A vigorous campaign waged by Rotterdam cops against the police commission ended in victory when the town board abolished the commission during last week’s meeting.
Rotterdam Town Board members said the police commission was created in January to provide more oversight of the department.
Officers in the department countered that the commission had micromanaged the department and usurped the authority of Police Chief James Hamilton. They expressed intense distaste for the recent promotion of four officers, two of whom were not recommended or supported by Hamilton.
Also, the appointment of the son of a town board member prompted charges of nepotism, which turned out to be a hot-button issue that produced fireworks at more than one town meeting over the past seven months.
Democrat Diane Marco’s initial attempt to introduce a resolution to abolish the commission early in the meeting was rebuffed because her colleagues objected to harsh language in her proposal.
I do not agree with the language in the resolution, said Town Supervisor Steven Tommasone.
Marco also submitted a petition that she said bore the signatures of 1,200 Rotterdam residents who supported her proposal.
Town attorney Gerard Parisi argued that the point was moot because the commission was effectively mothballed when the town received the resignation of commissioner Joe Guidarelli three hours before the beginning of last week’s town board meeting.
Parisi said that town bylaws require three members for the commission to exist. Unless the town appointed someone else or modified the bylaws, then the commission was, in essence, out of business.
`If it’s moot, then why not just go ahead and abolish it now?` Marco asked, to the approval of the approximately 75 police officers and supporters present.
Three hours later, following a long list of other town board agenda items, Marco asked to introduce an amended version of her resolution that was stripped of the objectionable language, but included a resolve to immediately abolish the commission.
And in a move that surprised onlookers, police commissioner John Mertz ended the prolonged debate by seconding Marco’s motion, which then passed unanimously.
Mertz’s support of Marco’s motion was surprising because, as the police commissioner, he had been the lightning rod for vocal opposition from officers that on occasion bordered on insubordinate. Also, by abolishing the commission, he ended his tenure as the town’s top cop.
The vote to abolish the commission was greeted with sustained, enthusiastic applause.
After the vote, Mertz noted that town board became the de facto police commission, with Tommasone as police commissioner. He noted that the only thing that changed was that he would now be one vote out of five, compared to the one vote out of three he wielded in the abolished commission.
`Regardless of how many people are on the commission, I remain committed to public safety,` Mertz said.
Councilman Joe Signore, another magnet for police ire, was met with heckling when he tried to smooth the water after Mertz spoke.
`The police commission was not created in any way to slight Chief Hamilton,` said Signore.
Victory did not come without a wait, though, because the officers and their supporters had to sit through nearly three hours of presentations by various divisions of the public works department before the town board returned to the police commission debate.
The intricacies of municipal storm water and sanitary sewage separation (MS4) were discussed, along with remediation efforts and why they are important for the protection of drinking water.
Town planner Peter Commenza explained a number of grants that his office has applied for, such as ones for Kiwanis Park, an Exit 25 study of Hamburg Street and Curry Road, and a Brownfield grant that may pay to replace some aging buildings in the Rotterdam Industrial Park for the Galesi Group.
An elderly resident summed up the prevailing sentiment when he spoke during the public comment period of the meeting.
`I’d like to commend the board for putting on the best filibuster I’ve ever seen,` said Jim Pardington to nearly universal applause.
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