How to resolve AdBlock issue? SARATOGA SPRINGS — A hearing was staged at City Hall this week to secure public comments regarding specific measures in the potential formation of a civilian police review board.
The formation of a Civilian Review Board, or CRB, was proposed by the ad hoc Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force last year.
“I would like public input as to any of the aspects of the proposal,” explained recently elected city Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino. “I know there are a lot of people who would like to see this enacted exactly as written, but I have a number of concerns that I would like to hear some public input on.”
Montagnino raised three specific issues during a gathering of the City Council Feb. 1. They relate to questions about how the members of the CRB would be chosen, whether mediation should be mandated or be at the request of the complainant, and should no resolution be reached at that stage – asking whether requiring an “observance of the standard rules of evidence” be followed during an administrative hearing is too much a burden imposed upon a private citizen representing themselves.
“While the proposal does say the mayor would select the members of the Board with the consent of the City Council, I would be open to any suggestion as to how the screening of candidates for the review board would take place. What pool of applicants will there be from which the members of the board would be chosen?” Montagnino said.
“There is also some concern in my mind about a provision that mandates mediation. There is a step in the procedure that, as proposed, is mandatory mediation. And there may well be circumstances in which mediation would not be appropriate,” he added. “Those are the kinds of things where I would welcome an opinion from the public.”
A handful of public speakers weighed in Tuesday night. The comments included requests that the CRB have independent investigatory powers, and that the board be granted access to all investigation files, not just those documents deemed by the department as relevant.
Additional comments included suggestions that the board have subpoena powers, and that the council ensure an adequate budget is in place for the CRB to properly function; recommendations that previously incarcerated people have representation among the civilians on the board; extending the time limits of when a complaint may be submitted - specifically so it may include potential complaints related to events in the summer 2020 – and clear procedures that would allow the department to dismiss any frivolous or unfounded complaint made against an officer.
The public hearing was held open. Presumably, additional commentary will be gathered in advance of the next City Council meeting, which is Tuesday, Feb. 15. A “Contact Us” section is available on the city’s website at: saratoga-springs.org.
“The hope is after hearing some public comment and perhaps some tweaks to the proposal of the task force, my intention would be to draft a proposed ordinance that would ultimately be subject to additional public scrutiny before being considered for passage by the City Council,” Montagnino said.
In an unrelated matter Tuesday night, the City Council staged a closed-to-the-public Executive Session, after which it emerged and in a unanimous 4-0 vote authorized the mayor to execute a settlement agreement to allow the release of police disciplinary records in redacted form. The settlement is in connection with a lawsuit filed by former Saratogian newspaper Managing Editor Barbara Lombardo.
Last year, Lombardo requested records be released pertaining to alleged use of excessive force related to the police department from 2013 through 2020. Her inquiry initially began with informal discussions and letters requesting statistics from then-city officials and was followed by a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.
“This has been going on many, many months. I went through the FOIL process and after those options were exhausted, my only remaining option was to sue the city. That was the next step to try and get the records,” said Lombardo, adding that there is no monetary component to the lawsuit.
The request seeks police disciplinary records, including ones in which the city found that complaints did not result in disciplinary action. “There should be some record that the people can see that would show they indeed looked into complaints,” Lombardo said. “Instead, any complaints that they deemed un-sustained, they are providing nothing, as if the record doesn’t exist at all.”
Prompting her records request was the scrutiny placed on the police department in the aftermath of the circumstances related to the Darryl Mount case. In 2013, the 21-year-old black man fled police on Caroline Street and ended up at the bottom of a scaffold with injuries that left him in a coma. He never fully regained consciousness and died nine months later. On the fifth anniversary of the incident, Lombardo published an article in the Times Union which shed new light on some of the details.
“In that case, in the deposition for the still-pending lawsuit against the city by Darryl Mount’s mother, the police chief in his sworn deposition admitted that he intentionally misled the reporter and the public by saying there was an internal investigation being done about what happened to Mount, when in fact there was no such investigation done,” Lombardo said. “That got me thinking later: was that a fluke where they didn’t follow their own procedure just in this one incident, or is this the way they usually roll? Do they normally follow their own procedures for investigation, or not?”
A recent opinion from the NYS Committee on Open Government was a big lynchpin for her argument moving forward, as well as for other cases around the state, she said.
The release of records will be in redacted form. “I’m not trying to embarrass officers or cast a shadow over anybody because if there’s nothing to it, they’ll just have redactions,” Lombardo said.
This week’s actions by the five-member City Council - which is comprised of four members altogether new or in new positions - authorized the mayor to execute the settlement. “There are still going to be negotiations of what would satisfy me to discontinue the lawsuit. When I see the documents, I’ll see whether they have fulfilled it in full. And it’s something that will be totally public, that was one of my conditions,” Lombardo said.
