Civilian Oversight at Essex County Jail Public Comment 12/11/2019
I have received another set of completely unresponsive answers from the Administration to questions raised at a prior meeting. These were not my questions, they were requests from 14 Essex County Advocacy and Legal groups to make meaningful changes to the ordinance before final passage. The petition associated with those requests has 690 signatures.
The response I got was:
“Regarding questions 1 to 17 about specific language in the Civilian Task Force Ordinance the ordinance creating the Civilian Task Force was created through a cooperative effort by the Essex County Administration and Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, with input from stakeholders at the ECCF.
In addition, Essex County met extensively with the ACLU to gain it’s input, and the ACLU has endorsed the Ordinance and the Task Force.
With the amount of input and cooperation on this issue, we are comfortable that an effective Civilian Task Force has been created through the ordinance.”
This is obviously not a response to the requests from the petition that I read in as questions which the Administration is supposed to respond meaningfully to. It’s great that Joe D and his Administration are “comfortable.” They don’t live and work in the ECCF.
These are Joe D’s prisoners, your prisoners, the Task Force’s prisoners, the jail staff’s prisoners, our prisoners, my prisoners. We have a moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to do what is right for everyone who sets foot in that facility. But the Administration’s stance is that they’re comfortable.
As part of the super vague and inadequate responses to questions I have asked previously, Joe D’s Administration keeps pointing to how this ordinance is modelled after Newark’s Federal Consent Decree. Most often they reference this around the fact that Joe D has appointed the Executive Director, with no advice and consent, no consideration of candidates, and before the ordinance was even public, much less passed.
The Newark Consent Decree model that the Administration keeps referencing does not have a hand-picked choice of the Mayor at the top of their oversight apparatus, like this ordinance will. That highest oversight position is held by a federal judge, given that it’s a federal consent decree. The person below that judge was not hand picked by the Mayor either. That position was selected in agreement between the City, DOJ, and the US Attorney’s Office and they are an outsider to the Newark Administration. So much so that the outsider is from a New York City law firm. Not a law firm that does tons of business with Newark and is located within its borders.
Note: After public comment it was clarified that McCarter & English contracts with the county had all wound down at least 5 years ago. So they were historically used by the county but have not been in the last 5 years in accordance with the restrictions in the ordinance. My original comments and question resume below:
The proposed Executive Director for this Task Force played football with Joe D and works for a firm with extensive County Contracts. So my question, requesting a formal response: Please explain how the Judge Linares’ employment by McCarter and English, a company with extensive county contracts, does not directly violate the rules for membership on Task Force as laid out in 3.B.1 and I quote:
“A person may not serve on the Task Force if the person…is or has within the last five (5) years been employed by or participated in the management of a business entity or other organization that has, within the last five years, contracted with or received funds from the ECCF, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, any other Essex County governmental entity, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement;”
Thank you.
