The Springfield City Council voted on Tuesday to file a lawsuit against Mayor Domenic Sarno in an effort to restore a civilian board of police commissioners. The vote was nearly unanimous; At-large member Sean Curran was the only "no" vote. The board was dismantled in 2005 and replaced with a single police commissioner. Sarno has resisted the move to go back to the commissioner board in recent years and instead has proposed to expand the existing Community Police Hearing Board, including giving it subpoena powers.
In a statement last night, Springfield City Council President Justin Hurst said, “Mayor Sarno has a duty to the citizens of Springfield to implement the laws passed by this legislative body. The system is broken when this fails to occur and democracy is compromised. Because the City Council does not have our own attorney who isn’t beholden to the Mayor, we have been unable to resolve this legal question for years. Thankfully, we now have pro-bono legal counsel willing to litigate this issue on our behalf and through it all, a City Council who has remained steadfast in their desire to ensure a balance of power in our local government continues to exist.”
The Springfield Mayor has not commented yet.