Another round of talks between the Austin Police Association and the city command a paltry slice of progress on the hard-fought issue of police oversight in the Austin Police Department (APD). Ceremoniously, for only about 15 minutes, both parties congregated Thursday with hopes pinned on tackling the oversight elements defined by the Police Oversight Act, as reported by CBS Austin.

With more than a month since their last face-to-face, the unions and city officials ploughed no new ground concerning police contract revisions. The privacy of police officers stands as a towering wall, hindering negotiations, especially about the so-called g-file system that houses private personnel records, which include items like unsubstantiated complaints against officers. "There is no oversight in this contract," Ron DeLord, an attorney for the Austin Police Association, told CBS Austin.

Reacting to the issues at hand, an outside attorney speaking for the City of Austin, Rebecca Sanchez Hayward, assured that there will be no reckless dissemination of personal information. "Our proposal and what is also in line with Prop A is reliance of on the Texas Public Information Act to keep certain information private," Hayward told reporters.

However, as the Madison News tweet reports, the negotiations ended abruptly after brief deliberations. The two factions, both mentally mettled by the ongoing discussions, agreed to dismiss for the day and reconvene at an unspecified future date to further chip away at the statute's compliance with the Texas Public Information Act.

In a statement to CBS Austin earlier this month, when discussing the tortoise's pace of negotiation, APA President Michael Bullock expressed an amount of auspicious patience. "Our first meeting, we talked through articles, one all the way up to 16... Historically, our contract conversations could last anywhere from a year to a year-and-a-half," Bullock said.

The discourse around police accountability and transparency continues to stir austere debate across the nation. In Austin, the echoes of these issues resound in city hall chambers as much as they ripple through the streets, with the public quietly awaiting the outcome of these protracted discussions.