Emails Show Mayor Tried to Have UM Regent “Jump the Line” and Take ICPOC Appointment

by P.D. Lesko

The Chair of ICPOC asked that the name of the UM Regent who contacted Mayor Taylor—and whom Taylor attempted to have appointed to ICPOC—be withheld in order to save the individual any embarrassment. That request has been granted at this time.

Dr. Lisa Jackson and Mayor Christopher Taylor have not been seeing eye-to-eye as of late, and the problem has nothing to do with their differences in height.

Emails dated June 6- June 11, 2020 and obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, sent between Mayor Christopher Taylor and Dr. Lisa Jackson, Chair of the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission (ICPOC), show Taylor attempted to influence the appointment of a commissioner to ICPOC. Specifically, Dr. Lisa Jackson, Chair of ICPOC, expressed dismay when Taylor sent her an email in which he “contextually” introduced a currently seated University of Michigan regent to Dr. Jackson. The Regent, wrote Mayor Taylor, was interested in serving on ICPOC.

Council member Elizabeth Nelson (D-Ward 4) explained why Taylor’s introduction was entirely out of bounds. “ICPOC was deliberately set up so that the Mayor would not have the authority to nominate members.”

Council member Ali Ramlawi (D-Ward 5) is one of two Council members who sit on ICPOC. Ramlawi, when asked about the nominating process vis a vis ICPOC, said that Taylor frequently alternated between understanding his place in the process, and crossing into territory where he did not belong.

Taylor wrote both Jackson and the Regent on June 6, 2020: “Allow me to contextually introduce Dr Jackson, the Chair of the Independent Community Police Oversight Commission, with whom you may already be familiar. I’ve spoken with Dr Jackson regarding your interest in ICPOC and she’d be delighted to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”

In an email to Taylor, Jackson called the Regent’s resume “impressive,” but expressed concern that Taylor was trying to help the Regent “jump the line” past a candidate whom the members of ICPOC had already interviewed and whom they wanted to see appointed to the seat vacated by David Santacroce. Santacroce was not reappointed to ICPOC after he withdrew his name from consideration.

Taylor was prepared to reappoint Santacroce, who is white, despite the fact that the man had allegedly “attacked” Dr. Lisa Jackson, a Black woman, during an ICPOC meeting. Jackson writes in an email to Taylor that Santacroce had to be “restrained.” The incident is referred to in Jackson’s June 7, 2020 email. She writes about Santacroce, a clinical professor of law and a former UM Law School Asst. Dean: “Even when David Santacrocce was attacking me, I and the rest of the commissioners remained in control. The vigorous activity that happened in the room was not chaotic—it was a predictable response to his physical behavior. And after he was restrained, I carried on without missing a beat.”

Santacroce was asked to comment, and in an email said the incident referred to by both Dr. Jackson and the Mayor was inaccurately portrayed. The incident, however, was witnessed by multiple members of ICPOC, including those who restrained the UM Law School clinical faculty member.

ICPOC liaison Council member Ali Ramlawi, when asked about the Santacroce incident, said he was not present when Santacroce allegedly “attacked” Jackson. However, Ramlawi said he heard about the incident later, and that after the incident he noticed that members refused to sit near Santacroce. Ramlawi added that when Taylor floated the idea of Santacroce’s reappointment, ICPOC members allegedly threatened to resign if the UM clinical law professor was returned to the Commission.

In the same email in which she and Taylor discuss the Santacroce incident, Jackson writes, “Proposing [the Regent’s] addition to ICPOC was so surprising, I didn’t even ask you – did you have the Regent fill out an application yet? I just want to make sure that we are following the same process that we have used to fill every other seat.”

In his email reply to Jackson, Taylor states that the Regent had expressed an interest to him in serving on ICPOC. The Regent has never spoken at a meeting of ICPOC, nor did the Regent participate in any of the City Council or Police Commission Task Force meetings at which the formation of ICPOC was debated and voted on.

