MORGANTOWN – The group of police officers are asking a Monongalia Circuit Judge to stop the City of Morgantown from adopting an ordinance creating a Civilian Police Review and Advisory Board.
The petition was filed May 19 by the Monongalia-Preston Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 87 on behalf of its members. The filing took place just hours after Morgantown City Council passed the ordinance that would create the board.
The FOP says the new board is illegal and unnecessary because the city already has a Civil Service Commission.
Toriseva
“Civil service laws create policing standards that result in enhanced public safety statewide,” Teresa Toriseva, one of the attorneys representing the officers, told The West Virginia Record. “Those civil service laws are not able to be manipulated based on the political whims of changing city governments.
“Among other things, civil service is the exclusive law for hiring, firing, promotion, and discipline of police officers statewide in West Virginia. The new Morgantown ordinance, which is politically motivated, infringes on the exclusive statutory power of the police civil service commission by creating a board with overlapping powers to investigate police officers.
“This will be stopped in court.”
According to the petition, Morgantown also already has a Human Rights Commission that receives any complaints from citizens against the police department that could be the result of any form of bias.
“Despite the adoption and implementation of these policies and procedures and following several unfortunate national events between law enforcement and the public, the City of Morgantown proposed the creation of a Citizens Police Review Board,” the petition states. “The original intent of this Review Board according to the first draft of the proposed ordinance creating the board was ‘to provide for citizen participation in reviewing police department policies, practices, and procedures; to promote the availability of data relating to police practices and procedures; and to provide a prompt, impartial, and fair investigation of complaints relating to the Morgantown Police Department.”
The petition also says state law mandates that the city’s Civil Service Commission’s rules are the exclusive rules with authority of the members of the police department. The three-member Civil Service Commission has the authority to control the hiring, firing, investigation, and discipline of paid members of the police department
“The proposed Citizens Police Review Board seeks to infringe on powers statutorily reserved for the Civil Service Commission and is therefore contrary to state law,” the petition states.
Earlier this month, City Council conducted a first reading of the ordinance. The FOP says the ordinance wrongly permits the proposed board to participate in the complaint process and authorizes it to interview witness.
“The Police Civil Service Commission is the exclusive authority to interview witnesses, propound questions to the Chief of Police, or to be involved in the decision regarding officer ‘appointment, promotion, reinstatement, removal, discharge, suspension and reduction,’’ the petition states.
During its May 18 meeting, City Council passed the ordinance by a 7-0 vote.
The FOP says the city is trying to infringe upon the authority of the Civil Service Commission.
“The proposed Citizens Review Board constitutes a substantial and unreasonable interference with the civil service protection guaranteed to Morgantown police officers as provided by law,” the petition states. “The gravity of the harm caused by the City of Morgantown’s proposed creation of a Citizens Review Board outweighs the social value of the activity alleged to cause the harm if the Citizen Review Board is allowed to operate despite its conflict with state civil service law.”
In addition to at least one earlier letter from Toriseva regarding the illegality of the proposed board, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has told Morgantown city officials the same thing at least twice in letters.
The FOP seeks to have the court to enjoin the city from adopting the ordinance creating the board on a permanent basis.
The FOP is being represented by Toriseva and Joshua Miller of Toriseva Law in Wheeling.
Monongalia Circuit Court case number 21-C-141