a year.

That annual status hearing on the reforms is now set for April 19 before U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon.

The judge also will hold a fairness hearing on whether the new committee and other amendments to the settlement agreement adopted by the City Council are "fair, adequate and reasonable.''

The Albina Ministerial Alliance's Coalition for Justice and Police Reform pushed for the fairness hearing, concerned that the new oversight group envisioned by the mayor's office gives "less autonomy and authority to the community.''

While the initial community group was primarily empowered to provide independent oversight of the police reforms mandated by the federal agreement, the new group's mission is more focused on improving the Police Bureau's engagement with the community, the coalition noted.

"The Court should accordingly hear from the community – who will be most impacted – on these matters,'' coalition lawyers J. Ashlee Albies and Kristen Chambers wrote in a court filing.

"The city has been out of compliance with the community oversight components of the settlement agreement for well over a year,'' they wrote. "As a result, the community has been left in the dark.''

City-hired consultants last year also reported that Portland police still lack the ability to track whether officers are using less force against people with mental health issues because of the lack of reliable data collected.

The Police Bureau has a community group called the Behavioral Health Unit Advisory panel that addresses police response to people in mental health crisis, but it meets behind closed doors. Neither the public nor the media has been allowed to attend the sessions.

According to the bureau's budget proposal for the next fiscal year, there were 1,012 referrals for service made to officers in the bureau's Behavioral Health Unit in the 2016-2017 fiscal year, but the unit was able to assign 44 percent of those referrals for case follow-up.

Police officers make referrals to the unit. The goal is to connect people in mental health crisis who officers encounter on the street to appropriate treatment and community resources to reduce their contacts with police and the criminal justice system.

Follow-up is based on unit capability, a person's risk to their self and others, number of contacts with officers and whether their conduct has escalated, Lt. Christian Wheelwright said. If someone is already connected to services, then a case is not assigned for follow-up by the union, but all cases are sent to Multnomah County mental health, Wheelwright said.

There are now three behavioral health teams, each made up of one Portland officer and one clinician. The bureau is asking for funding in the next budget to add two more teams. With the two new teams, the bureau's Behavioral Health Unit strives to respond to 50 percent of its referrals, according to the budget request.

Jan Friedman, an attorney with Disability Rights Oregon who sits on the Behavioral Health Unit advisory panel, said there's a lot of committed people on the panel, and she's seen improvements in how people with disabilities are discussed. Required crisis intervention training for all officers, and volunteer officers who receive additional training under the bureau's Enhanced Crisis Intervention officer program are all positive steps, she said.

Friedman, though, believes the advisory panel should hold at least some portions of its meetings in public. "I feel like there does need to be more inclusion,'' she said.

A clear community component was central to the federal settlement agreement, and is what's needed to change the public's distrust of police, she said.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian