Background and Position on Resolution to Terminate Interim IM

Background Information

Contracting/Purchase of services

1. The actual APM for contracting (APM 1-1), purchasing policies (APM 1-4), and the city purchasing guidelines document (not publicly listed), do not line up with what the interim IM was told (regarding contracts) by other agency heads and does not line up with what we, as a council, have been told. I started looking into this in early August and have met with several city staff to try and get clarity on the actual process. This is definitely the most complicated process where there have been reported issues with the interim IM, and there is more work to do to get consensus on the requirements before we have a permanent IM. The crux of the issue is that all services the OIM have (and would) engage fall into the lowest dollar amount category for financial contract requirements. I am sharing a snip from the contracting quick sheet the City Attorney's office put together (for city-wide use) to show more details on all of the categories. I also met with the City Procurement Supervisor last week to confirm that 'Do not sign vendor contract' does actual mean that a financial contract is not required for services up to $25,000 and she did confirm that was the case. 
2.  The 2 'contracts' that are under scrutiny are a $2,000 scope of work with a medical examiner and a $0/Pro-bono legal contract. I definitely believe that the OIM/Permanent Monitor needs to follow required processes and contracting rules and that there are ways this can all be coordinated to alleviate at least most concerns (if not all) that have been raised by the Interim IM. I understand if the context that the contracts in question are for a total of (at most) $2,000 of city funds doesn't change your position, but I do think that context is extremely important and should have been included in the narrative shared with council and the media. It was not and still hasn't been included in official communication to the full council on this topic.
3. The interim IM did explicitly follow the contracting policies for the case management system

Other APM Inconsistencies

1. Teleworking Policy (APM 2-34) - 
   • The actual text of the APM does not say HR needs to give final approval, just that "All telework requests (both approved and denied) are sent to the Human Resources Director for review and tracking". 
   • Additionally there is no mention of international travel and the need to seek additional approval from HR or that it is not allowed.
     • The only text that comes close is "Employees who do not live in Wisconsin may not be eligible to telework due to potential additional tax liability for the City of Madison. Telework requests from employees living outside Wisconsin will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis."
2. Meeting Notices (APM 3-2)
   • The text of both this APM and the "Open Meetings Law" page on the city website both use the text that agendas are posted on a bulletin board. 
     • APM: "2. These agendas are posted on the bulletin board maintained for official meeting notices. 3. The City Clerk is the custodian of the bulletin board and is responsible for posting agendas for all meetings of Madison governmental bodies"
     • Open Meetings Law Page: "Official posting is on the Clerk's Office Bulletin Board."
   • The "Open Meetings Law" page doesn't mention the legistar at all and the APM language has a section that talks about Legistar bodies vs. All other bodies which seems to refer to the format needed to get the agenda actually into legistar, but it is not clear at all.
     • APM: "a. Legistar bodies shall submit a link in an e-mail to CL Meetings. b. All others shall submit an electronic document in an e-mail to CL Meetings."
3. References to refusing to follow work rule APMs like 3-5 (Harrassment/Discrimination), 2-33 (Standard Expectations and Rules of Conduct), or 2-52 (Inclusive Workplace - Transgender, Gender non-conforming, and NonBinary Employees)
   • Some combination of these 3 APMs are referenced in several of my colleagues blogs as examples of the importance of APMs and the refusal of the Interim IM or PCOB to adhere… These were also mentioned heavily in the discussions earlier in the year (April) about proposed ordinance changes.
   • The PCOB performance evaluation tool created this year actually has a whole section assessing 'compliance with MGO 5.19-5.20, city administrative procedures, and all applicable legal frameworks governing civilian police oversight'. One of the indicators for this section is "Ensures the Office operates consistently with city administrative procedures 3-5, 2-33, and 2-52"
     • This is one of many examples of the PCOB being willing to come to the table and work with us on the concerns that have been raised by folks on the council.

"Failure to Begin the Hiring Process"

1. From the start of the Interim IM's hiring, the PCOB was clear with HR and with the IM that her first priority was to stand-up the operations of the office. This was also explicitly mentioned in the PCOB annual report to the Common Council. Accomplishments in that area (non-exhaustive):
   • First cases closed (ever) within her first couple of months in the office
   • A substantive Annual report within her first 3 months which was not required of her as an interim. 
     • This report details significant work done to become familiar with MPD and lays out the complaint process from start to finish (as a couple of examples of what was included)
   • Advocacy for a case management system that could help with records management as well as record access from MPD, and would be invaluable as the office got more complaints and had open investigations (which could span many months)
     • This advocacy started as soon as she was hired in December and the case management software go-live and training started this month 
   • 43 Page Richard Lee Johnson Investigative Report released in June
     • This public report includes the full text of the Independent Medical Report from Dr. Weedn (starting on page 29 of the PDF) including 3 and a half pages of citations (38 total references) and can be accessed by the DA's office/Medical Examiner at any time since published on June 15th
   • Ongoing work on other long-time cases from the back-log
2. As the creation of the 'Employment Review' document didn't include any outreach to any member of the PCOB and seems to have not included any contextual input from the HR director, the details included regarding the hiring process items completed as well as the expected timing are not accurate. 
   • There is a fundamental misunderstanding regarding what is the duty of the PCOB versus what is the duty of the interim IM (as hiring manager). The recruitment and hiring process (including timeline) is under the purview of the PCOB. The interim IM was hired in-part to serve as hiring manager so there could be a city staff person to serve as the primary go-between with the PCOB and HR and to be the primary staff person to oversee the actual recruitment and interview process, so that less of that time burden would fall on general city HR staff.
   • The interim position was always intended to be at least 12 months (this has been confirmed by the HR director, and the 13 month timeframe that the PCOB and the interim IM keep referring to was discussed via text prior to the IM starting her position).
3. The council unanimously voted to extend the provisional appointment on June 8th and that extension resolution explicitly stated the earliest the position description would be posted was September 2026. At the time the resolution to terminate the interim IM was introduced it hadn't even been a single week past this 'earliest' deadline. 
   • The main justification for the termination that I have seen regarding the hiring process is that not enough was done between June 8th and July 22nd to move the recruitment forward. Most folks contend that it is reasonable that the shooting death of Corey Ruiz on July 22nd may impact the pre-planned hiring timeline for the office whose job is to oversee MPD.
     • One seemingly relevant piece of information to this timeline is that the Richard Lee Johnson Case Report was released on June 15th
     • Another is that the case management software advanced from the IT review to the legal/contracting process in June
       • June and July, the legal contract was being drafted with IM negotiation, edits, and approvals to ensure the data was sufficiently walled off from folks outside the office in a way that could still comply with city requirements
       • In July there were additional contract edits/negotiations with City Legal, IT, Case Management Software Rep, and the IM

