Five members of a newly created police commission were approved at the Deerpark town board meeting last week after being interviewed by Town Supervisor Gary Spears and Police Chief Richard Sztyndor. The new commission will include Ken Bontrager, Matthew Fuller, Bud Flanagan, Bill Williams and Lisa Sibirtzeff.
“I’m happy to have the police commission re-established,” Spears said.
Deerpark previously had a police commission that had been disbanded years before. Creating a new commission was recommended in the plan developed by the police department reform committee last winter, aiming for a neutral, unthreatening group to hear and address concerns involving the Deerpark police. Some reform committee members voiced concern that the previous commission had been too closely allied with town officials, intimidating those with complaints.
The formation of a reform committee that reflected the town’s demographics was a state requirement, laid out in Executive Order 203 last year in response to the national uprising against police violence victimizing people of color. The committee stipulated that the police commission that would address complaints about police should also reflect town demographics. However, its composition reflects town board demographics more than those of the town, which includes a community of Asians as well as Black and Hispanic residents. Asked if the board included any minorities, Spears said that one woman had been selected.
Asked why no one on the reform committee had been appointed, although at least two had applied, Spears said, “We wanted fresh people to work with the proposals.”
He apparently referred to department reforms in the plan that the town board approved just before the April 1 deadline. Not passing them would have resulted in a risk of not receiving state funding for the police department. However, Spears’ description of the approved reforms as “proposals” to be addressed by “fresh people” chosen by him and the police chief suggests uncertainty about their implementation.
Some reforms roused resistance from town officials, especially one that required making depersonalized data about police encounters available to the commission, which would entail a new protocol and more work, while revealing police patterns about who they stop. Spears said that no complaints had surfaced, but committee member Margaret Spring said that she had encountered concern about police stops from some residents of color.
The commission members were appointed without term lengths, according to town attorney Glen Plotsky.
“They serve at the discretion of the town board,” he said.
Asked about her reaction to the appointments, Spring said, “It's really disappointing, and kind of shocking, that no one from the EO203 Committee that initiated the board reinstating the Police Commission was included. Now it’s unclear how any of the stated goals of the committee to create more police-community engagement and communication will be accomplished without any of the EO203 Committee members that applied for the Commission included.”
Burt Thelander, who also was a member of the reform committee, said of the commission appointments, “My sense is the town board does not value non-partisan examination of how the police department functions, how they provide safe and effective police functions to promote safety in our community, and how they gather valid and reliable information about how the department functions. I am disappointed that I was not appointed, but really did not expect to be appointed, though I have lived in Deerpark for 45 years and have much experience in behavioral health assessment and treatment.”
Also at the board meeting, Norma Schadt announced her retirement from the town historian position after almost 25 years, which began in 1997 when she broke into a two-room schoolhouse to create a museum. Since then she has initiated an assortment of exhibits and lately has been placing historic markers around the area, alerting passersby to places of significance. She has also created exhibits from attic relics. Those, she said, have included quilts, diaries, paintings, records, deeds, journals, yearbooks, milk bottles from a family farm, pressed local flowers and a roof patch that was once a sign on a bridge: ”$5 Fine for Driving Over This Bridge Faster Than a Walk.”
Succeeding her, she said, will be Mike Worden, recently retired Port Jervis police detective and author, though she will continue to have a role.
“Mike offered to help a couple of times, and I said to him, ‘Mike, you’d make a good town historian.’ He said, ‘I think I would.’”
Community news needs community support to continue. Please consider the various Tri-State Lookout subscription levels.
I also served on the committee for police reform and I am very happy to say that the boards choice was a wise one. Not that the others wouldn't make good commissioners but a fresh look with additional views is best to move forward. I wish the new commissioners the best of luck and hope they move to enact some of the ideas from the committee.