During the Tallahassee City Commission meeting on Wednesday, City Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox made a motion to remove Taylor Biro from the Tallahassee Citizens Police Review Board. The motion passed 3-2 with Mayor John Dailey and City Commissioner Curtis Richardson in support.
City Commissioner Jack Porter – who previously nominated Biro to the Board – and City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow voted against the move.
Those elected officials in support of the motion indicated the actions of the CPRB were moving away from the original mission of the recently created board. While Matlow and Porter argued that diverse views were needed on the board.
The vote ends a two month saga which began at an October 12th city commission meeting when Williams-Cox asked the chairman of the CPRB about a member bringing a cup to meetings with an anti-law enforcement message.
At that meeting, Williams-Cox stated that she had heard that a CPRB member attended a CPRB meeting with a cup imprinted with the phrase “F**k the police.” “That to me says there is a bias” said Williams-Cox. “There is no place for that in what we are trying to do here in the city of Tallahassee.”
Chairman Gaines said that the issue should be addressed by the city commission and the CPRB member.
Subsequently, the the Florida PBA Big Bend Chapter called for the removal of Biro for “promoting an inappropriate, incendiary, and anti-police message at a recent CPRB meeting.”
Further reporting revealed the cup in question carried an “Abolish Police” sticker.
In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat Biro said she was “abolitionist.” Biro said, “I have never shied away from wearing my values on my sleeve, or on my cup, and that’s why I have that sticker on there.”
The police abolition movement is a political movement that advocates replacing policing with other systems of public safety. Police abolitionists believe that policing, as a system, is inherently flawed and cannot be reformed.
On Monday, just ahead of the city commission meeting, the Chairman of the Tallahassee Citizens Police Review Board (CPRB) – Edward Gaines – emailed a press release stating that the CPRB membership unanimously supports Taylor Biro remaining on the board. Board members indicated they would resign if Biro was removed.
Commissioner Curtis Richardson indicated that the CPRB needs to have a working relationship law enforcement and that recent actions by the Board has made such a relationship impossible.
“I don’t know how we get there from here”, Richardson added.
This was not the first time Biro has been in the news about her law enforcement views.
In November of last year, Tallahassee Inspector General Dennis Sutton questioned CPRB member Biro‘s objectivity during a board subcommittee meeting based on an opinion column written by Biro and published in the Tallahassee Democrat.
In the column, Biro wrote, “Don’t ask us to recommend a policy or training to fix this, because policing isn’t broken, it’s performing exactly as it was designed. We cannot remove the eggs from a cake after it comes out of the oven. Sometimes you just need a new recipe.”
Sutton said actions like Biro’s could give a negative impression of the board to Tallahassee Police Department members, decreasing their willingness to work with them. He also said board members were required to say that they would remain unbiased on their application to join the board.
“There is a concern by the rank and file that this board is completely biased against the police department,” Sutton said.
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Call me astonished at the double standard. In 2022 we cannot allow input from an “abolitionist activist”. In 2020 the false accusations of an abolitionist activist were used by the city to cancel their most experienced street supervisor after the city engaged in it’s own act of political activism.
I don’t understand why the city commission created the review board in the first place, except of course, for purely political reasons, pandering to the black vote. They created an illogical environment, expecting a group with no law enforcement experience to evaluate law enforcement actions.
Best move ever done by the City Commission. IMHO. I hope they keep it up.
So the big deal is the removal of a biased individual from a board with no actual legal authority or legal standing according to state law and was created by politically motivated individuals to review decisions and actions by dedicated trained professional individuals who proceed toward dangerous situations and may or may not have used excessive force in a particular situation using their training and procedural policies and or have added new procedural policies or training in practice?
At least this is what I understand from reading this news release, comments and city of Tallahassee Ordinance No. 20-O-31.
Wow, what an interesting time to be alive! Eighty one years ago the news was that we were at war. Today this is what has our attention!
@ Snidely… I completely understand your union take on this. But I would also suggest that some Democrats who still possess a modicum of rational thought (yes, I believe there are a few still around) have recognized the reality that the foolish and destructive blw/antifa/defund/abolish movement has and continues to backfire in a huge way. I’m inclined to believe that a desire to separate themselves (politically) from that mess may have also played a substantive part in their decision-making process.
I always find it best to “flip the script” when reviewing matters like this. I read it posted by someone else… but what would be happening if a CPRB member publicly denounced and called for the abolishment of blm, or antifa, or any other anarchist or Marxist organization? What is their cup had a sticker on it that displayed the words “F— George Floyd”?
When one brazenly and publicly wears ones emotions, disdain, and hatred on ones sleave, shirt, or even coffee cup… one should not be surprised when one is challenged or questioned about it. Biro’s activist nature and her lust for her 15-minutes was her own doing. And it also exposed others of her ilk on the Commission and the CPRB to like scrutiny.
Mr. Wallace,
Except that’s not what the sticker said. The vulgarity was a dishonest red herring promoted to railroad this volunteer board member who has worked closely with policing agencies across the state.
As a Republican I can say I am ashamed this is how Curtis, Dianne and John chose to waste their capital. Porter and Matlow fought this ridiculous precedent-exploding charade with dignity and truth.
Removing Biro was the only option the city commission had. Imagine if a school board member had a sticker that said “F*** teachers”, they would last about 2 seconds on the board. Glad Daily got the win over mandate queen Dozier, she would have kept Biro for sure.
The commenters who stoop to name calling cancel out their own comments. In addition it highlights the ignorance of their failure to realize and advocate that there needs to be a nationwide search for a new city manager.
City Manager Mr Goad is a good man, is a smart man, is a kind man, and as far as I know did an excellent job in his previous position.
