Hard work awaits the Council on Law Enforcement and Community Relations created earlier this month by Gov. Mark Dayton.

Fifteen Minnesotans will join council co-chairs — Hennepin County District Judge Pamela Alexander and Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson — as voting members. They and the 17 “ex-officio” members serving with them have not been officially named.

The council’s charge is to develop recommendations to build trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve — “thereby creating a safer and more harmonious Minnesota.”

A statement from the governor’s office describes the council together as representing communities of color, law enforcement officers, the legal community, faith organizations, young people, local governments and the Minnesota legislative and executive branches, among others. It also includes representatives of the families of the men who died: Jamar Clark, in a November incident in Minneapolis, and Philando Castile, in July after a Falcon Heights traffic stop.

We heard voices of hope and concern in the east metro as the work gets underway on a pace that calls for preliminary recommendations to the governor and Legislature by Feb. 15 and a final report by June 30. Points raised merit attention:

Minnesota Philanthropy Partners President and CEO Eric Jolly told us the solutions “won’t be easy, but this is how you move a community.” Jolly, who told us he will be serving as a non-voting member of the council, describes its work as “a call to move from conversation to action, from ideas to policy.”

It offers “an opportunity to raise the level of discourse from our police and our community,” he said, “to the level of policy formation and change.”

Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and a voting member of the council, acknowledges the challenge for its law enforcement representatives to make sure they articulate “the thoughts and opinions of rank-and-file officers who work every day throughout our communities.”

Flaherty, a former St. Paul deputy mayor, said he is beginning the work with an open mind and the “hope we can share views openly and honestly and come up with some concrete ways to improve relationships” between police and people.

If members approach their work “truly interested in seeking solutions — not bashing or finger-pointing — this could lead,” he said, to “good solutions we can all put in place.”

Dave Titus, St. Paul Police Federation president, told us he appreciates the representation of rank-and-file officers Flaherty’s association and another organization will provide but is concerned that the state’s largest police unions in St. Paul and Minneapolis — those “facing these issues head-on” — are not specifically included among members.

He’s also concerned about representation of the Clark and Castile families, he said. In the Clark case, three investigations at different levels have cleared the officers involved, he told us, asking: “Where’s the voice of the two officers who most likely would have been killed if he’d have gotten that gun?”

Family representation shows him, Titus said, that the effort is “a political scam,” one that is “all about politics and not anything to do about anything productive. I’m very disappointed.”

We invited a statement in response from the governor’s office. It says that council members “reflect diverse perspectives from law enforcement and community interests, who have personal experience and investment in addressing these challenges together. Anyone who wants their voice heard in the work of the council will have the opportunity to do so at its open, public meetings.”

Hamline University President Fayneese Miller, who is leading an initiative to engage college campuses in the community’s conversation on race, told us this summer that the governor had the credibility and scope to convene a statewide group from across sectors. She is pleased that he has done so.

We asked Miller, a social psychologist, about fostering a successful process: “What it really takes is a willingness to come to the table with an open mind and not be willing to judge or be defensive.”

Things will be said that will make some people uncomfortable, she told us, but it’s in that discomfort “that we can move forward.”

The discomfort is apparent. Making progress will require council members and the Minnesotans they represent to speak openly — and listen.

—St. Paul Pioneer Press, Oct. 27