Public safety reform draft report sparks community conversation

On Feb. 22, the Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative of the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County published a draft report in response to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 203, which mandates that all municipalities with police departments in the state adopt a plan for police reform and reinvention by April 1 of this year.

The draft report is the result of a monthslong process (full article at https://t.ly/HANN) involving public forums, focus groups and personal interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including law enforcement, community members and minority populations who have historically been disproportionately negatively impacted by policing and the criminal justice system as a whole.

The report outlines 19 recommendations to reform public safety systems within the county, the full list of which can be viewed at http://bit.ly/RPS-report-folder.

Some of the recommendations include replacing the City of Ithaca Police Department with a Community Solutions and Public Safety Department, implementing an alternative to law enforcement response system, establishing a pilot program for nonemergency calls, implementing a culturally responsive training program that incorporates de-escalation and mental health components, and developing a comprehensive community healing plan.

After April 1, the city and county will create a Community Justice Center (CJC) to implement final recommendations and engage community members, according to the county’s website. The CJC will hire new staff and seek community members to work on implementation and next steps. As Chief Equity and Diversity Officer Deanna Carrithers explained, the creation of the CJC will help ensure recommendations are followed.

“That’s in response to what the community has asked for, on multiple occasions,” she said. “That will also create more equity because we’re not overtaxed, we’re not stretched thin, [and] we have people who are dedicated to think about those things. That leads into developing an equitable solution.”

Tompkins Weekly spoke with several community leaders to get their thoughts on the recommendations. Kenneth Clarke, director of the Tompkins County Office of Human Rights, did not participate in the research piece of the report, but he and others have been working toward public safety reform throughout the past year.

Clarke mostly voiced support for the recommendations the draft makes, in particular the city and county’s efforts to approach reform in a way that goes beyond law enforcement.

“There’s room for growth and for evolution,” he said. “In terms of this process, I think they’re touching on some of the most important things to address in the efforts to really change culture and to basically set a standard for what the city and the county expect in terms of public safety, looking at it in a more comprehensive way than, say, just policing in and of itself.”

On the law enforcement side, City of Ithaca Police Chief Dennis Nayor recognized that, while viewpoints on how best to reform the county’s public safety system vary widely, there were considerable similarities over a few key concepts.

“The one thing that we’ve all become in agreement on is that we shouldn’t be that one entity that does everything,” he said. “We also agree that issues such as mental health, homelessness, addiction, those are all key societal issues that we really need to focus on. And all too often, law enforcement gets involved in things that really should have mental health clinicians or outreach workers or social workers.”

As the draft report describes, during the research process, there were many differences between the changes law enforcement officers and targeted focus groups wanted to see. However, there were some commonalities, including that few people who participated in the research trust the process. In addition, both law enforcement officers and focus groups recognize a lack of trust between the two groups and the need to rebuild it, and both groups think the other needs additional education.

Rich John, county legislator, chair of the Public Safety Committee and Reimagining Public Safety working group member, said addressing the lack of trust between the two groups is of particular importance to making lasting change.

“You can argue about what’s causing the lack of trust, but the lack of trust is there,” he said. “And if you start thinking back that public safety is the most basic promise the government makes to its people, you need to say, well, that promise is pretty important. And if there are some people that don’t believe that promise is being kept, that hurts us all.”

County Administrator Jason Molino explained that that lack of trust between the two groups was what led to the recommendation for a healing plan.

“Probably the most common theme that came from the focus groups and the committee feedback was distrust amongst our residents and our law enforcement community and vice versa, and a lot of trauma that’s been experienced in those relationships over the years,” Molino said at a public forum held Feb. 25. “A healing plan is really meant to begin to address some of that trauma so that the trust can begin to be rebuilt and better relationships can improve as we move forward.”

As far as the distrust in the overall process, sources interviewed for this story all recognized that, historically, there has been a lack of accountability when it comes to law enforcement misconduct, particularly against people of color, and talks of change often don’t lead to substantial action.

Addressing this concern, Molino told Tompkins Weekly that the best way to ensure change actually gets made after the final report is put out is to approach this issue as a “dual pandemic,” handling public safety reform with the same dedication the county has shown in its COVID-19 response.

