Viewpoint: What's missing on South Bend's police review board

After more than three years, the city of South Bend has finally appointed the nine members of the Community Police Review Board. The Common Council did an excellent job by selecting Charles King as the director of the Community Police Review Office. I have served with King on the board of Men's Talk, and he has the temperament, intelligence, empathy and people skills to lead this group well.

In selecting the members of the CPRB, the Common Council stressed diversity in its selection process. They wanted one person from each of the six council member districts. They wanted people of multiple ethnic backgrounds. We salute this, as the CPRB should have a broad spectrum of citizens to do its job well.

There are areas, however, that the council overlooked. The council appointed nine Democrats and no Republicans. Also, the council selected no Latinos.

Now we all hope that that the CPRB becomes a sleepy organization of no consequence. This would mean that we have excellent relations between the police and the entire community.

However, the entire point of the CPRB is to prepare for a moment of crisis in police community relations — to assess the actions of police officers in a given event, but also to begin the healing process for the community in its aftermath.

Democrats did win all nine council seats, and we respect that to the victors go the spoils. Yet if a moment of crisis occurs, this is when the broad perspectives on the CPRB will become valuable to the community. Republicans still make up 36% of the vote in South Bend, so why couldn’t the council include two Republicans on the committee? Or one Latino? What faith can South Bend have in any decisions, when major constituencies are shut out of this important committee?

I addressed the council on two occasions this past year, politely asking them to consider this, and to find a way to include at least one, preferably two, Republicans on this committee.

Many times, a certain number of slots on boards are reserved for the different parties, as selected by the party chairperson. I even suggested to the council that they make the selection themselves, among the many Republicans who applied for the CPRB. As long as they picked a “true” Republican, (legally defined as someone who voted Republican in their past two primaries), this would allow the selection of more moderate Republicans.

While we respect the right of the all-Democratic Common Council to fill the spots with people of their own choosing, we would like to politely remind the council and the community that we believe that the city would have been better served by including Republicans on the CPRB. We ask the council members to keep an open mind on this topic, and make it a priority to nominate a Republican to this committee, if a position opens up in the future.

Mark Rolfes is president of Hoosier Conservative Voices. He lives in South Bend.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend's police review board has no Republicans.