Dr. Jackson responded to Taylor that, “As wonderful a trophy as [the Regent] may be, it looks and feels unethical to bump another person already in line because someone emailed you and requested a spot on a commission.”

The Mayor’s emails to Dr. Jackson overstep an important procedural boundary set up to keep city staff and elected officials from rigging the composition of ICPOC. Taylor’s actions in this instance and another also call into question whether he respects the authority of the Black woman who was selected by her colleagues to chair the Commission.

The Mayor was deliberately given no power of nomination by Council when forming ICPOC via resolution in 2018.

In part, Christopher Taylor was shut out of the nomination process to give ICPOC more independence. In part he was shut out because he singlehandedly rewrote the citizen-led Police Oversight Task Force’s formation document that created ICPOC. Taylor removed the Task Force’s recommendations concerning legal staffing for ICPOC, reduced ICPOC’s funding, and stripped out the Task Force’s recommendation that ICPOC have subpoena power to compel police officers to testify. His actions infuriated the citizen members of the Police Oversight Task Force and the public.

In January 2019, Taylor’s changes to the Task Force’s recommendations elicited criticism from Council members who argued the Mayor’s handiwork was “a severely watered-down version of the task force ordinance.” Rich Friedman, Task Force co-chair, reportedly said Taylor’s recommendations essentially “cast aside the Task Force’s proposal.” Taylor’s version of ICPOC brought the “independent” group under the thumbs of the City Administrator and the City Attorney. Taylor’s effort to get Dr. Jackson to agree to the appointment of a UM regent to ICPOC sent the message that Lisa Jackson and ICPOC were under the thumb of the Mayor, as well. It was an assumption that Dr. Jackson questioned sharply in her June 2020 email exchange with Taylor.

When asked about the Mayor’s attempt to put a UM regent on ICPOC, Council member Elizabeth Nelson (D-Ward 4) pointed out that placing a UM regent on ICPOC would make that individual the “single most powerful individual in the City with respect to policing.” Nelson explained that the University of Michigan Police Department reports directly to the Regents. Thus, a UM regent seated on ICPOC would have direct power over not one but both of Ann Arbor’s policing agencies. The University of Michigan employs around 55 sworn officers. Former Ann Arbor Chief of Police John Seto, who retired from the AAPD in May of 2015, was hired in September of 2015 by the University of Michigan Department of Housing Security.

Lisa Jackson is the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Schoolcraft College, and earned a Ph.D. in Behavioral Sciences from the University of Michigan. She was appointed to ICPOC in 2019 and was named Vice-chair. In 2020, Jackson was named Chair. The eleven members of ICPOC nominated by the Human Rights Commission in 2019 serve staggered appointments. Some serve one-year terms and some serve two- or three-year terms. In her application to serve, Jackson wrote: “I am most interested in addressing the respectful and appropriate treatment of citizens by the AAPD.”

If the June 6-11, 2020 email exchange between Jackson and Mayor Taylor about his efforts on behalf of the UM regent is any indication, it appears that Dr. Jackson is also concerned about addressing the treatment of ICPOC by the Mayor of Ann Arbor.

After politely responding to Taylor’s “contextual introduction” and acknowledging the Regent’s interest, Jackson sent a detailed, blunt email to the Mayor is which she tells him that his “contextual introduction” bordered on “the appearance of being autocratic or exerting too much influence on” the nominating process.

In a June 7 email to Taylor, Jackson writes, “Let’s be frank, we are all under hyper scrutiny right now and that makes transparency and adherence to process all the more critical to earning and building trust. Given the uniqueness of this commission, and the spotlight trained on us now, we believe that it is critical to maintain our autonomy and bring to council the best candidates for the job. I am very concerned about the speed (not as much about your competence), about having [the Regent] ‘jump the line’ over a commissioner whom we’d already interviewed, vetted and selected, and about any potential encroachment on our independence, perceived or real.”

