Editorial: Voters, don’t forget the crucial new police oversight board. Choose wisely.

Over the last several days, we’ve shared our endorsements for mayor and for aldermen in every contested ward of the city. But there’s another crucial matter for voters to consider in the Feb. 28 municipal election: the contest for the new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which will be Chicago’s first civilian police oversight board.

In this election, the candidates on your ballot will depend on which of Chicago’s 22 police districts you live in. Voters will be asked to choose three candidates for each district, electing a total of 66 people to sit on the board.

What’s the job? Building stronger connections between the police and the community at the district level, according to the city. City officials expect council members to collaborate “in the development and implementation of community policing initiatives,” to work with their communities “to get input on police department policies and practices,” to ensure the commission “gets neighborhood input,” and to “develop and expand restorative justice and similar programs in the police district.”

To be eligible to stand, the candidates had to be a registered voter who has lived in the specific police district for at least one year before the election; not be an employee of the Chicago Police Department, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability or the Police Board any time since May 2020; and, naturally, not be in debt to the city. You also can’t be a felon, unless your conviction was expunged. Council members will get paid $500 per month and will be expected to devote about 20 hours a month to this role.

So who should get your vote? The Tribune Editorial Board is not making individual endorsements in this new collection of races, but let’s lay out the most important thing: What’s needed here are reasonable people who want to make our city safer and better, and who are neither patsies for the Fraternal Order of Police nor defund-the-police extremists. And given the entrenched interests and points of view here, there are plenty of candidates who belong to both of those two polarizing categories.

Adam Gross, the attorney and policy expert who serves as the commission’s first-ever executive director, tells us that he hopes voters will read up on those running for this office and attend whatever forums might be available in their districts so as to learn about where all the candidates stand. You might glean a lot just from seeing who shows up.

We asked Gross, who is knowledgeable, reasonable and devoted to reform, what questions he would ask candidates as a voter himself and he responded with a suggestion. “In a city where we have these sharp divisions over crime and policing,” he said, “and we all agree these issues are not where we want them to be, what specifically will you do to bridge that divide?”

We could not have put that better ourselves. That’s the kind of inquiry that should weed out the extremists and the overly quick studies, indicate whether or not someone is capable of fully understanding a crucial but complicated issue, and is able to fairly examine a variety of approaches to policing a major city.

Gross also suggested that voters look for candidates who clearly know what the job does and does not entail.

There’s no doubt that the 66 people elected to the council could have a big impact on policing. They will provide a new and independent citizen oversight board, which we see as a good thing, especially when constructed at the district level. Community members should get a much easier way to make their views known to City Hall and the top police brass.

But most of the council’s work will be in collaboration with other people, including the mayor (whoever that may be in the future), the City Council and the Police Department. Those who are standing because they think they will be able to, say, unilaterally remove the police chief are misinformed and likely to be ineffective.

Similarly, those who are standing merely to “support” the police are also missing the point. This is supposed to be about increasing accountability to communities. It’s also worth noting that the FOP-favored candidates are not necessarily the ones preferred by rank-and-file police officers. Voters would do well to educate themselves on the difference.

“I think we need people who will see past some of the positions that are expressed publicly, and also take a long view,” Gross said. “I believe that there is not as much polarization on these issues as many people think.”

We think Gross is right there.

You, the voter, must avoid candidates who would block innovation when it comes to policing, obstruct implementation of the consent decree and refuse to recognize that policing in this city needs to change.

You also have to avoid candidates who are there to extract a political or personal agenda from their formal involvement in the policing issue, and who will refuse to support, and adequately resource, the officers on the street who risk their lives on a daily basis to protect the rest of us.

In other words, you have to find people who understand and care about this city, who have a history of reaching out beyond their own comfort zones, and who can see beyond all the divisive sloganeering.

You have to find decent, open-minded Chicagoans who know what is on the minds of their communities.

They’re out there, running in your district.

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