A Public Safety Oversight Commission is being advocated by the city.

By Regina Arana

Somerville has been promising civilian oversight of its police department since 2020. Six years later, that promise showed up on this week’s agenda as a single line: item 26-1353, a Mayor’s Communication with an update on civilian oversight, sandwiched between grant approvals and license renewals.

One line. Six years of unfinished business behind it.

Back in June 2020, the Council and the Mayor’s Office both said publicly they’d create an independent civilian oversight structure for the Somerville Police Department. A Civilian Oversight Task Force worked on it for two years and put out recommendations last year. They want a Public Safety Oversight Commission that can actually do things: get police records and data, subpoena testimony, review and recommend policy changes, and weigh in on discipline. All within whatever state law and the union contracts allow.

The public wants it. Eighty-one percent of residents who answered a survey said so.

This update lands two months after the Council voted 7-4 in July to take a state grant and put body cameras on Somerville officers. That meeting ran long, and much of the pushback came down to one thing: why put cameras on police when there’s no civilian body with the authority to review the footage? Mayor Jake Wilson got votes that night by promising that oversight was coming.

However, discipline, access to records, how much authority a board actually gets – all of it runs directly into the police union contracts, and the Council doesn’t negotiate those. Also, item 7.1 on this same agenda asks the Council to go into executive session for a collective bargaining update. State civil service law narrows things further, limiting what any local board can do on discipline in the first place.

Councilors can say what they want the board to look like. Whether it actually has real power is decided somewhere else.

There’s also a clock running. Two resignations showed up on this agenda, items 26-1388 and 26-1389, for Councilors Ewen-Campen and Scott. Scott’s been one of the loudest voices on oversight for years. Whatever this turns into, a different Council will probably be the one to finish it.

Residents get their say at a public hearing expected in October.