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Sheriff's Oversight Committee

Overview

Recent legislation, commonly referred to as Assembly Bill 1185 (AB 1185) and effective January 2021, authorizes the County to create a sheriff oversight board and an office of inspector general, and grants the bodies subpoena power enforceable by court action. The bill was created to provide oversight and increased accountability for sheriffs across the state.

This legislation, in conjunction with a recent leadership change at the Marin County Sheriff’s Office (Sheriff’s Office), presents a unique opportunity to receive community feedback to continuously improve the Sheriff’s Office operations.

The County of Marin and the Board of Supervisors will establish an independent community oversight structure for the Sheriff’s Office, with the goal of cultivating trust, transparency and accountability. A community engagement process will take place through April 2023 to gather community input on a meaningful framework and structure for this independent body, which will be known as the AB 1185 Sheriff’s Oversight Committee.

Civilian Oversight Implementation Progress

The Board of Supervisors received an informational Presentation on the Working Group's recommendations regarding Civilian Oversight on June 13, 2023 at 1:30. The Board agreed to move forward with Option One from the Working Group’s recommendation with minor staff adjustments. The proposal that is moving forward is consistent with the Staff Report and includes creating both a Civilian Oversight Commission and an Office of the Inspector General. To support these efforts, the County will hire an Inspector General, a Community Engagement Coordinator and Administrative support.

See the video of the meeting (June 13,2023).

A draft Ordinance to officially establish the Civilian Oversight Commission and the Office of the Inspector General is available here.

County and Union representatives are in the process of what is known as “meeting and conferring” over the draft Ordinance.  Labor relations for government entities in California must follow the requirements of the Myers Milias Brown Act (MMBA), which is very similar the National Labor Relations Act.  A foundational tenet of the MMBA is the requirement for government entities to meet and confer over matters that affect represented employees’ “terms and conditions of employment” before the entity may take action.  Only very limited emergency conditions allow a public agency to implement a management decision before completing the legally defined meet and confer process.

Further, the legal decisions flowing from the Sonoma County litigation between the County and its law enforcement unions regarding amending the county’s law enforcement oversight Ordinance, Measure P, further clarified the rights and obligations of public agencies and labor unions regarding civilian oversight of law enforcement.  In particular, oversight authority for conducting independent investigations into peace officer misconduct is subject to the meet and confer process in advance of that authority being approved by the public agency.

Marin is taking the legally required procedural steps by meeting and conferring with representatives of our law enforcement unions, and carefully considering the interest of all stakeholders.  We have had five meetings, and more are scheduled in July to continue the meet and confer process. The County’s bargaining team is working closely with all stakeholders to ensure that the Ordinance is implemented as intended by its framers while working in good faith with its labor partners to address the impacts on represented employees’ working conditions.  In observing how other counties have navigated this process, we are confident that this is the right process for Marin.  In the end, the County is committed to establishing independent law enforcement oversight for our community and will continue working to bring it to fruition.

The Ordinance will be presented to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration and adoption as soon as the County and union representatives get to a point where the requirements of the MMBA have been sufficiently satisfied.

The Board’s decision to move forward with this proposal to develop the Civilian Oversight Commission and the Office of the Inspector General is an important step towards realizing equitable Sherriff oversight in Marin County. The Board of Supervisors and County staff are deeply appreciative of the collaboration, time and significant effort dedicated by all members of the Community Outreach Working Group and all members of the community who engaged in the various outreach efforts. A huge thank you to everyone that has been involved and we look forward to continued collaboration.

The County of Marin contracted with the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) to design and facilitate our process. If you would like to learn more about civilian oversight basics, please visit this website.

Community Engagement

The County recently conducted a multilingual survey, encouraging community members to share ideas and priorities on what civilian oversight of law enforcement should look like in Marin County. In addition, we conducted nine focus groups in January 2023 with a focus on youth, students, communities of color and communities disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system. The goal of these focus groups was to gather feedback on oversight models and priorities. Summary findings from both the survey and focus groups are included below:

diverse images of people

Community Conversations

The County of Marin hosted three initial community conversations to collect input on your lived experiences with law enforcement, priorities for oversight, and strategies to enhance law enforcement accountability. These meetings were conducted via videoconference. View the meeting recordings below.

Community Outreach Working Group

In September 2022, 15 individuals were selected to join the Community Outreach Working Group. They were selected based on criteria including lived or professional experience related to justice, police oversight, law, community organizing, research, finance, and other relevant areas; as well as with consideration to creating a work group that is diverse, inclusive, and representative of the community.

The Community Outreach Working Group will assist with promoting the community engagement process among constituents; conducting outreach; and providing feedback on draft products and framework options.

The Community Outreach Working Group's final recommendations for civilian oversight of the Marin County Sheriff's Office are included below.