The email exchange between Dr. Jackson and the Mayor reveals that Taylor had told the Chair that ICPOC would “have no say” over who was nominated or appointed to her Commission. Rather, the power to nominate and appoint rested with a nominating committee whom Taylor allegedly told Jackson comprised of Council members Elizabeth Nelson, Julie Grand (D-Ward 3), Mayor Pro Tempore Jane Jumm (I-Ward 2) and Taylor himself.

In her June 7, 2020 email to the Mayor, Jackson writes, “You stated yesterday that we [ICPOC] were not part of the process; that only you, Julie Grand, Jane Lumm and Elizabeth Nelson were the nominating committee. However, the ordinance is less clear in the Initial Recruitment Process and Filling Vacancies sections, as well as 12.14b of the city charter (referenced in Filling Vacancies). The language in the ordinance is written with regard to the forming of a new commission, but not about how to perpetuate a standing commission. There was intention that this commission’s nominating process be unique from all others, i.e. not solely by Mayoral appointment.”

In her email to Taylor, Dr. Jackson suggests that the ordinance creating ICPOC should be amended to make the appointment process clear. Further, in order to preserve ICPOC’s independence, Jackson writes, “I certainly agree it is appropriate for ICPOC to nominate its own commissioners. As it currently stands, you and Council could of course vote to reject or affirm any such nomination.”

After Jackson challenged Taylor’s attempts to paint himself as having a role in nominations to ICPOC, the Mayor backpedaled. In an email to Jackson Taylor writes, “There’s quite a lot to unpack here, better perhaps suited to a conversation, but I’d like to at least say that there has been a misunderstanding that surprises me. I have never had a formal role in the process at all, nor would I say so — it is CM Grand, Lumm, Nelson, and Ramlawi alone who effect nominations. The only reason I’m in this conversation at all is because the Regent reached out to me and I expressed my enthusiasm for her service to the CMs who decide upon nominations, and eventually conveyed that enthusiasm to you — I am making connections among decision makers, not presuming to be one.”

It’s not clear that Taylor did actually discuss the Regent’s “enthusiasm” with Nelson, Lumm or Ramlawi.

It wasn’t only the speed with which Taylor acted after being contacted by the Regent, but also his interference in an appointment process to an independent commission that concerned Jackson. The Regent whom Taylor introduced to Jackson, according to an official biography, “Is a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army National Guard currently serving as the Deputy Commander of the 46 Military Police Command in Lansing, MI.” Dr. Jackson was concerned that bringing the “military” to ICPOC could be problematic.  

Campaign finance records show that in his 2014 mayoral campaign, Taylor accepted $2,000 from UM Regent Mark Bernstein and another $2,000 from Bernstein’s wife, Rachel Bendit, as well as a $100 donation from the regent whom he contextually introduced to Jackson. The Regent last ran for re-election in 2014. Campaign finance records show that Taylor did not donate directly to the Regent’s re-election campaign.

Just days after this email exchange with Taylor, Dr. Jackson would stand up at a public ICPOC meeting in front of 80 people and lambast Taylor for texting her at 2:30 a.m. in the morning after the June 15 Council meeting at which his resolution to ask ICPOC to “lead an in-depth, multi-stakeholder and data-driven review of public safety services” was rushed to Council for a vote. Dr. Jackson would go on to suggest to the crowd gathered that the resolution crafted by the Mayor of Ann Arbor was proof he had no clue what ICPOC is charged to do.

Emails released in response to a second FOIA show that Taylor and Grand repeatedly claimed to Council’s ICPOC representatives—Mayor Pro Tempore Lumm and Council member Ali Ramlawi—that the Taylor/Grand Public Safety Review Resolution had been crafted only after consulting ICPOC and the Chief of Police. Public records reveal that their written claims and assurances to city staff, the public and Council members were untrue. As they crafted their Public Safety Review Resolution to require ICPOC to “lead an in-depth, multi-stakeholder and data-driven review of public safety services,” Ann Arbor’s white Mayor and a white Council member had deliberately kept the Black Chief of Police and the Black Chair of ICPOC out of the loop.