POUGHKEEPSIE – Mayor Yvonne Flowers has addressed the police officer shortage facing the city, visible quality of life crimes, and made a plea to the community for assistance. The mayor made the comments at a meeting of the common council.
According to the contract between the police union and the city, there are supposed to be 96 officers in the department. With the recent retirements of officers, detectives, Captain Steve Minard, and Chief Tom Pape, the staffing level has dropped below 70 personnel and two more detectives have plans to retire in July.
“Yes, we have a shortage,” Flowers said. “And guess what? We’ve always had a shortage. We’ve been going through this for years and we have not been at full staff for many years.”
The City of Poughkeepsie PBA, representing the officers, says that staffing shortages are due, in part, to the council’s failure to act on a revised recruitment and retention plan, included in a negotiated Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The explanation of issues surrounding the MOA can be found here.
Flowers pointed to an influx of non-residents who have recently arrived and have created quality-of-life concerns with rampant drug use and vagrancy as one of the issues facing the workload of police. Bail reform laws have also added to the problem, according to the mayor. “Our police department is overwhelmed, but it’s overwhelmed because we can have 100 police officers out there and still, their hands are tied in certain things that are going on,” she said while encouraging the public to take action. “If you really want to raise your voice, you might want to raise your voice even louder toward New York State and some of the laws that are in place that are kind of tying the hands of our police department.”
One major area of concern is a series of vacant lots on Main Street just east of Kennedy Fried Chicken. The vacant lots and the property where Kennedy Fried is located belong to Jankovics LLC, according to Dutchess County property records. The vacant lots, known as “The Cut,” have become an open-air market of drug and prostitution activity. The activity includes a recent murder, multiple drug overdoses, and the capture of a violent felon by the Dutchess County Drug Task Force.
Sixth Ward Councilman Christopher Grant joined with Mayor Flowers in addressing the Main Street issue. At a recent meeting Grant said, “I can’t go to 472 Main and remove the people myself – if I could I would try,” he said. “We need help from the county – we need help from everybody. It’s not an overnight fix and it’s going to take a while.” The councilman also pointed out that a Main Street Task Force has been created to help address the issues plaguing areas of Main Street. Flowers said she is working with the police department to develop new strategies for Main Street.
The mayor also pleaded to the community to help the police. “If you hear something, you know something, you know you’re going to have to say something. You can’t stay quiet and all of the sudden expect everybody to read somebody’s mind and think that they’re going to be able to handle it. I’m just asking the community for their help as well.”