Ethical Concerns Regarding this Resolution and lack of Due Process

• I have deep ethical concerns regarding the conduct of the City and some colleagues regarding personnel dispute information that for any other employee in the city would have (and have in the past) been treated as confidential/sensitive information and not debated in non-meeting public forums or directly shared to news outlets. 
  • The interim IM is a provisional employee and for that reason lacks most employee protections. This provisional status seems to be the entirety of the legal justification for our ability to terminate the position (citing that we are an at-will employment state...). But I don't believe provisional status invalidates employee rights to privacy regarding personnel matters and this entire process sets a deeply problematic precedent. 
  • I don't say that to mean that the public didn't have a right to know anything regarding the process, but information absolutely hasn't been shared with the care that is required. As far as I know there are no plans for us as a body to go into closed session for any part of the discussion regarding this resolution and for that reason every question and every part of the deliberation will be permanently recorded in video as part of the official public record. This isn't just extremely irregular and ethically dubious, but to keep any semblance of ethics, it also means there can be no questions or discussion regarding relevant past PCOB supervisory work that would be rightfully considered confidential personnel matters.
• This resolution was introduced from the floor at the end of the meeting on 10/6/2026 without even a single conversation with any PCOB member and referred directly back to the council for the meeting tonight (10/20/2026). None of the justifying documents ('Employment Review', 8/31 Memo (also included in the 'Employment Review' document) were put together with any input from the interim IM's actual supervising authority, the PCOB.
• I asked the City Attorney for examples of past scenarios where an 'Employment Review' was performed and to see the example documents because the language in the 'Employment Review' document (as someone who is actually familiar with the context around the hiring process..) seemed very misleading and heavy-handed in a way that seemed like it was meant to paint a certain narrative. I asked for other examples so that I could compare the language to see if it was consistent (wanting to give the benefit of the doubt that maybe that's just how these kinds of documents are written).
  • If the language for this Employment Review was different than others, I planned to get clarification from the author by pointing out specific passages to ask about the intent behind the language.
  • As of publishing this blog, I hadn't received any follow-up with examples of other 'Employment Review' documents and an email thread the HR director shared with me did state that this is the only time an 'Employment Review' has been performed.
• We also haven't gotten any communication with an official memo from the City Attorney to answer questions asked after the resolution was introduced. These questions were around criteria we were to consider in making this decision (re: terminating the contract extension) as well as any other similar questions asked by other Alders. 

Transition Planning and Impact of Termination

• There are many structural and process questions that have lead to conflict since the office became fully operational for the first time under the interim IM and there is a lot of work to do across the board to ensure that a permanent IM isn't met with ambiguities. Clarifying the inconsistencies in key APMs is an example of this necessary work. Oversight work explicitly requires a critical eye when reviewing SOPs and processes.. We should expect that any IM we hire would push back when the wording of the official city process document (APM) doesn't match with what they are verbally being told.
• Terminating IM Glass does not actually resolve any of the perceived structural issues with the office and will significantly damage the integrity of the ordinances and relationships with the most impacted community. It would further fracture the relationship between the council and the PCOB and would be spitting in the face of any promised restorative justice process.
• There is no transition planning (as part of this resolution/by the sponsors) for open cases or adjudication of the significant intake of new cases since August and an immediate termination would have a negative impact even if outside investigative services are eventually sought.
• Council Chief of Staff, Dr. Kapusta-Pofahl is someone I deeply respect and trust. I know she would move with integrity if she were thrust in the supervision of this office. I know that she has been planning for all manner of scenarios these last couple of weeks. The perceived (and actual) conflict of interest and the undermining of the Civilian Oversight Ordinances that is inherent to this resolution are absolutely not worth terminating an already temporary employee without even an attempt at due process. 
• Concern over the interim IM trying to become the permanent IM cannot justify this vote (and the terrible precedent it would set), because we already get to have final confirmation power over whoever is put forth as the permanent IM.

I will be voting no and whichever way the vote goes, I will continue the work of identifying the root causes of the conflicts we are seeing and collaboratively working towards actual solutions to that conflict.