Putting off a decision changes nothing!
In Tuesday’s installment of the Independent Police Monitor soap opera, we learned that Greg Gelembiuk is undergoing — “after prayer and meditation” — a Gandhi-based fast. Since “late afternoon” Monday 04-20-26 the police monitor’s data analyst said he has consumed nothing but water.
Done so “as to prick the conscience to appeal to the more principled … in the spirit of love” because “there has been lot of false and defamatory information about my handling of police files.” Claims he never accessed victim names.
Madison alders drank it up! The Common Council punted last night on requiring the police monitor’s office to follow city procedures. The Council referred former Ald. MGR Govindarajan’s reforms back to the Police Civilian Oversight Board for its June 17 meeting — never mind that the board had already refused to consider the reforms at its last meeting. The Council wouldn’t get the matter back until August 4. Only four alders opposed the delay, they being Alds. Ochowicz, Field, Figueroa Cole, and Tischler. All profiles in courage.
Did alders drink the Kool Aid?
Less blissfully, Gelembiuk threatened legal action. “After consulting with two top attorneys including a civil rights attorney, City staff interacting with the OIPM have violated state statutes, ordinances, and my constitutional rights.”
This follows Police Monitor Aeiramique Glass’s threat, posted on the city’s own website, that “I am placing your office, as the City Attorney, on formal notice of that. … the Office of the Independent Police Monitor will take the necessary action to address it.” (Should the OIPM have its own website, too?) Tuesday night, asked if she could work with alders, Monitor Glass railed that:
“The lies that have come from the city leadership has caused me to believe I cannot work … I don’t believe I can. I believe a few of you have been honest. When I see Greg dragged through the mud … I don’t know if I can work with you all.”
Resurrecting their pressure campaign to expel school resource police officers, at least nine Freedom Inc. social justice warriors hectored the council demanding a totally independent monitor. And of course, Tony Robinson’s Jr.’s grandmother put on quite the show — as if any monitor is going to have more investigatory firepower than the WI Department of Justice, which investigated the combative drug abuser’s death and exonerated the police officer.
The art of the impossible
Let’s understand some basic statutory law: the City of Madison cannot create a truly independent agency any more than a wombat can give birth to a squirrel. Anything city government births becomes a city government entity. The Office of Independent Police Monitor and the Police Civilian Oversight Board are city agencies — as such, subject to City of Madison I.T., personnel, and open records rules, represented in administrative matters by the city attorney’s office. That was what former Ald. MGR Govindarajan proposes.
Only the state legislature can create separate government entities. It created our 72 counties and authorizes everything from our cities and towns to independent sewerage districts. It created Police & Fire Commissions.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: What Aeiramique Glass and Gregory Gelembiuk and their supporters demand is the equivalent of Howdy Doody’s Flubadub — an impossible creature. No amount of chin wagging can change that. Being a city agency, the Monitor’s office cannot sue the City of Madison, although Glass and Gelembiuk, as individuals, probably could.
Blaska advised alders in his testimony that, unless they want protracted litigation, the easiest way out of this mess is not to water down their reforms but to abolish the police monitor and its oversight board. Admit your mistake and move on!
Then encourage the well established, legally constituted, and more impactful Police & Fire Commission to build up a more visible front door for customer service.
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