Mayor Ivy Taylor held the third meeting of the Council on Police-Community Relations on Monday night at the local FBI field office and for the second time excluded anyone from the public or the media.

Panel members had to undergo an FBI criminal background check in advance to enter the offices on the Northwest Side. A San Antonio Express-News reporter was turned away after receiving no word a week earlier that the meeting would be closed.

The topic of the meeting was said to be about how the FBI handles civil rights complaints and coordinates with local police.

The meeting was closed because it was held at a secure facility, said Michelle Lee, a spokeswoman for the local FBI office.

One former member of the council criticized the choice of the location at Interstate 10 and Loop 1604 and the lack of transparency.

“These closed-door meetings are nothing more than the city saying ‘we did something’ antics that continue to create a divide between its citizens and those whom they are policed by,” said Mike Lowe, founder of SATX4, a local community group similar to Black Lives Matter.

“This does nothing to build relations, nothing to build trust,” he added.

Lowe was appointed to the panel but resigned after the second meeting.

The council was created in September in the wake of a string of police shootings of black men, some unarmed, across the country. In San Antonio, tense community discussions ensued after local activists unsuccessfully pushed City Council to reject a police collective bargaining agreement because of rules that limit how much disciplinary evidence the police chief can consider when punishing officers.

At the same time, the number of homicides in San Antonio, 132 as of Monday, is the highest in 20 years.

The panel has faced criticism for holding its first meeting behind closed doors. Taylor decided to close it on the advice of a University of Texas at San Antonio professor who facilitated the meeting and wanted participants to freely discuss their feelings about law enforcement and policing in San Antonio.

Shortly after that meeting, Taylor spoke to Express-News columnist Brian Chasnoff, telling him all future meetings would be open to the public.

The second meeting was open to the public and the media.

Leslie Garza, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said the mayor never promised that all meetings would be open to the public. She said the mayor said she would decide on a case-by-case basis, depending on the topic being discussed.

Additionally, no one made a decision to hold the meeting privately, she said.

“The only thing that played a factor in this being closed is that the FBI is a closed facility and we have to go by their security measures,” Garza said.

Lee, the FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau can host informational sessions, such as the one organized for the council Monday night, at other facilities or in the community, but that type of environment is not always conducive to a successful outcome.

In February, a town hall hosted by the San Antonio chapter of the NAACP at New Light Baptist Church on the East Side, which the FBI attended, angered participants who weren’t able to speak as long as they wanted.

Toward the end of the meeting, participants walked out of the conversation and returned, shouting for justice and holding signs.

“Very few people got the opportunity to discuss the topic and ask questions,” Lee said. “We have found that the best way to have these conversations is to host them at our headquarters.”

Lee said the FBI is committed to transparency and to guaranteeing that all members of the public can attend these meetings.

“We would love to be involved in future events and would be open to attending an event in another location as long we create a recipe for success,” she said. “We’re interested in engaging and working with more folks out in the community.”

Johnathan-David Jones, a community activist who is part of the council but was unable to attend Monday’s meeting, said he had mixed feelings about the meeting’s closure.

More than anything, he was concerned that the meeting was held at the FBI field office, which is not a central or accessible location.

Additionally, he was concerned that the council is not better at communicating if the meetings are open or closed.

“We can’t keep going back and forth between open, closed, open, closed,” he said.

The Rev. Patrick Jones, pastor of the Greater Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church on the East Side and a council member, said he understood why the meeting was closed. It’s to ensure smaller but successful dialogue. Then, from there, the dialogue can be expanded.

In the long run, though, the meetings should be held in the public, he said.

“It’s senseless to keep it to just us,” he said. “You have to get outside input.”

eeaton@express-news.net

Twitter: @emilieeaton