By Jo Ann Hardesty

I recently wrote to the Portland City Council members on behalf of the members of the NAACP Portland Chapter 1120 to request that they reject the new police bureau contract negotiated behind closed doors at the direction of Mayor Hales.

Where is the fire?

We have a Mayor-elect who will take office in January, six months before the current contract expires. This contract is another smack in the face of community members who expected to have an opportunity to weigh in on this contract and who expect the contact to reflect a new vision of policing. This contract is woefully inadequate and will lock us in for another six years of the same old, same old pretend reform package we got under the last contract talks.

Why is this contract so bad? It reflects the narrow focus on money rather than vision and does not reflect the will or voice of the community. There are many things wrong with this contract.

The contract allows retired officers to be hired back for six years at the top of their pay grade -- classic double-dipping at the expense of the taxpayer.

The contract ensures that the most expensive police officers are assigned to overtime first, rather than a mid-level employee or an officer who may be needed based on the situation. Both the taxpayer and the community suffer.

It also appears that the mayor negotiated body camera agreements with the union, reneging on his promise that the public would have an opportunity to weigh-in on those rules and regulations. Instead, Hales went behind closed doors with the police union and developed a policy that is the opposite of an accountability policy. As proposed, police would be allowed to review video before writing their reports.

Why would police need to see video before writing a report unless they need to make their report match what's on the video tape -- and possibly omit actions that weren't caught on camera?

this is totally unacceptable since the public has no access to the video.

Both Hales and former Police Chief Larry O'Dea promised that the public would have the opportunity to be a part of the process of developing clear guidelines for how this technology would be used. Having attended two community meetings on this, I can testify that Hales has misrepresented public input.

There were two community meetings held more than a year ago with no other public meetings scheduled. The mayor put together an internal workgroup, however, the community had no access to those meetings.

I made several requests to both the mayor's and the chief's office to engage the public in this necessary conversation before we invested resources or negotiated a policy written for and with the police union. How can the public have any confidence in a tool that is supposed to create transparency yet is developed behind closed doors?

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The body cameras become expensive tools only beneficial to police, doing nothing to contribute to transparency and accountability that is the expectation of the public in this new era of policing in America.

Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler is the person we will hold accountable for this contract. He should be the one negotiating it. Wheeler and the public deserve the opportunity to weigh-in regarding the terms of a new contract. We shouldn't have to wait six years to provide input, especially since this contract hasn't yet expired.

This contract is a big money giveaway without any public benefit. We the public expect and deserve better public access, oversight and influence on this policy.

Jo Ann Hardesty is president of the NAACP Portland Branch 1120.