Happening Next Week

Mayor Kamal Johnson and the Police Advisory and Reconciliation Commission (formerly the Police Reconciliation and Advisory Commission--the words seem to have been reordered in the past months to make for a better acronym: PARC) will hold a Police Reform Town Hall on Friday, January 22, at 6:00 p.m. Click here to access the virtual meeting. 

In June, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order, the NYS Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, that required local police agencies to "develop a plan that reinvents and modernizes police strategies and programs in their community based on community input." To be eligible for future state funding, police forces must adopt a plan by April 1, 2021, and certify that they have:

1. Engaged stakeholders in a public and open process on policing strategies and tools;
2. Presented a plan, by chief executive and head of the local police force, to the public for comment;
3. After consideration of any comments, presented such plan to the local legislative body (council or legislature as appropriate) which has approved such plan (by either local law or resolution); and
4. If such government does not certify the plan, the police force may not be eligible to receive future state funding.

The City of Hudson started its reform and reinvention process in July, when Mayor Kamal Johnson appointed the Police Reconciliation and Advisory Commission. For the past six months, we've been in the part of the process described in item 1 in the list above, although the process in Hudson has not been public and open. Now, with a little more than two months left before the April 1 deadline, we've gotten to the point where the plan gets presented to the public for comment. The virtual town hall scheduled for next Friday is the first opportunity for that.