Albany's Community Police Review Board has been trying to find its footing after coming under city control in January. Members fear city leaders don’t have their back.
On the last day of July, Albany's Community Police Review board met for an emergency session at city hall. In January, the panel moved from an administrative agency housed at Albany Law School’s Government Law Center to a city entity under the oversight of the Albany Common Council. Since that move, panel members have had concerns that some local officials want to limit their powers to provide oversight on local law enforcement. So, the board sent out a plea to "residents, advocates and elected allies" to attend the July gathering in a show of solidarity.
The event drew a small crowd, and now the board’s concerns linger despite reassurances from Common Council Public Safety Chair Tom Hoey, who says the board is an important part of community relations.
"It's being observed as that this is all part of a plan to take away the independence of the CPRB, which is far from the truth. I mean, I can, you know, most of the council, 100% support the CPRB in their mission," Hoey said.
The board had what one member described as a “contentious relationship” with the Albany Police Department under former Chief Eric Hawkins. Though tensions have eased some following the December appointment of Brendan Cox as interim Albany Police chief, the board’s longstanding concerns remain. Those concerns relate to a 2023 lawsuit that the board filed in an effort to force compliance by members of the Albany Police Department and two police unions, who the board says were not honoring subpoenas.
Albany attorney Nairobi Vives, who had served as chair since 2021, resigned from the panel in June. The board unanimously voted to appoint Vice Chair Antoinette Santos to succeed Vives.
Santos said bringing the board under the city’s umbrella has had some benefit.
"We finally have a new office now at 175 Central Avenue, the office has a program director and has office staff currently, and it's nice that the community can actually come into an office," said Santos, who noted the change has been a rough transition and hasn’t helped board members manage a backlog of cases.
"The CPRB had to stop doing reviews of complaints. But I want to make this clear, while we stopped doing reviews of complaints, we did not stop the investigations, and that's very important to understand, because there's process that the CPRB has to follow. So I just want to make sure everyone realizes that last month, in June, we began reviewing complaints again."
Public Safety Chair Hoey says the panel is caught up in legal tangles as it tries to resolve an expired contract with its independent counsel, a law firm that helped CPRB navigate litigation.
"The only two signing parties of the contract was the attorney, the law firm and Albany Law School. Albany Law School no longer represented the CPRB as of January 1, when they became part of the city. So we have a new attorney for the Common Council. And that attorney went over the contract , and found that the only two parties on that contract that could sign for a renewal was the Albany Law School and the attorney. So there's a lot of people confused. It's not a good situation," Hoey said.
Santos agrees. “The common council has stated that we do not have independent counsel right now We were advised that we were supposed to be supported now by Corporation Counsel.”
Hoey says that mistaken belief will not happen, that it would be a conflict of interest and a setback for the panel. He adds as the CPRB struggles to get its act together, it's also stymied by staffing issues.
"The CPRB's down at least three positions, and soon four. So we're five out of nine. So to be able to keep that they can get a quorum and really work on these cases, we're trying to get more people on the CPRB. So I'm going to be doing interviews next week. We have a few people that are interested, and I'm hoping that the interviews go well and we get it fully staffed."
