Solomon
NEWBURGH – For the first time in several years, the City of Newburgh has a police chief.
Douglas Solomon, most recently the Beacon chief, started on the job Wednesday.
Newburgh City Manager Michael Ciaravino appointed Solomon.
“Chief Solomon knows that we expect the continuation of some of the most innovative community relationship building programs in the State of New York,” Ciaravino said. “He understands that we are being modeled by other police departments, not only in the State of New York, but other states in the United States as well as in Europe. We have had police professionals come to Newburgh to see how our community policing techniques are working and contributing to a much safer community.”
Solomon will serve provisionally until he takes the civil service test in March and assuming he is in the top three high scorers, he would be on probation for one year.
During his permanent appointment, Solomon would have 90 days in which to move into the city from his hometown of Monticello, where he is the current mayor.
He looks forward to running a department that is more than twice the size of the Beacon force.
“Whatever department you work in, everybody wants more cops,” Solomon said “It depends on what you need to get done and what you want to get done. Staffing levels necessarily shouldn’t be based on amounts of calls for service or that kind of thing. It has to be based on other things, so I have to analyze what is going on in the department. I have to sit down with my command staff and prioritize thing. Newburgh has fiscal issues; a lot of challenges here, but we will work on it.”
Solomon will step down from the Monticello post, but he said for now, he will take it “day by day.”
