Looking at the police

The New Paltz Police Commission and town police department have been in the news a bit lately.  The very existence of the commission hangs in the balance.

Let the board budget

Town board members are concerned that the commission hamstrings their ability to budget.  I don't know the specifics, but if the commission's recommended police budget can't be changed before it's incorporated into the annual town budget, that would be bad.  I don't want my elected officials to feel like they can blame volunteers if a budget decision proves unpopular.  We should do whatever it takes to give our elected representatives the confidence they need when they vote on any aspect of the town budget.

One area where nobody feels they're in control is that of contractual increases.  Multi-year contracts get negotiated, and future budgets must simply accept their terms.  So why do we do it this way?  Why not instead only negotiate one-year contracts, as part of the budgeting process?  Because it's too hard?  Or because that way you can sell a bill of goods down to your successors and they will be able to throw up their hands and say, "It's the best we could do, because our hands are tied by the terms of this three-year-old contract."  Is there anything in any law that would prevent our representatives from only negotiating single-year contracts, for police and all town employees?  Is there anything to prevent the town from passing a law requiring only single-year contracts?

What role for the commission?

As for the police commission, this is a body which could do real good in the community if it didn't have to focus on the budget.  I see real value in a group of citizen volunteers actively independently investigating allegations and publishing their findings.  I've heard (and suspect it's true) that most complaints against officers are baseless; I think it could only help if we could see how often this is the case.

When I interviewed for a seat on the commission a couple of years ago, one council member said to me, "I don't care how many guys they're beating up in an alley."  That official's priority was fiscal.  So I say let's take the budgeting side and give it to the people who don't care who is getting beaten up (if anyone is), and let our citizen volunteers focus on protecting both citizens and officers from poor treatment and misinformation.

The commission could do quite a bit to enhance police-community relations.  Officers have frequently told me that people know their "television rights" and not their "real rights."  So let's educate people on the difference.  Teach them how to behave during a police encounter, such that they exercise their rights without inadvertently escalating a situation.  I had the now-Lieutenant once tell me not to film an intoxicated individual.  I wasn't and didn't even have a camera, and frankly making a video of a guy puking on himself is pretty mean, but it's neither illegal nor is it unconstitutional.  I personally believe he give an inappropriate order; the chief and I disagree on that point.  The commission could preempt a lot of issues like these by clarifying departmental policies and educating the public about how officers will behave.  Education and transparency make for a safe community.

Cameras here and there

Commission members recently requested access to the car-cams which record police activity.  They are presently used for training purposes, not discipline, the chief told them.  What a missed opportunity!  Let's get these tapes into commission hands as soon as possible.  In fact, let's raise the transparency bar, and make all police video recordings available unless there is a reason not to.  Specifically, I would like to see a policy in which every video is posted online.  The chief and perhaps some others would be able to keep any specific footage from public view, but the individual who makes the call must be identified, along with the reason for the redaction.  That name and reason (which could be as simple as "evidence in an ongoing investigation") would be posted online in place of the video, and the footage would be reviewed annually to determine if the reason still held.

Sound like a lot of work?  Shouldn't be.  The officers know what goes down and could flag some encounters for review, and the rest would be posted automatically.

On a related note, police have recommended cameras in public places to help with safety and investigations.  I don't mind being constantly under observation if the police don't.  After all, as the owner of Jack's Deli remarked in this week's New Paltz Times, if you don't have anything to hide, there's no problem.

So, it comes to this

It's never a surprise when a new executive accuses her predecessor of screwing up -- Terry Dungan trashed Jason West, Toni Hokanson pointed the finger at Don Wilen, and so on -- so the accusations supervisor Zimet is leveling against her predecessor will only be noticed by those few who have an ax to grind against one or the other of these two women (or, in a few special cases, individuals who can't stand either of them).

Whether or not Hokanson did wrong, most ordinary citizens won't care much; outside of the wine-sipping political pundit class, people in New Paltz spend more time living in the present than obsessing over minutiae. And that's a shame, because it means someone is getting away with something.

It could be Hokanson, Zimet, or both. The way the budget never got to a public hearing is unconscionable, and at the time the blame game was between the supervisor and the rest of the town council. Either incompetence by the lame duck or political aggrandizement by the council members who were sticking around probably contributed.

Of course, Zimet is a savvy politician and knows that she needs to get ahead of a story or she'll be blamed for the town's financial woes. Is she exaggerating when she talks about what a pickle the town is in?

Truth is a funny thing. Towards the end of the article linked above is an account of two town employees damaging the roof of the police headquarters, and the town paying the landlord for the damage. Hokanson said the employees went up there on their own, and that building owner C2G (her employer, now and then) was paid $2,500. Zimet claims her predecessor ordered the town employees onto the roof, and that the payment for damage was $14,000.

So who were the employees? I'd like to just ask them if they went up there on their own or not. And can we see the check written to C2G, please? It's either going to be for one amount or another, right? Unless the artificially complex financial system of our town government precludes simply writing a check, of course.

To do: FOIL the above information to see what's what. Truth shouldn't be that tough to sort out. If it is, we've got a problem, Houston.

Salary comparison: New Paltz and Lloyd

This week's New Paltz Times conveniently has the salaries for officials in New Paltz and Lloyd town government on opposite pages.  It's an interesting comparison.

