Gabrielle Lord, Contributing Photographer

New Haven’s Civilian Review Board, which independently monitors and investigates complaints about the New Haven Police Department, met on Monday to nominate members for its three-person executive committee.

The board has struggled since its inception to fill its ranks. The commission was designed to include 15 members — 10 representing each of the NHPD’s policing districts, as well as no more than five at-large members, including a representative from the Board of Alders. At least seven of these members must be present at a meeting to reach a quorum, but the board currently has four vacancies, meaning meetings cannot proceed if as few as five current members are missing. Three board members — including a nominee for the executive board — were unable to attend the Monday meeting.

“This board is not your standard board in the city of New Haven,” Alyson Heimer, the board’s administrator, said. “It is required by ordinance, and it’s also in the city charter, so it can’t be disbanded. It’s also a little high profile, so some people are not interested in participating, and some people are very interested in participating, but may not make it through a confirmation hearing.”

Monday’s special meeting to nominate executive committee members was called amid a months-long process to review and potentially alter the board’s bylaws, which were created in 2021. In August 2024, Heimer said, the board tried to enact a provision in its bylaws that requires board members to review assigned cases and attend meetings on a regular basis in order to stay on the board. 

If a member is absent from two consecutive meetings, the chair of the board is supposed to notify the rest of the board of their absence. If that member misses a third meeting, their seat becomes vacant, according to the bylaws. Similarly, if a member does not read their assigned cases for two consecutive months, “notification will be sent to the appointing authority requesting a replacement,” the bylaws state. If the request is not attended to for 30 days, a member of the executive committee is supposed to officially notify city leaders of the vacancy.

According to Heimer, three board members were deemed to have violated the provision, and the board’s chair, complying with the bylaws, notified the mayor and Board of Alders that those members were removed from the board.

Soon after, however, the city’s corporation counsel and the mayor’s office reinstated the removed board members, deeming the board’s provision to be in violation of a city statute that limits how appointed officials may be removed. 

After the reinstatement, the board asked corporation counsel to review the board’s bylaws to identify other provisions that might violate city statutes. The corporation counsel has not yet returned this review to the board.

In December, the board created a subcommittee to independently review the board’s bylaws and compile a list of recommendations to alter them. Chair AnneMarie Rivera-Berrios declined to share the recommendations while the corporation counsel review is ongoing.

“We’ve met as a team and gone over it a few times, but are still waiting to hear back from the city’s attorneys,” Rivera-Berrios said.

One of the board members who was removed in August but subsequently reinstated was on the executive committee. At the August meeting, he was replaced in a special election by Alder Frank Redente. 

Board members are usually nominated for committee positions toward the end of an even-numbered year, and elections are held in the first month of an odd-numbered year, per the board’s 2021 bylaws. However, the bylaws state that committee position terms are two years long. Since the other two members of the executive committee were elected in an October 2023 special election, the board faced an administrative “gray area,” according to a Heimer, over when and whether it should hold elections.

Heimer said that toward the end of December, she had not received nominations for all of the positions. Then, at the board’s first meeting of the year in January, a board member moved to not hold elections at all until the review of the bylaws concluded, because the board members’ terms would not end until October 2025.

The motion was ultimately withdrawn, and the nominations were scheduled for Monday’s special meeting.

Redente, who represents parts of Fair Haven in the New Haven Board of Alders, was nominated for the position of vice chair but declined the nomination. Redente served as the board’s vice chair from August until late January, when he announced his resignation from the executive committee position at the last board meeting.

Asked why he declined the nomination on Monday, Redente said that he already has too much on his plate between his jobs as a school employee, a street outreach worker and a member of the Board of Alders.

“I only accepted the last time because I thought we were in a position of need and nobody else was really there to take the nomination,” Redente told the News, “Maybe next term, if I’m lucky enough to be re-elected, but this time through I will just remain a sitting member of the board and contribute as much as I can.”

Aside from perennial vacancies, New Haven’s civilian review board has also struggled with insufficient oversight powers. Beth Merkin, who recently resigned her role as the board’s attorney, told the News in April that the board’s investigations into police misconduct cases are treated as “recommendations” by the New Haven Police Department, and lack binding power. When the board’s assessment of an incident is different from the one reached by the NHPD’s internal investigator, the board may form a subcommittee to generate alternate conclusions, but police department leadership is not obligated to enforce the board’s recommendations.

Merkin’s resignation was announced at the August 2024 meeting when the special replacement election was held, according to meeting minutes. Merkin said that her decision to leave was unrelated to the bylaw provision being enacted, but was instead because her ideas for how the board could strengthen itself diverged from some of those held by members.

Ultimately, however, Merkin wrote to the News that she believes it’s best that the board “move forward without looking back.”

On Monday, two candidates accepted nominations for chair, two candidates accepted nominations for vice chair and four candidates accepted nominations for secretary — one in absentia.