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93 Days of Silence, Then One Day’s Notice

  • Writer: Alex Saloutos
    Alex Saloutos
  • 8 hours ago
  • 10 min read

Updated: 6 minutes ago

Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board meets July 23 on the rewrite of its own ordinances, its first meeting on the matter since the Council's April 21 referral.

Key Points


  • On April 21, the Common Council voted 16 to 4 to send Legistar 92386, proposed changes to Madison’s police oversight ordinances, back to the Police Civilian Oversight Board (PCOB), with the matter due back at the Council on August 4.

  • The PCOB and its subcommittees met five times between April 21 and July 22 without Legistar 92386 on any agenda; four other meetings were canceled, including the Community Engagement Subcommittee’s meeting set for July 22.

  • At 3:17 p.m. on July 22, the PCOB announced a virtual meeting for July 23 at 6:00 p.m., with no agenda attached. The agenda, posted later that day, places Legistar 92386 before the PCOB for the first time, 93 days after the Council’s referral and 12 days before the Council votes.

  • Three versions of the legislation, an original, a substitute, and an alternate, are set for the Council’s August 4 agenda; each restructures the independence of the OIM and the PCOB.

  • I wrote the PCOB’s chair on April 22 asking the PCOB’s plan for the referral; neither the chair nor the PCOB has responded.

On April 21, the Madison Common Council spent about five hours on the future of the city’s police oversight ordinances, roughly two of them on public comment.[1] When the talking ended, alders voted 16 to 4 to send Legistar 92386, a package of amendments to the ordinances governing the Office of the Independent Monitor and the Police Civilian Oversight Board, back to the PCOB, with instructions to return the matter to the Council on August 4. The referral named the PCOB’s June 17 meeting as the stop along the way.[2]

The PCOB canceled its June 17 meeting.[3] It met the next evening, June 18, for more than four hours. The ordinance changes were not on the agenda.[4]


The Silence


It was not on any PCOB agenda between the Council’s vote and July 22. Not the full PCOB’s. Not the Executive Subcommittee’s meetings on May 20, June 3, or July 1. Not the External Policy and Procedure Subcommittee’s meeting on July 9.[5] Not the Community Engagement Subcommittee’s meeting set for July 22, which was canceled. Five public meetings in three months, and the one item the Common Council referred to the PCOB appeared on none of the agendas.


The PCOB’s next regular meeting is scheduled for September 16. That is six weeks after the Council takes up the ordinance.[6]


A Meeting on One Day’s Notice


That was the state of play until Wednesday afternoon. At 3:17 p.m. on July 22, as I was finishing this story, the PCOB announced a virtual meeting for the next evening, Thursday, July 23, at 6:00 p.m.[7] The announcement included no agenda and no registration information for public comment. The agenda, posted online later that evening, put Legistar 92386 before the PCOB for the first time since the referral.[7] It also added a new item, Legistar 94126, described as a detailed review of MGO 5.19 and 5.20, including implementation, interpretation, interaction, governance, and operational impacts, with consideration of potential amendments and recommendations, and possible action.[7] The meeting includes a public comment period; residents can send written comments to pcob@cityofmadison.com and register to speak, answer questions, or state support or opposition at the city’s registration page.[7]


What Is Before the Council


Legistar 92386 began in March as a proposal from then Alder MGR Govindarajan, joined by Alders Yannette Figueroa Cole, Sabrina V. Madison, and Derek Field.[8] Three versions of the legislation are now set for the Council’s August 4 agenda: the original, a substitute whose current sponsors are Alders Figueroa Cole, Sabrina V. Madison, Derek Field, and Will Ochowicz, and an alternate sponsored by Alder Julia Matthews.[9] The details differ, but all three restructure the independence of the OIM and the PCOB. Each would require the OIM to operate within the city’s administrative structure and comply with the city’s Administrative Procedure Memoranda. Each reshapes the office’s use of legal counsel. The substitute and the alternate would condition the mechanics of the office’s access to Madison Police Department records on a negotiated Memorandum of Understanding, with the alternate adding protections the substitute lacks.[9] Amendments are also pending, including one from Alder Davy Mayer to add a sitting alder as a voting member of the PCOB.[9] The question the Council will decide on August 4 is how much independence Madison’s police oversight keeps, and on whose terms.


