Bob Buckhorn will meet with Tampa City Council Chairman Frank Reddick this Friday, according to Ashley Bauman, the mayor’s spokesperson.
The sit-down discussion will take place eight days after the Council voted on a motion calling for the two leading officials in city government to convene, as the rhetoric has grown hotter during the past month over who has the power to select the members of a police Civilian Review Board (CRB).
“Mayor, there is a cloud of distrust over police-community relations in this town, and this country,” Reddick wrote in a letter to Buckhorn last Friday that was obtained by SPB.
The Council chair goes on to write that he hopes that Tampa can become a model for the rest of the country on how the community and the Buckhorn administration can come together to create a CRB “that satisfies the community and restores their trust.”
That remains to be seen. The activists who have flooded several City Council meetings over the past couple of months have been aligned with the majority of the Council when it comes to the power struggle over who should have the ultimate control in naming the members who will serve on the board.
However, those activists have also been adamant that the CRB should also have subpoena power, which some similar agencies around the country possess, but many others don’t. It’s unclear how many Council members support that provision, which is not part of Buckhorn’s executive order.
Although Reddick has been the most outspoken member of Council when it comes to saying that the Council has the power to name CRB members, he has also said that he is fine with every other aspect of how the board has been shaped by the mayor.
In his letter, Reddick distances himself and the Council as being at odds with Buckhorn, writing that, “your problem is not with me but with your constituents,” a distinction that other Council members have emphasized as well. “This is in no way a ‘power grab’ as has been alleged by some media outlets,” Reddick insists.
The mayor set off angst among Council members and community activists when he announced his executive order creating the CRB on August 28. He announced that he was naming seven of the nine members of the board, as well as the two alternates, giving the Council only two selections.
Last week after the Council meeting ended with members leaving the dais after a group of citizens chanted “No compromise!” Buckhorn announced that he would give the Council two more selections, one to the regular board and one alternate. Whether that satisfies the Council is unclear at this time, though Reddick has previously said that he was determined to have the Council get seven selections, or one for every Council member.
