Vang is the Gender Justice Manager at Freedom, Inc., where she supports Black and Southeast Asian women, girls, and queer and Trans survivors of violence. She was part of the coalition that pushed the city to create and fund the PCOB in 2020, following the 2015 police killing of Tony Robinson and the nationwide protests after the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. She later accepted an appointment to the board.

"I am resigning because this board was built and is controlled in a way that makes it impossible to do its job," Vang wrote. "And at this point, keeping this board in place makes real police oversight less likely, not more."

At the center of Vang's account is the city's treatment of Meeka Glass, the Independent Monitor who led the Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM). The ordinance creating the board empowers it to recruit, hire, and supervise the monitor, and explicitly bars city officials from using their positions to undermine the monitor's independence. But Vang says City Attorney Michael Haas repeatedly stalled the board with contradictory legal advice and refused to allow it to seek independent counsel, even though Haas also represents the mayor, the Common Council, and the police department.

On June 9, the Common Council unanimously voted to extend Glass's appointment through March 2027. Six days later, Glass released a report finding that Richard Lee Johnson's death was not caused by a cocaine overdose, as Madison Police had claimed, but by officers using a dangerous restraint position, excessive force, and failing to provide medical help. Her report also raised concerns about the police department concealing crucial evidence.

On July 22, Madison police shot and killed Corey Ruiz, sparking mass protests. On August 31, Haas coordinated a joint memo attacking Glass's assertion that the OIM is independent from city processes. On October 2, Haas released his own "evaluation" of Glass—an employment review of someone who was not his employee—and both the board and Glass learned of it through the media. On October 6, Alder Will Ochowicz introduced a motion to fire Glass, with a final vote on October 20.

Vang said the city's stated reasons for firing Glass do not hold up. "Meeka Glass was fired for conducting an independent investigation where she found Richard Lee Johnson's death at the hands of Madison police," she wrote. "If she had assisted the police department to cover up what happened, she would still have her job today."

She also described a meeting the board called to discuss the evaluation and the attempt to fire Glass. Haas told the board the meeting had not been properly announced, even though the City Clerk had confirmed it had, and then threatened the board with legal action if it proceeded. "Our attorney then threatened us with legal action if we held the meeting," Vang wrote.

Today, the Common Council's chief of staff supervises the very office created to operate independently from the city. Vang warned that the message to future monitors is clear: anyone who conducts an independent investigation risks being publicly attacked, humiliated, and fired. "No qualified person will want to take this job," she wrote. "And anyone who does will know that they are being asked to serve as the face of an office that is supposed to investigate the police but is not allowed to do so."

Vang said she has watched survivors share their pain with the board and can no longer in good conscience ask them to do so. "This board is now doing more harm than good," she wrote. "It is not only failing to provide real oversight. It is taking away the time, trust, and energy that should be going toward the fight for actual community control over police."

She thanked her fellow board members, including former chairs Maia Pearson and Devon Snyder, as well as Glass and the OIM staff. But she said the problem is structural, not personal. "The problem is not that the wrong people were in the seats; the problem is that the wrong people own the furniture," she wrote.

Vang called for community control over the police—not just influence or input, but real power for those most impacted by policing to decide how policing works, how the budget is spent, and who gets hired and fired. "I would rather fight for the real thing than keep tending a monument to the idea that we already have it," she wrote.

The resignation raises questions about the future of civilian oversight in Madison and whether the PCOB can function as intended. City officials have not publicly responded to Vang's allegations.