Police Review Board members in Schenectady protest loss of seats
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Civilian Police Review Board will have just one official member in two weeks, thanks
to the changes the City Council made to the board.
Board members met with the mayor and city Councilwoman Denise Brucker to protest the
legislation Tuesday. The council removed several agencies that could appoint members to
the board, eliminating those members’ seats.
In an unintended consequence, so many other seats were vacant that the changes virtually
eliminated the board.
“What do you want to do?” asked the Rev. Emanuel Adams, a board member whose seat
was removed, “because these are all the cases.”
He waved a thick folder of complaints about police at Brucker. Adams and Darlene Lee,
whose seat was also abolished, said they felt betrayed when they learned after the vote
that their seats were removed.
Council members eliminated the agencies a month ago, after a year of discussion and
revision with the board. The board did not see the final version before the public hearing,
and board members did not speak at the hearing.
Brucker told them they ought to have attended that hearing.
Adams countered that the council ought to have showed them the final version before
voting on the matter.
Lee added that the board is now technically left with just one member, Vickie Hurewitz,
who has not been trained yet.
Mayor Gary McCarthy said the other members should stay on the board until their
successors are trained.
But Brucker said those whose seats were eliminated should leave now, and reapply.
The council and mayor can now appoint members-at-large.
Previously, two neighborhood associations in Hamilton Hill could each nominate a
member. Several other agencies — including some defunct groups — also nominate
members, and the board has hit serious problems when those groups did not promptly
nominate a representative when the previous board member’s term expired. VACANT
FOR YEARS
Often, seats have stayed vacant for years, leaving a situation in which the board did
not have a quorum to meet unless every single active member was present. At some
points, there were so few members that they did not have a quorum even if every
active member was there.
To address that, the council eliminated some groups and gave themselves the
authority to appoint members.
But Brucker made no promises that Adams or Lee would be reappointed by the
council.
The two board members said the council might choose others and leave Hamilton
Hill without representation on the board.
“This board was really born up out of the Hill area,” Adams said. “It was really
designed for the community, that their complaints be addressed. Who is going to
be on this board that lives in that community ?”
Lee added, “Whether it’s the Lees or somebody else, someone from that
neighborhood needs to be on here. People there saw and witnessed for themselves
the corruption of the Schenectady Police Department.”
Board member Helga Schroeter, who represents the League of Women Voters,
said she doesn’t live on the Hill but knows that not all police act appropriately.
“I have had my very successful son arrested by the police because he was
targeted, when he was in his teens,” she said. “Please don’t think that only
people on Hamilton Hill know these issues.”
Several residents of Hamilton Hill said that wasn’t enough. They asked Brucker
to change the legislation so that a resident of Hamilton Hill would always be on the
board.
“We just want someone on here that knows our community and knows what
goes on in our community,” said resident Olivia Adams.
Brucker did not back down.
“The decision is made,” she said.
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