Millerton adopts police reform plan with full board support

MILLERTON — Having committed a great deal of time, research and outreach toward the development of the community’s police reform plan, the Village Board was grateful to have a finalized plan to adopt at its meeting on Monday, March 22, well in time for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s April 1 deadline.

Starting at 6 p.m., the meeting was live streamed to the “Village of Millerton VOM” Facebook page due to the COVID-19 health crisis; members of both the Village Board and the Joint Village of Millerton and Town of North East Police Committee were in attendance.

From the Village Board and the North East Town Board to North East town Supervisor Chris Kennan, Millerton Officer-in-Charge Mike Veeder and all the community members who were involved in its development, Mayor Debbie Middlebrook said, “I appreciate the time that everybody took to participate in this policy.”

Middlebrook read aloud the resolution authorizing the Village Board’s adoption of the plan and Village Clerk Kelly Kilmer dictated the resolution so a certified copy of that resolution could be sent to the New York State Department of the Division of the Budget, along with any other requirements for Cuomo’s Executive Order (EO). After sending it to the Division of the Budget, the village will be eligible to receive state or federal funding for its police department; the governor had threatened that any police agency that didn’t comply with his EO could lose that privilege. The plan was unanimously adopted.

Later in the evening, during public comment, a handful of residents spoke about the plan. Among them was Meg Winkler, who thanked the police reform committee as well others who participated in developing the plan.

“I think we all have to remember that we got here from horrible things that’ve happened in our country that we never thought could happen in a little town or a place like Millerton or the town of North East,” Winkler said. “The silver lining, I think, in all of this is it’s brought our community together.”

Emphasizing that the plan represents the beginning of the community’s work, Winkler said this is the chance to “throw the net” and have other people participate in the conversation.

Reviewing the written comments submitted by community members, Kilmer read into the record an email sent by Millerton attorney Joshua Douglass. As part of Executive Order 203, Douglass stated localities were ordered to review their communities’ needs and to involve the entire community in the discussion prior to certifying their plans’ adoption. He said Millerton hasn’t fulfilled these requirements — particularly with respect to involving the community — and hasn’t performed its duties in respect to the Executive Order. Moving forward, he said Millerton needs to commit in writing to continuing the process of reviewing police policies and expand the joint police committee to include a more diverse demographic.

Having sat through almost every joint police committee meeting and both public hearings on the reform plan, Kilmer, a resident of Millerton, said she wanted to comment on this issue, but wasn’t sure if she should as she also works for the village. Recognizing her unique perspective regarding the Millerton Police Department, she said she’s observed the police department’s operations every day both on the job and because it shares the same building as Village Hall.

Offering her comments as both a village resident and as a village employee, Kilmer said, “There’s an old saying in government, ‘When an issue comes up, you should approach it with a scalpel, not a machete.’ That is exactly why this directive was handed down to our municipality the way it was, because each community is different and this directive reflects that old saying to a tee.”

In light of what’s happening now with policing, Kilmer said she couldn’t agree more that “police reform is necessary in so many places” and that a reckoning of overall policy should be the tone regardless of where a police officer serves. Drawing from her observations and understanding of the Millerton Police Department’s policies and conduct, she said, “Millerton is not one of those places that needs to reinvent its policing… Reinventing what isn’t a problem is not necessary.”