The sponsors describe the package differently. Govindarajan wrote that the intent is to improve communication, set clearer expectations for reporting and oversight, and clarify the OIM’s operational structure within city government.[10] Field, in a post explaining his co-sponsorship, pointed to a November 2025 data-handling incident involving an OIM employee, argued that the office should follow the same administrative, personnel, and data-security policies as every other city agency, and noted that the City Attorney already defends the OIM in litigation at General Fund expense. He also acknowledged a gap the proposal does not address: a way to resolve disagreements between the City Attorney and the OIM over the office’s access to police records.[11]


The PCOB’s answer came on March 25, one day after the Council introduced the legislation and referred it to the PCOB. With City Attorney Michael Haas present to defend the amendments he had summarized in a memo delivered that same day, the PCOB voted 9 to 0, with two members absent, to recommend that the Council place the proposal on file with prejudice, and asked the Council to work with the PCOB before drafting changes to its ordinances.[12] Until this week, that was the last public action the PCOB took on the item.


Hours before the April 21 meeting, the Independent Monitor, Aeiramique Glass, released a 31-page memorandum criticizing alders, the City Attorney’s Office, and the media, and suggested that her office might pursue legal action against the city.[13] Two of the ordinance’s sponsors, Figueroa Cole and Field, voted against re-referral, along with Alders Will Ochowicz and Bill Tishler.[2] The majority voted to give the PCOB and interested alders the summer to work on the proposal together, in time for an August 4 vote. News coverage described the referral as directing further edits in collaboration with the Monitor and the PCOB.[1]


The next day, April 22, I wrote PCOB Chair Maia Pearson, with a copy to the full PCOB and the PCOB’s public email address, asking two questions: what is the PCOB’s plan for working on the amendments, and who will serve as the PCOB’s legal counsel while it does. The email argued that the Office of the City Attorney, having written and defended the proposal, has a conflict of interest that requires either recusal or the PCOB’s informed written consent. Three months later, I have received no response from the chair, from any member, or from the PCOB.[14]


How Madison Did It in 2020


It did not have to look like this, and in Madison it once looked very different. In the summer of 2020, when the Council set out to create the OIM and the PCOB, the drafting ran through an Alder Workgroup that met roughly twice a week in noticed public meetings from late June through early August. Every meeting included a public comment period. City staff compared oversight ordinances from other cities, walked successive drafts through open sessions, and sent the workgroup’s recommendations to the Council with a public record behind them.[16] The Council adopted MGO 5.19 and 5.20 on September 1, 2020, on a 19 to 0 vote, with 746 people registered in support.[17]


Analysis: A Leadership Failure


One thing should be beyond argument. The mission and goals of the OIM remain necessary, and true independence is critically important. The tragic shooting of Corey Ruiz, killed by a Madison police officer on Wednesday afternoon, is graphic evidence.[19] When police use deadly force, the public needs oversight it can trust, and that is exactly what this office was created to provide. The issues are in the deployment and implementation, not the mission.


Start with the calendar. The Council re-referred Legistar 92386 to the PCOB on April 21 and set an August 4 return date. That is 15 weeks. The PCOB’s first meeting on the referral comes July 23, 93 days after the Council’s vote and 12 days before the Council takes the matter up. At its March 25 meeting, the PCOB discussed the proposed changes, its workload, and the fact that its members are volunteers.[12] Volunteer time is real, and it is part of why the Council gave the PCOB 15 weeks. On the public record, the PCOB used none of them until the last 12 days.


