Orange County’s “GIVE” program has no coordinator because of political rift

August 4, 2022
5:52 am

NEWBURGH – Orange County’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination program (GIVE) funded by the state is at a stalemate of sorts because the local parties involved cannot come to an agreement as to which agency the program administrator should be assigned.

The state funding for the program is divided among the City of Newburgh, district attorney’s office, probation department, sheriff’s office, and a lesser amount to the City of Middletown.

For the last several years, the program coordinator, Isabel Rojas, has been assigned to the district attorney’s office under an agreement with a former Newburgh mayor and police chief. She has since moved on.

DA David Hoovler would like to continue that format, but Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey told Mid-Hudson News that is not going to happen.

“The city manager manages the city in the City of Newburgh and the district attorney of Orange County does not manage the City of Newburgh nor does the district attorney in Orange County manage the City of Newburgh Police Department,” he said.

Mayor Harvey said they will name an administrator, something to which DA Hoovler is opposed.

DA Hoovler, meanwhile said, ” Since the inception of the GIVE Newburgh program the DA’s Office has housed the program manager position. When the position was created the then Mayor, and Police Chief, wanted the GIVE program manager job at the county level for stability purposes and to avoid political issues involved in policing Newburgh. In the years since that decision, the program has been one of the most successful in the state, and our program in conjunction with DCJS has served as a training model for agencies across the state.”

The DA said Newburgh, despite police staffing and retention issues wants to go another direction. “That is certainly within their discretion to do so. It’s sad, that given their current staffing issues they are not pursuing the continuance of the successes of the past years. As always the DA’s Office is ready to assist the City, and we have added an additional ADA and investigator to assist them in their crime suppression and solving endeavors given their staffing issues.”

Hoovler said the results from the last five or so years speak for themselves. “The results were achieved despite over a half dozen administration changes within the police department. The DA’s Office is ready to move forward always placing public safety first.”