• New Paltz pays its supervisor $19,312 more than Lloyd
• Board members earn $9,469 in Lloyd, $469 more than here
• They pay their highway superintendent $19,000 more
• Lloyd's town clerk makes an extra $7,755
• Our justices get $2,614 less each than theirs

In all, New Paltz pays its town elected officials $14,547 less than its neighbor to the east.  The supervisor and highway superintendent are pretty much a wash; for some reason, each town values one of those positions significantly higher than the other.  Given that the highway superintendent's budget is part of the budget which the supervisor presents, it seems that New Paltz has had a strong supervisor for many years, while Lloyd's town council is comprised of people who watch out for the salaries of other positions instead.

Of course I'd rather see elected officials get paid minimum wage (with overtime, of course), complete with filling out time sheets, and I'd do it at all levels of government.

Man with a Plan

So Ken Wishnick, former town board member and longtime REALTOR®, is set to become the town's new planner. Ken has a degree in urban planning and, as I've learned with conversations with Ken over the past few years, a sincere interest in how things work in this community. We both were participants in the Chamber of Commerce's Economic Discussion Group, facilitated by the late Peter Rossi. Ken later took up the mantle of that group, reshaping and broadening its purpose. He also renamed it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called now.

Kitty Brown broke ranks with the remainder of the town council in voting against hiring Ken for this newly-minted, $41,000 a year part-time job (although at those rates, I seriously should consider working part-time for the town myself). She was concerned that only two candidates had been interviewed for the position, one that would wield considerable influence over the town's comprehensive plan. Toni Hokanson poo-pooed Kitty's misgivings, saying that she ran ads in several papers and advertised it on the planner's web site, so two candidates was all they were going to get.

According to Toni, they're just waiting for the green light from the town's Ethics Committee, since Ken plans on keeping up his real estate license. After all, Town Planner is only a part-time job worth about $60,000 a year with benefits, so Ken will need to do what has to do in order to keep food on the table.

Now I know Ken, and it's very likely that he is qualified to do the job. I do have a couple of questions, though.

1. Did you think about a consultant? What's the rush to hire a new town employee when professional planners can be hired on an as-needed basis? The village uses Greenplan, a professional planning firm right in New Paltz, and there are probably a few others in the area that could be hired for big projects, or even on retainer.
2. He wants to keep his real estate license? Are you kidding me? Why was this even brought up for a vote? I might not have voted for Ken even if he had already given up his license, because his perspective and experience are focused on land-as-investment. This is an important consideration for a businessman, but a municipal planner must consider issues in a broader context. If the Ethics Committee decides Ken doesn't need to give up his license, someone needs to take a long, hard look at our local laws.
3. $41K and benefits is a part time job? I can hear Toni now explaining that the town needs to be competitive. I don't buy it. At the very least you need to find enough work to keep your planner busy for forty hours a week. I don't care if he's unbending staples, Toni, just keep him at his desk for forty hours. I'll bet Paul Brown is qualified to do that job, and he doesn't have a degree in Urban Planning, and he's at town hall for close to forty hours a week for free.

The bright spot is that having a planner in place is one of the stumbling blocks that the town has used to impede any meaningful update of the comprehensive plan. There are a lot more of them ahead, but this puts us one step closer to fixing what's broken.

The New Paltz Town Budget

I haven't looked deeply at the tentative budget for the Town of New Paltz, being that those documents are longer than a DEIS and perhaps more boring, but I found a couple of interesting tidbits about it in recent news coverage. Both the Elting Memorial Library and Moriello Pool have lines that cause me to raise an eyebrow; in both cases, a lack of foresight leads to an annoying problem.

Elting Memorial Library

Ira Margolis complained about the ramp into the library at my first meeting as a member of the Village Planning Board. He was concerned that the configuration of the wheelchair ramp could lead a disabled person to take a serious tumble down the stairs, and he wanted the library to put in a gate to prevent it.

I can understand how that one was missed - until I heard him talk about it, it never occurred to me that it was a dangerous situation. However, it was clear as day the next time I walked up that ramp. I don't blame the library for building it as they did (it was compliant with ADA rules, after all), but I find the board's resistance to fixing it until now to be disingenuous. It was an honest screwup, but one that was pointed out quite some time ago. If the board had been forthcoming about this sincere (and dangerous) mistake, and made it known that they wanted to fix it, I think they could have found some folks willing to pitch in to make things right. Instead, they wait months and then ask the Town to make it right? I wish they hadn't tried to dodge the issue.

Moriello Pool

Okay, the question is should we allow people to barbecue there without paying to get into the pool? According to director Bill Russell, no way! He's pretty ticked off that the budget is proposing an employee to monitor a gate into the playground/picnic area so folks can enjoy those taxpayer-funded benefits without going into the pool. According to the Russell "feels the idea is a waste of taxpayer dollars because the playground was intended to be part of the Moriello Park and the public can use it throughout the year - except during the 12 when the pool was open."

Um, Bill? Can you explain to me how much barbecuing and playground activity you expect to happen the other 40 weeks a year? And whether or not it's true that the playground was intended be part of your fiefdom, Bill, did it occur to you that maybe those taxpayers whose interests you are so interested in defending should have been asked if they wanted it gated off in the first place?

Of course Toni Hokanson, defender of the majority, also feels that it's a bad idea to make facilities paid for all by accessible to all, using the same argument she uses when she tries to minimize the overwhelming public opposition to Crossroads. I'd be more willing to agree with Toni in this case if she had submitted these plans to the Town Planning Board for approval, but wait! that's not necessary for the town government to do! Good golly Miss Molly, they are not subject to their own laws!

Overall I expect that Toni prepared the best budget she could, and I'm not criticizing it. I'm just interested in the gaggle of previously-made bad decisions that this process brings to light.