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Flores, Dora From:Tiffany Bailey <TBailey@aclusocal.org> Sent:Tuesday, July 15, 2025 4:51 PM To:eComment Subject:Written Comment for Agenda Item 15 Attention: This email originated from outside of City of Santa Ana. Use caution when opening attachments or links. Good evening, My name is Tiffany Bailey. I am the Deputy Project Director of the ACLU of Southern California’s Criminal Justice and Police Practices project. I am providing public comment on agenda item 15 concerning proposed amendments to the police oversight commission. The ACLU SoCal has reviewed the extensive proposed amendments to the ordinance and I’m here to provide comment on our grave concerns about how these amendments will serve only to eliminate critical oversight powers and transparency measures—changes that will surely result in a weakened Commission that is unable to carry out its oversight functions. Of our many concerns, I wanted to raise three: First, the amendments completely remove the independent investigations component of the ordinance, eliminating a critical component that community members asked for and which serves as a guardrail to ensure that the Commission does not just merely rubber stamp the actions of law enforcement but truly oversees their actions. In quite a disturbing fashion, the confidentiality section now provides that civil or criminal penalties can be attached for any confidentiality breaches. This is unnecessary because there is already state laws governing disclosure of law enforcement personnel records in state penal code 832.7. Also, given what we have seen unfold in LA with the prosecution of Diana Teran - for which the court of appeal issued a writ of prohibition against further prosecutorial proceedings other than dismissal last month after more than a year of litigation, it’s a dangerous precedent that will surely have a chilling effect on oversight. Finally, the amendments narrows the types of complaints that can be reviewed. For certain categories of misconduct like sexual assault and dishonesty, it only allows for Commission review if SAPD’s IA has made a sustained finding of misconduct. This is deeply problematic because it practically means that egregious misconduct like sexually assaulting civilians is only reviewable if SAPD itself has already sustained that finding. That’s not how oversight is supposed to work. The oversight body can’t be limited to reviewing cases that the department has already sustained. I think this may be a mistaken importing of language in SB 16 into a context that simply does not work. In short, the community fought long and hard for this Council to bring an effective oversight body to Santa Ana and with the appointment of the recent Oversight Director, the City is on the precipice of actualizing the independent oversight and transparency goals detailed in the establishing ordinance. Now is not the time to make sweeping changes that will gut the Commission’s power. An oversight body that provides the appearance of community-focused transparency and accountability that it ultimately cannot and will not deliver, is far worse than no oversight body at all. We urge the City Council to reject any proposed amendments. If the City Council is unwilling to do so at this time, we ask that the City Attorney prepare a detailed memo explaining precisely how these changes are necessary to abide by POBR as the staff report merely cites to the entire statute. Without further explanation and analysis, to my eye, many of these changes are policy-based and they are bad policy. The community deserves and needs more information from the City to better understand the proposed changes. Thank you, Tiffany 1