New Hartford Town Board eliminates police commission

By ELIZABETH COOPER

Observer-Dispatch

Posted Feb 10, 2010 @ 07:38 PM

Last update Feb 10, 2010 @ 10:23 PM

NEW HARTFORD —

The Town Board has abolished New Hartford’s Police Commission in the midst of contract negotiations with the Joseph Corr Policeman’s Benevolent Association and as the hiring process for a new police chief begins.

In a 3-2 vote, Town Supervisor Patrick Tyksinski and board members Christine Krupa and Don Backman pushed the measure through Wednesday night, while board members Rich Woodland Jr. and David Reynolds tried to get them to table the measure so more research could be done.

It also met with stiff opposition from Police Commission Chairman Patrick Cardinale and New Hartford Village Mayor Don Ryan.

“I consider this to be an urgent matter,” Tyksinski said during a tension-filled discussion at the Town Board meeting. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting here.”

Tyksinski decided to seek the change after learning state law that governs police commissions states their decisions do not need to be approved by their town boards.

Under New York State Town Law, any police commission created by a town automatically gets all power relating to Police Department policy and personnel, Tyksinski said.

That means the selection of the acting chief — who will replace present Chief Raymond Philo when he retires in mid-March — would have been up to the commission alone. But after the commission was abolished, the board ratified the commission’s recommendation that Lt. Timothy O’Neill be named acting chief for three months after Philo leaves.

Additionally, negotiations over the PBA contract would have been in the hands of the five-member commission, not the Town Board.

The Town Board has been overseeing both those processes, and did not learn of the legal complication until this week, Tyksinski said.

Concerns

Cardinale and Ryan both said the commission had an important role, and that tossing it without sufficient research or debate was wrong.

And the meeting briefly devolved into a shouting match when Cardinale said he only had learned of the plan that morning and called Tyksinski’s decision “clandestine.”

Ryan said that when his village had agreed to merge its Police Department with that of the town, the deal had been based on the understanding that the newly formed department would be governed by a commission.

“The village law passed after the referendum said there would be a police commission,” he said, referring to the referendum in which village residents authorized the consolidation in 1984.
After the meeting, Cardinale and Ryan said the commission historically had gone to the Town Board for approval of its decisions.

The commission performed the important function of grappling with the complexities of running the Police Department, worked very closely with Philo and even fielded complaint calls from residents,” they said.

And, they said, having a commission meant policing was separated from politics.

“What it does is take politics out of the Police Department,” Ryan said. “I think that was the intent for both boards back in 1984.”

Finances

With the town facing financial difficulties after years of imbalanced budgets, Tyksinski might be able to implement other changes more quickly without the commission.

He has said he wants to downsize the Police Department and have the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office take on more responsibility in the town.

The cost of the Police Department represents almost $1.9 million of the town’s $14.9 million 2010 budget.

A search committee the Police Commission created to work on finding Philo’s replacement will continue to exist. Cardinale and commission member David Butler are on the committee, along with Ryan, Krupa and Woodland.

Krupa also called for creating a police advisory committee made up of the same five individuals who had been appointed to the commission by the Town Board — Cardinale, Butler, James Spellman, Kevin Copeland and Janet Hughes.

The board did not act on that measure Wednesday, however.