On June 12, 2020, eight months ago, Gov. Cuomo issued Executive Order 203 titled NY State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative. The order states, in part:

Each local government entity which has a police agency operating with police officers as defined under 1.20 of the criminal procedure law must perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and develop a plan to improve such deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and….

Each chief executive of such local government shall convene the head of the local police agency, and stakeholders in the community to develop such plan, and….

Such plan shall be offered for public comment to all citizens in the locality, and after consideration of such comments, shall be presented to the local legislative body in such political subdivision, which shall ratify or adopt such plan by local law or resolution, as appropriate, no later than April 1, 2021.

How a municipality develops a plan is a local matter, but no small task.  There is no requirement in EO203 directing the establishment of a steering committee and who should be on it. There is no requirement that the steering committee be created by resolution of the municipal board. Because the order is mute on these points, and I strongly believe it shouldn’t be (though, that is perhaps the subject of another letter), an assortment of committees have been meeting in the Town of Montgomery. The two villages with mayoral government have committees created by the mayor. The Village of Walden’s committee was established by the manager.  

These committees have established and publicly posted, according to acceptable municipal procedure, their meeting schedules starting in the fall of 2020, are open to the public, and have been live streamed and recorded. Residents can participate in public or via email or chat. Some meetings have gone better than others, still they’ve met minimal publicity standards.

On the contrary, the Town of Montgomery’s steering committee has been holding closed meetings by invitation only, with no public notification; that is, until now. In the WVTimes of Feb 11, an advertisement for a public meeting to be held on February 15 for a “Community Conversation.” However, the night before February 15, the meeting was abruptly canceled. The public was notified of the cancellation the day of.

There are many questions that need to be answered  surrounding the actions and activities of the Town’s EO203 Steering Committees. Why did the Chief Executive of the Town of Montgomery (the Town Supervisor) establish an invitation only committee that met privately without public notification?  How often have they met? Who and how many people are on this committee? Why are they not meeting in public? What topics regarding local policing have been examined, discussed?  Why has it taken so long for this committee to invite the public to be part of their discussions? 

Has a plan been developed that will be approved by the Town Board by April 1st ? Who created that plan, the committee, or the consultant? 

More, why did the Town Board approve spending $21,000 on a “shared services” study by Patterns for Progress regarding the Town and Village Police Departments before any of the municipalities have developed their plans and submitted them to New York State? What is the purpose and scope of this study, and will it include recommendations for potential mergers or consolidations of departments?

The public’s participation on this very important issue, among many others, has been glaringly silent. Why?