Unfortunately his rise to city manager was out of political expediency to include him in the chess game of his cohorts that was a move to benefit their political aspirations and not the citizens that they’re supposed to be serving.
Matlow and Porter are light years ahead of the rest of the commission in realizing this. It is also the most important piece that would unlock the gridlock that currently is stifling Tallahassee.
Our current city manager is so tied to making decisions based on political reasons it stifles and suffocates progress and breeds complacency.
Rather than wasting oxygen on name calling they should be advocating for “the three” to show some leadership rather than planning their next re-election campaigns.
“Scott Maddox’s City Manager” should be the issue on the top of the list.
There was nothing like hatred or even disdain coming from Biro.
Williams-Cox sloppily executed her marching orders from the police union and you could tell John, Curtis and Richard Murphy already regretted doing it.
The chief makes $180k and wouldn’t even answer questions. A true Reese Goad (who makes $200+k from the taxpayers) political circus, in the tradition longtime PBA partisan Scott Maddox who installed Goad and bragged about it to FBI agents.
Also to add:
The “abolish police” sticker is one of many stickers on the silver tumbler, including ones of Bernie Sanders, Prince, a purple frog, a sticker from the ACLU that says “Get a warrant,” and a sticker of an old anarchist and labor saying, “No Gods, No Masters, No Captains.”
Non issue for me and contradicts the “ef the police” reporting. Not sure which is true. But sounds more reliable than “Williams-Cox stated that she had heard”. She had heard? That sounds like FUD.
Wait, reading these comments…
Can we kick off any review board members that have in any way displayed thin blue line in their past? Ideally you’d have a balance of all mindsets on a citizens police review board.
I am in favor of this removal, simply because someone with blatant hatred of an institution should not be involved in monitoring it.
You can have dislike, even disdain, but not hatred.
Good Move. The Board is to look into Citizen Complaints and if you are already against the Police, the only thing you will look for is the Negative and ways to make the Officer look Guilty. If any Board member wants to Resign because of her removal, hold the Door open for them so they can leave.
Told ya:
Your elected Nannies are totally beholding to the union – all unions.
Even to the point of your elected Nannies giving the middle finger to the now defunct BLM and…wait for it…
…a big eff you to the two wokesters y’all knowingly voted into office Porter and Matlow. Again as I told ya there was no need to get those panties bunched up…the union told your less woke elected Nannies what to do and they did it ASAP (which actually was kind of slow and lame…but your not so woke Nannies finally did it.)
Meanwhile Porter and Matlow along with their virtue signaling, white, better than thou, misguided, likely going to #ell, voter base are high and mightly whizzed off…to be continued…
Well stated, Edward Lyle.
It was something to behold, I’ll tell you that. The back at forth between the Commission members was an interesting dynamic to watch. As I noted in the past, once the two progressive Marxicrats made it their unprecedented public mission to team up and go after a board colleague, the collegial concept of the body was badly damaged. I liked how both Tallahassee Reports and the Tallahassee Marxicrat were mentioned and cited during the mud slinging. Advantage: TR
Commissioner Porter was clumsily doing her best song-n-dance routine in an attempt to justify her bad pick of Biro, concocting a word salad that couldn’t be saved even with a decent dressing and seasoned croutons. You could see the sweat running down her brow during the entire malaise.
The best part was watching Commissioner Richardson take the pizza boy and his pretentious preposterous pandering to the woodshed for a good and long-deserved @$$ whip’n. Note to the white privileged pizza boy: never try to pretend you’re more black than a black man… you ain’t a brotha, brotha.
Let the whole board resign in protest, then dissolve it. Going forward, if you discover a bad apple in the basket, pull it out and toss it… but don’t accuse the whole basket of being rotten and dump them all on the floor for the political agenda clowns to kick around. You have a chain of command and organizational structure for a reason. Let Law Enforcement do their job, and start doing yours.
The moral of the story is… when you build something on a foundation of lies, insincerity, media-manufactured hysteria, identity politics, and financial extortion… it will inevitably collapse under the weight of its own ignorance.
NE Moderate
“Scott Maddox’s City Manager”
You nailed the cause of the dysfunction. This would have never been allowed to begin with had there been a proper city manager. It is ironic that Porter and Matlow are the only two who recognize this, but the three other members fail to show leadership there.
If TR had an award for the commenter with the most common sense you would win.
Does the CPRB have the authority and ability to focus on why there has been 141 shootings in this city…..I see no outcry here….review that CPRB…
It’s spelled “lying”. “LYING”.
Nick Weed,
Probably the worst policy decision since the $27m stadium giveaway, and by the same three Chambered-up insider $$ pro-Goad commissioners.
PBA’s worst miscalculation since losing by 12 with Bellamy. This looks far from over. Won’t be long til they regret wasting their capital on this witch hunt.
Heaven forbid there be a cross section of citizens on the board to represent all beliefs. EVERYONE has biases, if they say they dont, they are lieing. At least Biro doesn’t lie about her beliefs. Being honest was one of her positive qualifications. But NOT LIEING can’t be tolerated by Scott Maddox’s city manager, the mayor, Williams-cox, Richardson and Curtis, and the police.
Finally we see some action and leadership.
Dianne Williams-Cox needs to gather her intelligence and facts before she makes public statements.
Board member Malik Gary has proclaimed himself as being an abolitionist. He should be removed, also.
A sad unprecedented black eye in the history of the City Commission, undemocratically removing citizen volunteers.
Scott Maddox’s City Manager presided over this grotesque carnival because of the support of the three Chamber/PBA insiders and this is what we get.
Jack Porter & Jeremy Matlow voted against removing Biro?!! Huge, just huge surprise! Anti-Law enforcement at every opportunity!