An Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board meeting came to an abrupt end Thursday night after several board members left with several agenda items remaining.
After public comments ended, four audience members stood and began a peaceful protest.
“Mama, Mama, can't you see what the system’s done to me?” they sang.
Shortly thereafter, board member Judge Elliot Howsie tried to end the meeting, but it didn’t appear that any of the other board members seconded the motion.
Allegheny County councilor and fellow board member Bethany Hallam pushed back, noting that the meeting can’t be officially adjourned without a “second.”
Howsie got up to walk out of the room and was soon followed by Warden Orlando Harper and other jail administrators.
Sheriff Kevin Kraus, County Manager Stephen Pilarski, who attends oversight board meetings in place of County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and citizen member Gayle Moss left as well.
Hallam offered to continue running the meeting.
“I would just note for the record that we now don’t have a quorum and so we can’t get any business accomplished today,” said board member Judge Beth Lazzara.
“He adjourned the meeting without a second. He cannot do that,” Hallam said.
In an email, jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse said, “The board met and adjourned the meeting. Jail administration left when the meeting adjourned.”
The unusually short meeting seemed to be a culmination of long-simmering tensions between jail board members and the public. Howsie and Hallam have had a contentious relationship during their time on the board. Community members have also been highly critical of the board’s inaction after a series of deaths at the jail, mounting reports of inadequate mental and physical health care and other issues like an alleged violation of the Sunshine Act and alleged misuse of solitary confinement.
In a March review of deaths at the jail, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care Resources criticized an unnamed member of the Jail Oversight Board and the board’s tense relationship with jail administrators.
“The relationship with the JOB is very strained, and it seems to be driven more by one member of that board than the process itself,” the report reads. “It is critical to have open communication and transparency between the two entities to counteract the negativity of the one board member who seems to be trying to drive a negative narrative about everything the ACJ does.”
Hallam called the walk out a “slap in the face.”
“Not just of the people sitting in the jail that they are obligated to be the oversight for, not just for the people in the audience who take time out of their schedules to come down here and participate in this board, but also to me and the other members of the board who are trying to do their jobs,” she said.
Howsie could not be reached for comment.
Hallam noted that the board is statutorily required to provide oversight for the health and well-being of incarcerated people. She plans to file a mandamus lawsuit to compel the board to fulfill its obligation.
“The county follows the law — except on Thursdays at 4 o'clock,” said Brad Korinski, the attorney in the case. Korinski was formerly chief counsel at the Allegheny County Controller's office.
He said Fitzgerald’s continued absence at oversight board meetings, despite the fact that the county executive is required by law to sit on the board, and the warden’s reticence to answer some questions posed by board members shows a disregard for the rules outlined in the statute establishing the board.
“This is the only arm of county government where the law just doesn't apply. And we see it year after year, month after month, where what is a very simple statute that every citizen can understand is just not followed,” Korinski said.
A spokesperson for the county executive’s office declined to comment.
Korinski and Hallam did not have a firm timeline in mind for the lawsuit, but Korinski said it could be filed in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas before the next oversight board meeting in July.
