The president of Chicago’s Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability on Thursday warned that “it would be a mistake” for the City Council to approve a proposal that would allow serious police misconduct cases to be tried out of the public eye.

President Anthony Driver weighed in on the proposal at a monthly commission meeting at Daley College on the city’s Southwest Side. He said the move would “set our city back decades” and “drive the process of accountability behind closed doors.”

As it stands now, all cases in which an officer faces termination, or a suspension of a year or more, are decided publicly by the city’s nine-person Police Board. But a recent ruling by an arbitrator would give officers the option to have their cases decided in private. If the ruling goes into effect, it would mean those cases would be eligible for arbitration, which are private hearings that often end in much less serious discipline than what’s recommended by city investigators.

According to an attorney for the commission, the only way for the change to go into effect would be for the city council to sign off on modifying the city’s current contract with its rank-and-file officers. The public safety commission has no formal power to veto the proposal, the attorney said.

At Thursday’s meeting several members of the city’s newly elected police district councils spoke about the proposed change. The district councils are three-person panels chosen by voters to serve as a liaison between the public and each of the city’s 22 police districts.

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David Orlikoff, who holds a council seat in the 14th police district, called the effort to alter how misconduct cases are tried as “nothing less than an attack on our democracy.”

Alexander Perez, a member of the 2nd police district council, echoed his dissent.

“Chicago is a union town,” Perez said. “But when we talk about the police union, we’re talking about an organization that represents individuals that have the capacity to take- or alter life. So the ability to have officers skirt accountability and have closed hearings undermines the progress that we’ve made.”

But not all police district council members are opposed to the change.

Lee Bielecki, who sits on the council in the 22nd police district, urged alderpersons to vote in support of allowing serious cases to go to arbitration, arguing that the discipline imposed by city investigators is unfair.

“Officers are human beings and mistakes happen,” said Bielecki, a former police sergeant who was endorsed by the police union in the 2023 district council elections. “No police officer will say they should not be held accountable for infractions. But how can police officers have confidence in a system that is not fair?”

Tobara Richardson, Chicago’s deputy inspector general for public safety, told the commission during Thursday’s meeting there is a rigorous disciplinary grievance process already available to CPD officers that allows them to contest police board decisions they believe are unfair.

Driver and others at the meeting are not the only ones to express concern about the proposed change. At a recent Chicago Police Board meeting, Police Board President Ghian Foreman said that the city would “suffer” if serious cases of police abuse were allowed to be decided in private, according to the Chicago Tribune.

But, according to that same report, police union attorney Tim Grace said the arbitrator’s decision was “unequivocal” and the city has no choice but to allow these cases to be decided by an “independent third party.”

If the arbitration process does become law, Driver vowed to fight the decision “alongside any Chicagoan who believes that decision to be unjust.”

Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ. You can reach her at @annasavchenkoo.