News of Police Reform and Assessment

Gossips anticipated that last night's Common Council Police Committee meeting might yield some information about Hudson's efforts to comply with Governor Andrew Cuomo's mandated police reforms, and that is indeed what happened. Police commissioner Peter Volkmann reported that the Police Reconciliation and Advisory Commission, appointed by Mayor Kamal Johnson early last month, is in fact the group who will be, as per the governor's mandate, developing "a plan that reinvents and modernizes police strategies and programs" in Hudson. Volkmann told the committee, "The Common Council has to accept the results that come from the commission." When committee chair Dewan Sarowar questioned that statement, Volkmann reiterated it. The police reform workbook, issued this month by the State of New York, describes a somewhat different process.

In his foreword to the workbook, Cuomo outlines this collaborative process:

• Review the needs of the community served by its police agency, and evaluate the department's current policies and practices;
• Establish policies that allow police to effectively and safely perform their duties;
• Involve the entire community in the discussion;
• Develop policy recommendations resulting from this review;
• Offer a plan for public comment;
• Present the plan to the local legislative body to ratify or adopt it, and;
• Certify adoption of the plan to the State Budget Director on or before April 1, 2021.

The process laid out by the governor sounds a little different from, "The Common Council has to accept the results that come from the commission."

Volkmann also reported on Mayor Kamal Johnson's executive order that the police budget be cut by 10 percent. Last night, Volkmann told the committee that 90 percent of the police budget is salaries, so it would be impossible to cut the budget by 10 percent without laying off officers, and the mayor had insisted that budget cuts not involve layoffs. Volkmann indicated that a 5 percent cut was possible this year because, owing to COVID-19, there were no festivals requiring police overtime.

At the beginning of the year, when Volkmann was appointed police commissioner, he was asked by the mayor to do an assessment of the Hudson Police Department. He told the committee last night that his assessment had been completed and delivered to the mayor. In his report, he made twenty-four recommendations, which he shared with the Police Committee last night:

1. Have officers work twelve-hour shifts instead of eight-hour shifts
2. Implement the Hudson Cares initiative, which involves Community Angels, and create a civilian position for a liaison with the Angels
3. Create a spiritual care team led by Rev. Richard Washburn, the police chaplain
4. Adopt a more efficient procedure for handling complaints about officers and concerns about officer conduct
5. Review the salary of the police chief--Volkmann pointed out that Chief Ed Moore is the lowest paid police chief in the State of New York and the lowest paid officer in the HPD
6. Make improvements to the building--Volkmann maintained that the building is "unfinished," saying, "It went over budget so they had to make some cuts."
7. Re-evaluate the software used by the police department
8. Adopt electronic policies
9. Create initiatives for interactions following the "Take Five" concept--Volkmann suggested "Ice Pop with a Cop," where a police officer spends five minutes having a popsicle with a child
10. Identify training needs, as recommended by the Police Reconciliation and Advisory Commission
11. Inventory the equipment
12. Implement crisis intervention training
13. Establish an emergency notification system for elected officials
14. Create a wellness program for officers, "for mind, body, and spirit"
15. Introduce a Comfort Canine program--a "therapy dog for children and festivals"
16. Conduct an in-depth analysis of the Parking Bureau
17. Provide officers with EpiPens
18. Develop a strategic plan for replacing police vehicles
19. Equip all police vehicles with cameras that are always on
20. Partner with many groups to decrease calls for service and arrests
21. Purchase a defibrillator
22. Publish all statistics and do a better job with PR
23. Partner with Ring to use information from residential security cameras  
24. Come up with a strategic plan to curb violence in the city

During the course of the meeting, Volkmann also shared this information. There are only three full-time police agencies in Columbia County: the New York State Police, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office, and the Hudson Police Department. The HPD represents only 17 percent of the officers in the county, but HPD makes half the criminal arrests. He also pointed out that "Columbia Memorial Health calls the HPD when they have someone who is out of control."
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