On December 13, the La Crosse County Study Committee on Policing gathered to discuss the document they issued containing their recommendations. The agenda included a Teams link so I joined in but quickly learned that they were not accepting public input so I was unable to ask the questions that no one else seems to be asking them:

1. On page 6 of their recommendation document they admit that they do not know how much it will cost the taxpayers of La Crosse County to staff and operate the committee being recommended. Do they know how many tax dollars it will take to analyze and estimate the costs? How much time and resources will be necessary to dig into the details and give the taxpayers an accurate accounting of how their taxes will be spent? What other duties will be sacrificed so the staff can perform this estimation?
2. During the meeting I heard Tara Johnson and the others in attendance speak at length about minimizing the voice of law enforcement within the committee. The group spoke about empowering the civilians on the committee to protect any complainants who may anonymously make accusations against the police. How will they ensure that the complaints are factual and not just an attempt to defame the police? Do law enforcement officers have the basic civil right of being able to face their accusers?
3. I was very disappointed to hear Keith Belzer, Tara Johnson, and the others suggest ideas that would help their recommended committee skirt the open records laws in favor of protecting the anonymity of someone raising a complaint. Some suggestions were to eject law enforcement out of the meetings so only the civilians would handle complaints. Another was to staff the committee with civilian, volunteer lawyers who could claim attorney / client privilege in an effort to hide information from the public. If the committee is a sanctioned function of the county government then why should they be able to hide information from the hard working moms and dads who are paying taxes to fund this effort?
4. In the conversation, someone named Megan mentioned ‘...the four of us talked about this…’ Who is ‘us’ and where can we find the legal notice of the meeting they were referring to and its agenda? Or was this an illegal meeting under Wisconsin’s open records law? Will the Democrat District Attorney open an investigation to determine if any open records laws were violated by the members of this committee?
5. The recommendation calls for data collection and analysis. What are the estimated costs of doing that? Who will do it and how much will they be paid?
6. The recommendation calls for community outreach and there was some discussion in the meeting about ‘doing a lot of advertising’ and setting up special phone numbers and web site submission forms. What are the estimated costs of performing that? Who will do it and how much will they be paid?
7. Considering the way the discussion belittled law enforcement and recommended allowing anonymous citizens to make baseless accusations against them, what kind of impact would this have on the morale of our police forces? We’re already seeing record numbers of officers leaving the force with fewer and fewer applicants to replace them. How will this additional insult affect recruitment of new officers and the retention of current officers?
8. Finally, what measures would be taken to give taxpayers confidence that their money is not simply being wasted on promoting an ideological agenda? As I listened to the conversation and watched the body language in the room, I couldn’t help but get the impression that this is all part of the Defund the Police ideology masked by a different name. Why are they trying to hide their agenda from the people?