A ‘starting point’
Albany officials say police package has some shortfalls
A resolution passes approving Albany’s proposed police reform plan.
After laying out what it sees as some of the plan’s shortfalls, the Common Council voted 13-1 to pass a resolution approving the city’s proposed police reform plan.
The resolution the council backed on Monday took issue with the lack of public input in the process, the timeline for some of the proposed reforms and the lack of information on who is responsible for seeing the reforms into action.
The plan was the city’s response to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order requiring local governments to reform their police departments in the wake of nationwide protests last year over police brutality. The deadline for local governments to pass their plans is April 1.
The city created a Policing Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, which released a 102-page report after months of meetings. Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s administration turned that report into several dozen recommendations with corresponding timelines for achieving the reforms.
Council members and community activists
have criticized the proposed plan since it was released in February, saying it lacked a cohesive timeline for passing legislation and did not clearly lay out who was accountable for ensuring the city followed through on the reforms.
Common Council President Corey Ellis said Monday there was already movement toward a package of reform legislation, based on the some of the collaborative’s recommendations and other ideas that were not included in the final recommendations from Sheehan’s office.
“We will be putting forth a reform package that will be probably different than what a lot of people want to see but it will entail most of the things that are in the collaborative’s recommendations,” he said. “It will entail looking at policing in the city of Albany in a different way.”
In a statement, Sheehan said the collaborative’s recommendations were among the most detailed in the state.
“Chief Hawkins and I acknowledge that transparency is necessary to building trust with the community and in demonstrating the progress we are making to address structural racism and improve policing, particularly in communities of color,” she said. “We believe this plan will help us achieve these goals and look forward to its implementation.”
Councilwoman Judy Doesschate was the lone no vote. She questioned why some of the collaborative’s recommendations were not in the final plan Sheehan’s administration created. She asked the council to send the reforms back to City Hall for more work and to hold a special meeting on March 31 to pass a new plan.
“I see a lot of ideas about what policies and procedures we want to govern our police but we don’t answer the basic question of what is the role of the police,” she said.
Other council members had similar frustrations but still voted to approve the plan.
“I think it falls short in some ways but I’m willing to move forward with the understanding that this is the beginning of this process,” said Councilman Kelly Kimbrough, chairwoman of the council’s public safety committee.
The council already passed three police reform bills in the last year, including one earlier this month that would give greater powers and responsibilities to the city’s Community Police Review Board.
Councilman Alfredo Balarin said it was worth recognizing those reforms and that those laws put the city ahead of others across the state that have not taken up any reform legislation. His main worry was ensuring the city and the council follow through with the recommendations and promises of more change.
“I don’t feel that this is a plan in the way we would’ve hoped to have had it,” he said. “But I do believe it is a starting point.”