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As the City Council continues its crusade to analyze and restructure its 17 different committees and advisory boards, council members have indicated their initial agreement to suspend the second board in less than a month.

The City Council will soon vote to suspend the Public Safety Citizen's Advisory Board indefinitely, following their precedent in suspending the Committee on the Environment earlier this month. While both council-appointed advisory boards were suspended for a lack of focus and communication between board members and the council, unlike the Committee on the Environment, the public safety citizen's board will not be immediately restructured by the City Council into a task force. Councilman Josh Wright (Ward 1) explained that the level of urgency simply was not the same.

"The council's thinking was that environmental issues are something that we need a lot of advice and input into," he said in a telephone interview Monday. "There isn't a burning issue like that relating to the Public Safety Citizen's Advisory Board. ... There's not a need right now."

The council is expected to vote on whether to disband the PSCAB likely by the end of November, but with all current council members favoring the move, it is highly likely. A public-safety task force will only be formed if council members hear enough concern from constituents regarding public safety.

Any future iteration of the citizen's board will be restricted to advising the council on policy. This has been a difference between how many committees see their role as direct participants in enacting reform versus the council's intended use of the groups strictly as policy advisers.

Citing the tendency for Takoma Parkians to readily voice their concerns, Wright is confident that input from private citizens will serve as an adequate indicator for when a task force may be needed.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Ronald Ricucci's Chief's Advisory Board will begin meeting regularly this month. This citizen-staffed, police-run board was dismissed as a replacement for a citizen's board by the council after testimony was heard Oct. 19 by current PSCAB members concerned that a police-led group would not be objective in its advice to the council.

Two weeks later, almost all of the current members of the citizen's board, including Terrill North, an applicant who had expressed interest in leading the board if appointed, have since abandoned the board in favor of applying to the chief's board, according to former PSCAB chair Charles Thomas, who himself resigned from the board Oct. 26, citing personal schedule conflicts.

"I do still feel strongly that after enough time to really formulate it, that it is important for the City Council to have an independent crime advisory board on public safety [and] crime policy matters in addition to the chief's advisory board," Thomas said before the council Oct. 26.

North, a volunteer with the board who was waiting for the council to officially appoint him, explained his decision to withdraw his interest from the board and instead apply for the chief's board as one based on simple necessity.

"Part of it was just inevitability; the chief was really excited about doing something, but the council isn't really sure what they want from the [Public Safety Citizen's Advisory Board]," he said. "If you're trying to do something in the community, you've got to go with the moving train."

The council envisions the chief's board as more of a hands-on group – recruiting neighborhood watches and interacting directly with the community. North was unconcerned with this difference in roles and still hopes to be appointed to the chief's board.

"I'm not as concerned about ‘is it policy-oriented or not?' As long as the end result is action," he said.

This article is one in an occasional series.