Open Letter Demanding Rich Fitzgerald Attend County Jail Oversight Board Meetings
In recent months, the Allegheny County Jail (“ACJ”) and its administration have been named as defendants in several lawsuits and have been the target of public outrage. A few of the serious allegations from the previous year include: the ACJ’s response to COVID-19, including its refusal to test the jail population, the default placement of individuals with psychiatric disabilities into solitary confinement, the routine and prolonged use of restraint chairs, rampant and needless use of force, mismanagement and mistreatment of staff resulting in acute staffing shortages (especially in the medical unit), inferior to nonexistent physical and mental health care, fluctuating and inconsistent medication distribution, unpalatable food, unsanitary conditions including dirty trays, live and dead roaches in food, rats in kitchen areas, failure to provide cleaning supplies for individuals to use in their cells, and the mistreatment and purposeful misclassification of transgender inmates. Conditions at the jail appear to be getting worse, not better. And, persons both inside the jail (staff and incarcerated people) and in the community have lost confidence that the present administration of the ACJ is committed to enacting needed reforms.
The statutory body charged with oversight of the ACJ is the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board (“JOB”). See 61 Pa. C.S. § 1721, et seq. Pursuant to the statute, the JOB is composed of: the county chief executive; two judges of the court of common pleas one of whom shall be the president judge, or his/her designee who shall be a judge, and one judge appointed by the president judge; the county sheriff; the county controller; the president of county council or his/her designee, and three citizen members appointed by the county executive with the consent of county council.
Accordingly, the statutory members of the current JOB are County Executive Rich Fitzgerald; the Hon. Kim Berkley Clark, P.J.; the Hon. Beth Lazzara; Sheriff William Mullen; County Controller Chelsa Wagner; County Councilperson At-Large Bethany Hallam (designee for County Council President Pat Catena); and citizen members Terri Klein, Gayle Moss, and Abass Kamara.
The statute expressly permits the President Judge and the President of County Council to assign designees to serve in their stead. No such dispensation is afforded to the County Executive.
All of the legally appointed JOB members are in regular attendance at monthly jail oversight board meetings, with one notable exception: County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. Since becoming County Executive in 2012, Mr. Fitzgerald has rarely, if ever, attended a JOB meeting, consistently sending another county employee in his place. In recent years, this employee has been Barbara Parees, who used to attend in her role as Deputy County Manager. However, Ms. Parees retired as a county employee. Yet, she continues to attend JOB meetings as the ostensible “designee” of Mr. Fitzgerald, without him having any statutory right to make this designation.
Sending a retired employee, contrary to state statute, to attend an important monthly meeting can politely be termed as bizarre. It is a particularly curious juxtaposition when one considers that Mr. Fitzgerald is regularly present at other recurring county meetings and is routinely present at events throughout the County. (For example, Mr. Fitzgerald often attends COVID briefings by the Health Department, even though his control of the Health Department is much more attenuated than his control over the ACJ). Fitzgerald’s participation in the JOB appears to be the only major mandated duty of his office which he has routinely and deliberately ignored over the course of more than a decade. Moreover, during his previous tenure as President of County Council, Mr. Fitzgerald actually attended JOB meetings.
Ms. Parees generally does not have many contributions to JOB meetings. In recent history, she has spoken up on only two occasions: once to push back against suggestions to conduct exit interviews of several prominent ACJ staff members who abruptly left their positions at the facility, and once recently to push back against universal COVID-19 testing at ACJ. In other words, her presence is doubly helpful to Fitzgerald — she simultaneously allows Fitzgerald to distance himself from ongoing abuses and mismanagement at the jail, while also being able to voice opposition on his behalf to any attempts to increase transparency about what goes on there.
All of this begs the question: Is County Executive Rich Fitzgerald scared to attend Jail Oversight Board Meetings?
Fitzgerald’s dereliction of his duty to attend JOB meetings is concerning since he is arguably the most valuable JOB member: he is the primary official responsible for the ACJ and, therefore, the only person who can effect immediate change. For instance, JOB members routinely complain about the ACJ’s failure to provide basic information regarding jail policy and documents. Fitzgerald, as a member of the JOB and the official responsible for the ACJ could order that information to be released immediately.
Reflecting upon the role of an executive office holder, Harry Truman said it best, “the buck stops here.” Yet, in Allegheny County, that buck is always passed to Warden Harper and Deputy Warden Williams, who consistently appear at JOB meetings to answer questions posed by board members and those submitted by the public — and usually try to thwart attempts by the JOB for more robust oversight. Not surprisingly, because of their prominent roles at the monthly meetings, Harper and Williams are often pointed to as the parties to blame for the shocking and inhumane occurrences at the ACJ.
That being said, both Harper and Williams, and the ACJ as an entity, are ultimately the responsibility of Rich Fitzgerald, the County Executive. And yet, the County Executive has effectively managed to conceal his involvement, control and responsibility for what happens at his own institution. His continued absence at JOB meetings appears to be an intentional attempt to distance himself from the ACJ and justify his cowardly inaction in the face of rampant incompetence, mismanagement and sheer cruelty among jail administration.
Mr. Fitzgerald is the party truly responsible for the oversight of the jail and the wellbeing of its population. Any failings on the part of Warden Orlando Harper and Deputy Warden Laura Williams — and they are legion — ultimately are the County Executive’s obligation to address and correct.
Despite numerous phone calls to Rich Fitzgerald’s office and Judge Clark’s office demanding Rich Fitzgerald to attend the March 4, 2021 JOB meeting, he did not appear. Several public comments were submitted with this same demand. Judge Clark, the Chair of the Jail Oversight Board, read only two such submissions. She described them as “just comments,” and so they were not specifically addressed or responded to. Fitzgerald also failed to appear at April’s JOB meeting.
Because it is clear that Rich Fitzgerald will not attend these meetings without a greater outcry from his constituents, and because it is similarly apparent that Judge Clark will not request his presence, we demand that County Executive Rich Fitzgerald fulfill his statutorily obligated duty to attend all Jail Oversight Board meetings, beginning with the meeting scheduled for May 6, 2021. Strict adherence by the Board to its statutory duties is an essential step in the journey to reform the ACJ. But the first step in that journey must begin with the County Executive showing up. The buck stops with him.
JOIN US AND SIGN THE PETITION HERE
OFFICIAL SIGN ONS BY ELECTED OFFICIALS AND ORGS:
1Hood Power
Abolitionist Law Center
Alliance for Police Accountability
ANSWER Coalition (Pittsburgh branch)
Bethany Hallam, Allegheny County Councilwoman, At-Large
Book ‘Em
Black Lives Matter Pittsburgh and SWPA
Bukit Bail Fund
Casa San Jose
Fawn Walker-Montgomery, Executive Director and Co-founder of Take Action Mon Valley
Fossil Free Pitt Coalition
Grassroots Justice of South Hills
Green Party of Allegheny County
Jerry Dickinson, Candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 18th District
Let’s Get Free: The Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee
National Lawyers Guild — Pittsburgh Chapter
Olivia Bennett, Allegheny County Councilwoman, District 13
Opportunity Fund
Party for Socialism and Liberation (Pittsburgh branch)
Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America
Stop the Station
Sunrise Pittsburgh
Take Action Mon Valley-TAMV
Volunteers and Official Visitors of the Allegheny County Chapter — PA Prison Society
Words Without Walls
