A proposal to eliminate a procedure for complaints against South Bend Common Council members is drawing pushback.
Currently, complaints can be brought to the council’s Rules Committee for investigation, but a proposed ordinance would remove that from the committee’s list of duties, citing a “proliferation of frivolous, meritless, repetitive, and legally incorrect complaints.” Sponsors of the bill say few communities have such a procedure, and complaints would be better handled by police or the prosecutor’s office.
But council member Oliver Davis says the bill is poorly written and vindictive. "The process is working fine," Davis said. "If people bring up a frivolous issue, it’s voted off and we move on."
Davis says one of the bill’s sponsors is a subject of a complaint that hasn’t been heard yet, and he argues that the court system isn’t appropriate for many complaints. “If there is a council member that is disrespectful to another council member, to go to the prosecutor and say, 'I want to charge them,’ they will not even consider that,” Davis said.
The proposed changes also drew opposition from Black Lives Matter South Bend. In a press release, the organization called the ordinance a direct attack on transparency and accountability and accused the council of “attempting to rewrite the rules to protect itself from scrutiny.”
Rather than assign the bill to a committee Monday, council members approved Davis’s motion to first send it back to its sponsors for further clarification and study, by a vote of five to four.
