SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Settling into his new job as police chief earlier this year, Wayne Hudson recalled his initial meeting with the future campaign manager for a proposed ballot initiative seeking departmental reforms -- although not being shown the entire petition now being circulated.
Last weekend, the Shaker Heights Citizens for Fair Ticketing political action committee launched its drive for at least 664 valid signatures to get the sweeping three-point community involvement plan before voters in November.
While he strongly favors the third point -- easier access to public records -- Hudson believes the other two proposals amount to a “solution in search of a problem.”
And an expensive solution at that, Hudson added, in terms of adding a full-time “Non-violent Community Administrators Team (NCAT),” with 35 members, expected to cost at least $3 million, along with a nine-member Citizen Oversight Board, with no pay assigned unless City Council authorizes it.
“I’m all about fairness, transparency and listening if someone has a better idea of what will work in Shaker,” Hudson said. “What I won’t do is have a knee-jerk reaction to something going on in other cities.”
As for local statistics showing that Black people make up 36 percent of the city’s population but were handed 71 percent of traffic tickets last year, Hudson said he asked SHC4FT campaign manager Ethan Khorana to give him some more time to work out some departmental strategies of his own.
Those include a community-directed policing plan set up in the city’s six zones, with officers assigned to one zone for three months at a time, then moving to another to become familiar with the whole city.
“We may have a higher number of tickets issued to Black drivers in Zone 4, which is the Moreland neighborhood, where we have the higher concentration of African Americans living,” Hudson explained.
“If we have an officer who gets assigned to another zone but is still issuing (a similar percentage of) tickets in a neighborhood with fewer African Americans, there may need to be further conversations with that officer,” Hudson continued. “Because we could have a problem.”
For that reason, Hudson asked Khorana to consider putting the ballot initiative proposal on hold for two years in order to get the police department situated.
“Ethan said he wanted to put a structure in place for the future,” Hudson said of the early meeting. “I feel that’s just attacking law enforcement sort of as the low-hanging fruit, looking at what’s going on in other cities.”
Although he initially held up Amherst, Mass. as one city that instituted a similar “Community Response for Equity, Safety and Service” team at a cost of $900,000 -- initial cost projections there were about $2.3 million -- Khorana revised those estimates when reached for comment March 19.
“We know that it will cost more because Amherst’s department was smaller than what we are proposing,” Khorana said. “Currently we believe it will cost the city closer to $3.5-to-$4 million, however we will be posting our economic impact report soon.”
While the SHC4FT was “still trying to work through the numbers” at the time of their initial meeting, Hudson said he still believed there was “automatically a problem, not only with what you’re going to paying counselors and social workers on teams assigned to each of the six police zones,” but also with the legal questions about enforcement powers -- including traffic citations.
“I’m new to Ohio, but it looks like it might require a change in statutory law to allow this,” the former Omaha, Neb.-based chief deputy said. “You can’t just add a law enforcement officer’s name to a ticket if he or she did not see a violation,” citing recent rulings on deactivated East Cleveland traffic cameras as an example.
For that matter, Hudson said there could be a legal argument that the SHC4FT effort may actually require separate ballot initiatives, in terms of scope and “whether it’s legal to have all three together.”
Hudson also commended the work of his predecessor, former Police Chief Jeff DeMuth, for getting “a lot of training done after George Floyd (murdered by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day 2020).”
Throughout that training and revisions to departmental procedures -- starting with its “use-of-force” policy -- DeMuth said that Shaker police were “already ahead of the curve” including its certification through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).
“Use of force” by Shaker police also remains an issue for the SHC4FT, who cite statistics that nearly all of it is directed at minorities.
As for transparency, Hudson said he is authorizing a “brand-new records system” that could be in place later this year through Motorola that could speed up the process for public record information requests, making it easier on both citizens and staff.
When delays do occur. “it often depends on what data the public is asking for,” Hudson said. “There are requirements that have to be met for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. We have to redact personal information, and in some cases, there may still be an ongoing investigation.”
Hudson is also looking forward to hiring 10 new police officers, with interviews getting underway in April. For a department of 68 officers, current staffing is 58.
“And our hiring process includes a diverse team, with two women -- one White and one Black,” Hudson noted. “And the interviews will feature questions reviewed by our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer (Colleen Jackson).”
And in the meantime, Hudson had a retreat scheduled with his department commanders this week.
“We already have a lot of buy-in from the community,” Hudson said. “This is not something law enforcement is doing to you. It’s about what law enforcement is doing in collaboration with you.”
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