Late update, Monday March 22, 4:20p.m.:
Jason Golub, the co-chair of the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force, says he will not attend tonight's press conference on the steps of City Hall. Lexis Figuereo, of Black Lives Matter Saratoga, says the press conference will happen.
"We are happy about it [the new resolution]," but he added, "We're going to keep on pushing." Still on his list is a stronger language in the resolution about creating the Civilian Review Panel among other issues.
The original story is here:
Civil rights groups in Saratoga Springs are waiting today to see if the city council will change a resolution, presented last week, that the groups found did not follow the state-mandated executive order on police reform.
The resolution taken up by the council disagrees with a number of findings from the report of the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force. Group leaders say that is not allowed. The job of the city council is to approve the report as written and send it to the governor’s budget office by April 1. After that occurs, the city council may consider all the points in the report and finesse them as the city turns the concepts into law.
“But it starts with approval and not a ‘we will look into’ or ‘evaluate further’ type conclusion without an approval in principle,” wrote Jason Golub in a text this morning. He was a co-chair of the task force. “Once approved, the next step is an implementation plan that evaluates all these intricacies in light of what’s been approved, and determines how to ensure [that] the end product that is adopted meets all relevant criteria and serves the needs of the community.”
The Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force was established last year under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order #203 that required all police and sheriff’s departments statewide to investigate their policing policies, review them, research possible solutions to any problems found and report to their city or county with a list of recommendations.
The recommendations in that report--50 of them in the case of Saratoga Springs--are to be approved and sent onto the governor’s office by April 1.
Robin Dalton, the commissioner of Public Safety for the city today said in an interview that the council will be posting a new resolution on their web site later today, but that leaders should not expect a resolution that matches exactly what they want.
"I don't think it was ever expected that they [the task force] were to write a document that would be voted on yes or no." If that were the case, she said, the task force could write whatever they wanted and the city would have to pass it. "That's a strange request."
She added that the city's attorney is interpreting the executive order differently than other people are. Under the executive order, it's the responsibility of the mayor's office, not the commissioner of public safety that shephard's the resolution through the system. The mayor did not respond to request for comment this morning.
Lexis Figuereo, a member of Black Lives Matter Saratoga and the Saratoga chapter of All of Us, said if the council comes forward with a new resolution that supports the work of the task force, “We will be happy at the moment, yes.”
However, both he and Golub see the creation of a Civilian Review Board, made up of people in the community and having oversight of the police department as part of the longer-term solution to problems facing the city.
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This is a developing story. There will be an update later today.