Last spring, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that required each municipality across New York State to create a police reform and reinvention plan that is guided by the police department and representative community members. Here in Newburgh and New Windsor, each municipality is finalizing its plans to vote on one by the April 1 deadline.

Across the board, each municipality is upping training, calling for increased collaboration between the police department and residents, and updating their use of force policies.

City of Newburgh
The City of Newburgh had a total of four public comment periods on their executive order plan, with the last one being a public hearing on March 8. During the city’s public hearings, there were around 50 people who provided comments, which were incorporated into the plan. The city’s committee was made up of Chairman and President of the Newburgh/Highland Falls Chapter of the NAACP Ray Harvey, Christian Ministerial Fellowship Bishop Jeff Woody, Chairperson of the Police Community Review & Relations Board Sertaira Boyd, three council members and others.

City Manager Joseph Donat described the plan as a “blueprint for how we further reimagine the police department moving forward.”

The City of Newburgh split their plan into 13 different items that include everything from an increase in department-wide training, data collection management and increased transparency to a review of general orders, holding routine community meetings and enhancing the SNUG program.

One of the most discussed items was subpoena power for the police community relations and review board and.or city council, which would allow them to intervene when investigating complaints against members of the police department.

During the March 18 work session, council members were still split on the use of K-9 units, with council members Anthony Grice and Omari Shakur in opposition to the use of K-9 units in the continuum of force and councilwoman Patty Sofokles being in favor.

“When it comes to K-9’s, we should be using them for other things such as finding cadavers or sniffing out for drugs, but not using them for the continuum of force,” said Grice. “I have strong reservations about that, but knowing the hard work the committee put into this and it just being the beginning phase for continuing work, I support this.”

Despite the ratification of the plan, it isn’t an end all, be all.

“This is going to be a work in progress,” said councilwoman Ramona Monteverde. “This isn’t the end of it. It’s something that has brought light to an issue that we have to address and we are doing that and will continue to address it.”

Councilman Omari Shakur was the lone no vote on passing the resolution during Monday’s council meeting.

The full 91-page plan can be found on the city’s website under the police department tab.

Town of Newburgh

The Town of Newburgh’s plan advisory committee was made up of the Newburgh Town Board Deputy Supervisor Scott Manley, the Town of Newburgh Police Chief Bruce Campbell, the Executive Director of the African Cultural Center of the Greater Hudson Valley Terrence Verette, and four others. They met weekly starting a couple of months ago to discuss the reform plans, inviting community members to share what they would like to see.

As a part of the plan, they stated they will have additional training including crisis intervention training, de-escalation training, anti-discriminiation training and implicit bias training. Additionally, they plan to increase police-community relations with special programming like DARE, a police junior academy, citizens police academy, a community day, a senior picnic, and more. As a part of the police department’s recruitment process, they will have a more active role in introducing policing as a career in high schools, colleges and more.

The Town of Newburgh Police website will also be updated to include a downloadable citizen complaint form. Additionally, the department has banned choke holds in its use of force policy.

To help focus on police officer’s mental health, the Town of Newburgh will begin assessing the drafting of an officer wellness program that “trains officers on dealing with their own trauma and mental wellness.”

The full plan can be found on the Town of Newburgh’s news and announcements section online.

Town of New Windsor
The Town of New Windsor met for its last public hearing on their proposed plan on Thursday, March 18 through Facebook Live after four other meetings held in February. Their board was made up of Town Supervisor George Meyers, Town Police Chief Robert Doss, community youth representative Alana Harris, and a number of others.

The Town of New Windsor plans to utilize a crisis intervention team, work with outside organizations like Fearless Hudson Valley and Hope Not Handcuffs, have a drug collection drop box program and narcan program as well.

They have divided their plan into eight action items that include: seeking and encouraging more input and interaction with the community, seeking to increase and enhance transparency by updating its website, exploring the purchase and use of an early intervention system for at-risk officers who show problematic behavior, seeking creative ways to advance reform goals and encourage more extensive interaction with the community, adding implicit bias training to the annual training program, adding training in therapeutic crisis intervention and youth mental health first aid, explore additional options geared towards stress reduction for officers, and exploring ways to lessen the burden on the police department in regards to interactions with people suffering from mental health crises.

One of the final comments made at the March 18 meeting was regarding having a full fledged crisis intervention team that works around the clock instead of putting it on police officers.

“We talked to the county about this issue,” said Meyers. “The police themselves would be happy if they were there, but it’s not a great call for police to go on. When you look at policing, is that really what policing is? I don’t think so. The problem lies that the only person you can get at 3 o’clock in the morning is the police officer.”

Meyers said the town doesn’t have enough resources to have an additional team but that he is looking at the county to step up and assist.

Other comments included suggestions like having youth programs about substance abuse, looking at K-9 use, having an ongoing police-community relations committee, measuring how the police interact with neurodivergent individuals and seeing how police officers are chosen.

While the town hasn’t had any dog bites from K-9 use in the past two years, they do have another dog in training currently to replace one that is retiring. Meyers described it as a “PR tool” that changes people’s demeanor when they see a dog.

“I think this town has done an excellent job on figuring out what needs to be done,” said resident John O’Malley. “Before the executive order, I think we were headed in the right direction anyway. We have the right mentality and noble interests in mind with doing this.”