There are two ways to read those 93 days, and neither is good. One, the PCOB did nothing on the Council’s referral until now: no agenda item, no work plan, no public engagement, no alternative proposal. Or, two, the PCOB has been working on this behind closed doors and in back rooms, contrary to the State’s open meetings law. The law requires the business of a governmental body, and of its subcommittees, to be conducted in meetings that are publicly noticed and open to the public; members may talk individually with alders or staff, but deliberation by a quorum, in person or through a chain of smaller conversations, belongs in a noticed public meeting.[15]


I have no evidence that a quorum of the PCOB met or deliberated in private on this legislation. What the record shows is the absence: no agenda items, no minutes, no public plan, and no answer to a direct written question about the plan. For a body whose purpose is transparency and accountability, the absence is the story.


Scheduling the meeting and providing notice slightly more than 24 hours before the meeting, particularly this one considering the agenda, does not give the public a meaningful opportunity to prepare or attend. State law sets a floor of 24 hours’ notice for a public meeting; a legal floor is not meaningful access.[15] It is disrespectful to the public.


Considering the scope of the work on the July 23 agenda, I cannot see how taking public comment, deliberating and discussing the changes, and making a decision on a recommendation can happen in one meeting.


The lack of any response to my April 22 email is disrespectful and sends a message to the public. The ordinance was built in the open in 2020. The rewrite, so far, has not been. The referral gave the PCOB something oversight bodies rarely get, a role in drafting the terms of its own oversight, and one rushed meeting 12 days before the deadline is not that.

This is a leadership failure. It lands on an organization whose purpose is public trust, and it damages that trust with the Council and the community alike. There is no excuse for this.


Three changes should follow. First, the PCOB should consider changes in its leadership. Second, given how the PCOB has handled this referral, the Council should appoint an alder workgroup, modeled on the 2020 workgroup that drafted these ordinances, to sort through the three versions and update MGO 5.19 and 5.20, taking care to include voices with different perspectives. The workgroup’s charge should be broader than the three versions. Based on a review of other municipalities with a strong independent monitor, there are other gaps in the ordinance that, if addressed, would improve the independence and effectiveness of the OIM, and they should be considered. And third, as the executive director of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement suggested in her presentation to the Council on Tuesday night, July 21, the process could benefit from a consultant or third-party mediator to make recommendations, facilitate the work, or both.[18]


Thursday evening is the PCOB’s chance to start repairing the record: hear the public, deliberate in the open, and send the Council a recommendation it can weigh on August 4.


What You Can Do


If you care about the outcome, the window is short:


77SquareMiles.com covers the votes, the money, and the process at Madison City Hall that mainstream media misses.


© Alex Saloutos 2026.


 

Footnotes


[1] Liam Beran, “Madison’s police monitor office threatens legal action against the city,” Isthmus, April 22, 2026, https://isthmus.com/news/news/madison-police-monitor-office-threatens-legal-action-again/.

[3] City of Madison, Police Civilian Oversight Board meeting page, June 17, 2026 (meeting canceled), https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/police-civilian-oversight-board/2026-06-17.

[5] PCOB Executive Subcommittee agendas: May 20, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/meeting-schedule/documents/agendas/Approved%20Agenda%205-20-26.pdf, June 3, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/meeting-schedule/documents/agendas/PCOB%20EC%206.3.2026.pdf, July 1, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/meeting-schedule/documents/agendas/Approved%20Agenda%207-1-26.pdf. PCOB External Policy and Procedure Subcommittee agenda, July 9, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/meeting-schedule/documents/agendas/PP%20SUB%20-%20%20APPROVED%20AGENDA%20-%202026-07-09.pdf. PCOB Community Engagement Subcommittee agenda, July 22, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/meeting-schedule/documents/agendas/CE%20SUB%20-%20AGENDA%20-%202026-07-22_0.pdf.

[6] City of Madison Legistar, Police Civilian Oversight Board meeting list, https://madison.legistar.com/DepartmentDetail.aspx?ID=44401&GUID=8271D471-D479-412E-8ED3-58F160EEA63C.

