Editor’s note: This letter along with a nine-page report (linked in the text below) was provided by Democratic mayoral candidate Ramsey McGrory and trustee candidates Andrea Ziegelman and Lance Koonce. They are also running on the Pelham Manor Forward party lines. The letter was sent to the Village of Pelham Manor Board of Trustees. 

Mayor Jennifer Monachino Lapey

Trustee Joseph C. Senerchia

Trustee Bridget A. Bennett

Trustee A. Michelle DeLillo

Trustee Maurice Owen-Michaane

Village of Pelham Manor

4 Penfield Pl.

Pelham Manor, NY 10803

Re:      Comments and Recommendations on Pelham Manor’s Draft Report on Police Reform Under Executive Order 203

Mayor Lapey and Trustees:

We write to express our deep concerns about the approach that the Village of Pelham Manor has taken in connection with Executive Order No. 203, the New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative (“EO203”). We write both as residents of Pelham Manor with a vested interest in this topic, and as candidates for Village office who, if elected, will be responsible in some measure for implementation of any actions resulting from the EO203 process. Our detailed Comments and Recommendations can be found in Attachment A to this letter.

We urge immediate action to address community concerns and provide the police with the techniques and tools to do their job to the highest ethical standards, which the current EO203 process has failed to do.

EO203 mandates municipalities like Pelham Manor to take “urgent and immediate action” to eliminate racial inequities in policing” and to “modify and modernize policing strategies, policies, procedures, and practices, and to develop practices to better address the particular needs of communities of color to promote public safety, improve community engagement, and foster trust.”

In response, municipalities across the state have taken extensive steps to comprehensively address racial bias and disproportionate policing in communities of color, and to identify ways to facilitate community engagement in order to create environments with trust and fairness as its foundation.

Unfortunately, by comparison with the work done by other municipalities in Westchester County, Pelham Manor’s EO203 compliance process and its draft report, found here (“Draft Report”), fall significantly short of the standards set by, and specific mandates required under, the Executive Order.  In Pelham Manor, a small group of Village officials managed and directed the entire EO203 process, from initial review of the police department all the way through drafting of the report. While various stakeholder groups were consulted, no material details of their collective experiences, comments, or recommendations are found in the Draft Report; indeed, the groups most directly impacted by the subject of EO203 apparently were afforded no authority to influence the process, let alone assist in drafting the report itself, as was the case in other neighboring municipalities and as clearly contemplated under EO203.

As a result, the Draft Report sidesteps the central mandate of EO203: To assess and adopt concrete reforms to address the potential for racial bias in policing.

Pelham Manor has a long tradition of a professional, responsive police force. However, no great institution, whether it is a corporation, a municipality, or a police department, is perfect.  Every institution must go through periodic processes of self-evaluation and make changes when needed, in order to remain exceptional. The EO203 process provided an opportunity for (indeed, required) municipalities statewide to undertake precisely this type of comprehensive review, reevaluation, and reform, with the aim of eliminating the potential for racial bias.

While the draft EO203 reports of other municipalities contain frank assessments of their policing practices, policies and history, Pelham Manor essentially congratulates itself on a job well done. The Draft Report identifies little or no room for improvement, and makes virtually no recommendations for change, and certainly not the type of detailed reform plans presented by other municipalities as expressly directed by EO203.

Perhaps most significantly, other than offering partial-year statistics on the racial make-up of persons ticketed or arrested in the Village, the Draft Report contains no information whatsoever about interactions between police and people of color, whether any of those interactions were influenced, in whole or in part, by race, or what new strategies or policies should be implemented to guard against the potential of racial bias (just as an example, the issue of body cameras is not even mentioned). The Draft Report contains vague impressions and self-serving statements concerning efforts purportedly made to engage two stakeholder groups that include people of color. The public is left in the dark, having been given no substantive comments or criticisms upon which to reflect and comment.

The Village Board’s response has thus been a missed opportunity to improve our community and its resources.

We are very late in a nine-month process that should have been conducted from the start with frankness, neutrality, and self-reflection. But there is still a window of time for the Village to act. At the last Board of Trustees meeting on February 22, 2021, residents were encouraged to continue to submit comments and suggestions as to EO203. The longer discussion in Attachment A is our effort to contribute to this process in a meaningful way, including steps the Village might take to course correct, including engaging in further discussions with persons of color who have had interactions with PMPD, providing concrete recommendations that address the crux of EO203, and revising the Draft Report to address other deficiencies we identify.

In summary, the overall impression left by the Draft Report is that there is little or no need for improvement with respect to policing in Pelham Manor. For all of the reasons set forth, we believe that the Village Board followed a flawed process to a flawed interim conclusion. This failure to study the issues carefully is precisely what resulted in the absence of almost any specific, concrete recommendations or plans for improvement in the Draft Plan. Municipalities that have undertaken a deeper, more comprehensive process inevitably have identified a range of proposals to update and improve policing in order to better serve their communities, even in municipalities that, like Pelham Manor, are known for the quality of their police force.

We urge the Board to re-read the Draft Report with our detailed comments in mind, review the reports of other municipalities cited throughout the discussion below, and reconsider the current approach.  This is how we grow and become a stronger community in which all voices are heard, and where all residents and visitors are treated with equality, with dignity and respect.

We can do better. We must do better.

Respectfully,

Ramsey McGrory

Andrea Ziegelman

Lance Koonce