Encouraging start for Urbana's police review board

Only time will tell whether it was a good idea for the city of Urbana to establish a police review board – believed to be the first of its kind in downstate Illinois – but Mayor Laurel Prussing's first appointments to the board give it a promising start.

The seven-member board includes a fairly good cross-section of the city – by geography, gender and race, although apparently not by politics – and most importantly, some well-established citizens who won't be coming to the board with an ax to grind. None of the appointees are among those who agitated for the police review board. Interestingly, none of the appointees applied, she said.