Monday Night at the Police Committee Meeting

The Common Council Police Committee meeting on Monday night began with a statement by Council president Tom DePietro about the proposed Hudson Breathe Act. Committee chair Dewan Sarowar (Second Ward) apparently had asked DePietro to speak, and it wasn't entirely clear on whose behalf he was speaking. What he said was that some ideas in the Hudson Breathe Act are "worth entertaining" and some are the subject of the mayor's Police Reconciliation and Advisory Commission (PRAC). He noted that some of the actions requested were not doable by the Council, because they would involve diminishing the powers of the mayor. He pointed out that reducing the number of officers in the Hudson Police Department contradicts the mayor's statement that there would be no layoffs and asserted that many of the actions included in the Hudson Breathe Act cannot be done under the current police contract.

DePietro concluded by saying that Hudson is facing an economic crisis, and if the police budget could be reduced, that money would need to be used to avoid bankruptcy. "The Council cannot by fiat reduce the budget and put the money elsewhere."

The Black Lives Matter resolution submitted by the Columbia-Greene Democratic Socialists of America received little mention. DePietro said, "This is its first appearance." (The resolution was sent to the Common Council on September 1.) Sarowar suggested that they accept the resolution as a communication and discuss it at their next meeting. Instead, the Hudson Breathe Act, which was introduced at the Legal Committee meeting by Alderman Tiffany Garriga (Second Ward) last Thursday, was a major topic of discussion. When asked to comment, Mayor Kamal Johnson said he would speak about the Hudson Breathe Act at the Legal Committee meeting on Thursday, October 1. Regarding the Black Lives Matter resolution, Johnson said, "A lot of the things [requested] are illegal, so I don't see why it would leave this committee."

Chief Ed Moore responded to some of the elements of the Hudson Breathe Act. Regarding the budget, Moore said that $4.8 million was a "mythical number." The annual budget for the police department is $3 million out of the $11.6 city budget. The additional $1.8 claimed to be part of the police budget is the employee benefit program to retired officers. Moore said the department had only $225,000 of discretionary spending, money not tied to contractual obligations. That amount has increased by only $28,000 over the past five years.

Regarding no-knock warrants, Moore said he wanted input from local judges on whether this can be done.

On the topic of residency requirements, Moore predicted, "You won't have many people coming forth for the job." It will be remembered that in June 2017 the Common Council amended the charter to make living within 20 linear miles of Hudson instead of 15 road miles the requirement for being a Hudson police officer. The thinking was that altering the requirement enlarged the pool of people who could be hired by the HPD. Moore said at the time, "It's a competitive market, and you want to get the best officers." At last night's Police Committee meeting, Moore asked rhetorically, "How many 21 to 35 year olds are there in Hudson?"

Moore also questioned how sixteen had been arrived as the appropriate number of officers. He noted that Norwich, New York, which is equal to Hudson in population, has only fourteen or fifteen police officers, but that city doesn't have a hospital, a train station, and a large weekend population. Moore maintained that the current number of officers had been determined over time, based on the number of calls for service and the number of crimes needing to be investigated. Moore predicted that reducing the police force would "harm the people who count on us." Responding to a question about reducing the size of the department, Moore said, "I would see a model where size and budget would organically go down. As violent crime and calls for service go down, so will the size of the department."

Moore urged that the city "stay the course with the mayor's commission" and concluded, "It is my fervent hope that the Council does not pass this law." At the end of the meeting, Moore addressed the officers who were part of the meeting saying, "I am extremely proud of them. The outcome will be fine, and we will continue to serve."

A point of contention at the meeting was a letter written by Michael Hofmann, one of the authors of the Hudson Breathe Act. When Alderman Rebecca Wolff (First Ward) wanted to read it aloud, Sarowar prevented her and said it should it part of a public hearing. Lillian Melcher and Rachel Drozdowicz also wanted to read the letter, but Sarowar told them to bring the letter to Thursday's meeting of the Legal Committee. 

Curious to know the content of the letter, Gossips asked Wolff if she would share it, and she did. What follows is the content of the letter, omitting the introductory and final paragraphs:

Much of the discourse on social media on the Hudson Breathe Act has centered specifically on the bill's call to set a maximum number of officers in the city to 16, and repeal previous legislation that allowed a 20-mile residency radius for members of the HPD. Many cry doomsday at these proposed changes, asserting that such cuts to police staffing will plunge Hudson into a crime-ridden state. The voice of this viewpoint is most assuredly going to be heard loud and clear on Monday night.

This viewpoint is based on conjecture about the relationship between police and crime rates, and the amount of violent crime our department deals with. Multiple national studies tell us that there is no significant correlation between police spending and frequency of crime. By my calculations using data from a three-year period June 2017-June 2o20, under 7% of incidents handled by the Hudson Police Department were related to violent crime.

This viewpoint also ignores the lived traumatic experiences of Black and Brown citizens of this city and country, who had suffered from systematic mistreatment and brutalization at the hands of police. And, due to the power and privilege police hold, these abuses are overwhelmingly not brought to justice--as the nation has witnessed so painfully this week with the case of Breonna Taylor. Public safety in Hudson must be inclusive.

Lastly, this viewpoint fails to take into account the true intent of the bill, which is to replace our over-investment in policing with investments in the community services that have a direct impact at reducing crime in our city. The Hudson Breathe Act calls on the city to fundamentally rethink how it addresses crime: by uprooting it at its source through strategic investment in community services, and by redirecting at least 20% of current calls to police to a new 311 non-emergency phone service and a Citizen Response Team. This Act presents a path for us to begin to imagine a new way of keeping our city safe.