“The only reason and the only way we did [fight COVID-19] is by dedicating the human resources and the monetary resources to do it properly,” he said. “We reassigned staff, we hired staff, we contracted for resources, and it’s costing us money to do it. But it was because if we didn’t, people would die. And I think when we look at this, if we’re serious about taking this as a pandemic, and we take it seriously, then we have to put the human resources behind it. And we have to put the monetary resources behind it.”

Clarke said the city and county have shown their dedication to making change, which gives him confidence that recommendations will be followed.

“There is, in my view, a commitment to see this through,” he said. “It’s really about persistence. It’s about follow-through. And, just judging on what has happened over the last year, I think that that persistence and that sort of focus and being true to what you put on paper has been happening. And I think that that’s what will continue to happen. And this is not going to be something that’s going to happen without struggle.”

Residents voiced their thoughts on the draft report at a public forum held Feb. 25 on the county’s YouTube page, and their responses show that there are still many questions about how feasible the recommendations are and whether they’re the best way forward.

A common area of concern among commenters at the public forum regarded Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick’s recent interview with GQ (article at https://www.gq.com/story/ithaca-mayor-svante-myrick-police-reform) published just before the draft report was released in which Myrick explained his reasoning behind the recommendation to create the Community Solutions and Public Safety Department.

Myrick later released a letter to the Ithaca Police Department and the City Common Council apologizing for the interview, particularly for speaking with GQ prior to speaking to any police department or Common Council members and giving the impression that police department jobs were in jeopardy.

“The order of operations was wrong and could ruin what has to this point been a collaborative reimagining process,” Myrick said in his letter. “Many of you have participated in this process in good faith and deserved to hear about the report from me first.”

Nayor also voiced his concern regarding the proposal for a Community Solutions and Public Safety Department.

“I feel that it’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he told Tompkins Weekly. “There’s other ways to be more efficient and there’s other ways that we can serve and maintain our abilities without starting an experiment from scratch. … There’s so many unknowns, so there will be mistakes, and … others will be the ones that would learn from it.”

Myrick addressed the concerns at the public forum.

“What we want to do is take the time to design a department from the ground up, make sure that in the recruitment strategy and the training that the entire design reflects the kind of public safety division we want to see,” he said.

Another topic that sparked considerable conversation at the public forum was the recommendations surrounding the reallocation of law enforcement responsibilities.

“I absolutely agree that funds should be reallocated to organizations that have been working on community issues rather than trying to make sub departments within the police departments,” said participant Mae Simmon in the comments during the public forum. “They have been doing good work and are definitely more qualified.”

Another participant, George, who didn’t provide his last name, voiced his concern regarding another recommendation, to “Develop a County-wide program to promote and support holistic officer wellness.”

“My concern is that if we’re really serious about trying to … reimagine public safety, and trying to prevent crime and stuff like that, why are we not investing that money into mental health services for people outside of the police force?” he said. “And it seems like if we’re going to be investing more money … that money can be going into things like making mental health in the broader community addressed and free.”

At the public forum, Molino addressed George’s comment by saying that the public safety reform efforts prioritize more mental health resources throughout the county, and that this isn’t an “either/or” matter.

Another area of concern was accessibility, as several commenters voiced that many residents don’t have access to the internet and therefore couldn’t attend online forums or respond to the report virtually.

County Communications Director Dominick Recckio explained that, in the research process for this report, there was extensive effort to reach stakeholders in whatever way possible, whether in person, virtually or over the phone, but the pandemic still made communication difficult.

“[The pandemic] made it difficult to meet people where they are, which is a lot more than what would have happened in normal times,” he said. “We would have had rooms full of people rather than Zooms full of people. Some people felt like we were inaccessible, and it’s an unfortunate reality that there was less access because of the pandemic.”

The city and county will continue to gather public input on the draft report in the coming weeks. Sources interviewed for this story encouraged residents to get involved in the process.

“That feedback is equally as important to affirm, to edit, to add, to subtract to what we’ve got together so it can be refined to a point to where legislative bodies say, ‘Yep, we feel comfortable with this. We want to adopt this because this is representative of what the community wants to be,’” Molino said.

Carrithers shared that sentiment.

“We ask you to give us a chance and that you trust your elected officials and that we continue to build trust with folks and that you never have to feel this way, that you never feel like you’re unsafe, you never feel like you’re unheard,” she said.

Visit tompkinscountyny.gov more for information.