[7] City of Madison, Police Civilian Oversight Board meeting page, July 23, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/police-civilian-oversight-board/2026-07-23. The meeting was announced at 3:17 p.m. on July 22, 2026; no agenda or public comment registration was posted with the announcement. Police Civilian Oversight Board, Agenda (Approved), July 23, 2026 (virtual; written comments to pcob@cityofmadison.com; registration at https://www.cityofmadison.com/MeetingRegistration; watch at https://www.cityofmadison.com/city-hall/committees/watch-meetings-online.

[8] City of Madison Common Council, Agenda (approved), April 21, 2026, Legistar 92386 (substitute title and sponsors), https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?GUID=6DA62006-C06C-4FBF-921C-B6805291FE2D&ID=1316267&M=A.

[9] Legistar File 92386, texts and drafter’s analyses of Versions 1 (original), 2 (substitute), and 3 (alternate); see the Legistar link at footnote 2. See also Alex Saloutos, “Madison’s Independent Police Oversight Is Three Days From Being Gutted,” 77SquareMiles.com, April 18, 2026, https://www.77squaremiles.com/post/madison-s-independent-police-oversight-is-five-days-from-being-gutted.

[10] District 11 Blog, City of Madison Common Council, “Ordinance Amendments Introducing New Public Reporting Requirements for the Office of the Independent Monitor and Police Civilian Oversight Board,” March 24, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/council/district11/blog/2026-03-24/ordinance-amendments-introducing-new-public-reporting.

[11] Alder Derek Field, “Information About Proposed Amendments to Office of Independent Monitor Ordinances,” District 3 Blog, April 19, 2026, https://www.cityofmadison.com/council/district3/blog/2026-04-19/information-about-proposed-amendments-to-office-of-independent. On the November 2025 data incident, see also George Wiebe, “Madison police watchdog mishandled sensitive data, police chief says,” Wisconsin State Journal, April 18, 2026, https://madison.com/news/local/government-politics/article_17017694-6772-49de-afb4-5943e8a59420.html.

[12] Police Civilian Oversight Board, Meeting Minutes, March 25, 2026, https://madison.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=1374920&GUID=9836AEB8-F901-4DAB-A7B8-D5E8089C96DA.

[13] Liam Beran, Isthmus, April 22, 2026 (note 1); Abigail Wandersee, “Madison Police Department oversight office calls out City of Madison for obstructing its independence, demands rejection of proposed revisions to its structure,” The Badger Herald, May 7, 2026, https://badgerherald.com/news/2026/05/07/madison-police-department-oversight-office-calls-out-city-of-madison-for-obstructing-its-independence-demands-rejection-of-proposed-revisions-to-its-structure/.

[15] Wis. Stat. §§ 19.81 to 19.84. Section 19.82(1) defines a governmental body to include a formally constituted subunit; § 19.83(1) requires every meeting to be preceded by public notice under § 19.84 and held in open session. Section 19.84(3) requires at least 24 hours’ notice unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical.

[16] City of Madison, Alder Workgroup to Develop Logistics & Operational Details for MPD Independent Civilian Oversight, Meeting Minutes, June 25 to August 3, 2020 (Legistar).

[17] City of Madison Common Council, September 1, 2020, Legistar File No. 61593.

[18] City of Madison Common Council meeting, July 21, 2026 (presentation by the executive director of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement).

[19] “Who Is Corey Ruiz? Man Reportedly Shot by Officer in Madison, Wisconsin,” Newsweek, July 23, 2026, https://www.newsweek.com/who-is-corey-ruiz-man-reportedly-shot-by-officer-in-madison-wisconsin-12232222; “Madison police kill man in broad daylight in front of witnesses,” Yahoo News, July 23, 2026, https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/madison-police-kill-man-broad-021313724.html. 

 
 
 

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