Documents › Police Advisory Committee (PAC), 2026-07-16

minutes 8 pages

Draft minutes of the June 18, 2026 Police Advisory Committee meeting. Chief Nikitopoulos reported the body camera program should be operational by the end of September or early October pending PBA sign-off on policies, an RFP has been issued for a police consultant with a final report expected by the end of 2026, the department will have new Glock pistols in September, and officers spent roughly 400 hours in the schools from September 2025 through June 2026. Other items included the Blue Envelope program with only one sign-up to date, clarifications from Manager Healy that he posts the police blotter online within a week and does not censor it, planning for National Night Out on August 4, 2026 from 4:30 to 8:30, and cancellation of the summer soccer game over liability and insurance concerns.

Draft, not approved by the committee Police Advisory Committee Minutes June 18, 2026, 6:30 PM 1st floor courtroom, Stanley H. Kellerhouse Municipal building Attendance: Teri Lukin, Miles Kafka, Frank Pusatere, Susan Skrelja, Manuel Coronel, Ian Murtaugh, Carolyn Whiting, Chief Nikitopoulos, Trustee Slippen. Detective DiTomasso joined us for first 30 minutes. Minutes of March 12, 2026, were approved. Motion by Miles Kafka, second by Teri Lukin, all in favor. 1. Blue Envelope Program • Detective DiTomasso explained the program that was instituted in Croton last year. Only one person signed up to date. PAC (Carolyn Whiting) will write a LTE for the Gazette, and Croton Special Ed program for nonverbal children to give them the abbreviated card, Chief Nikitopoulos will ask the Village to do additional publicity. 2. Update and correction of information at the March 12, 2026, meeting. • Manager Healy said some information from March 12, 2026, meeting needs clarification. a) Manager Healy did not object to flowers at the municipal building on Police Week. He did not want additional flowers at the flagpole due to additional needed staffing to care for the flowers. He was fine with flowers in the planters. b) Manager Healy’s office posts the blotter online within one week of receiving it from the police department. He does not censor the blotter but does make it more user friendly for the reader, clarifying police jargon. c) Ian Murtaugh said he is agnostic about publishing the blotter but if it is done, a small few sentence information section at the top of the blotter could be added. People read the blotter with great interest and having some information at the top is an effective way to get eyes on the information. 3. Chief Reports • Accreditation will now be discussed at all PAC meetings, as per the manager’s request. Accreditation is part of the Police Reform Task Force report to the Board, and the issue needs to be at the fore of PAC work. a) Chief Nititopoulos reported that the policy manual is mostly complete. Officers are given approximately 5 policies per month to read and sign off on, with this number recommended by Lexipol. It will take another 12 – 24 months to complete the officer reading of the policies. Officers must read the policies while continuing to perform all their duties. b) Lt. Tramaglini and the Chief took approximately 8 months to rewrite the policies. • Police consultant: The hiring of a police consultant has been approved by the board, and an RFP has been issued. The Chief hopes to have a firm hired within 1-2 months, with the final report issued by the end of 2026. • Officer Jandres was not present to give a status update. He has approached the school about reading to elementary school students in Spanish. They were interested and will follow up in the fall. The library is possibly interested in an event for Edwin reading at the library in Spanish to children. Needs follow up. • Bike to school event, May 2026 was a great success. • Red Light Cameras are not yet on the Board agenda. The PAC will send the memo about signage once the cameras are on the agenda. • Chief Nikitopoulos has had discussion with Stephen Walker about our 2025 survey results and the September 15 – October 15, 2026, community survey. Chief Nikitopoulos will follow up with Stephen Walker to determine if he would like additional questions on this year’s survey. a) Chief Nikitopoulos reported that there was a “blue light drill” at the schools. Parents were walking around the outside of the schools trying to determine the issue. The school might wish to communicate with the parents that walking around the school is unhelpful, could cause them to be hurt during an incident, and will hinder police response. • Body cameras. Components are arriving and the program should be operational by the end of September or early October. a) The PBA will need to sign off on all camera policies, which are being written now. b) Body cameras will add to the staff workload due to discovery requirements. • All cameras. a) The village is adding cameras to some of our local parks. b) The PAC will add camera questions to our 2026 survey. Chief Nikitopoulos is briefing the Board about camera usage, data storage, etc. at the next board work session. d) The PAC will write information for the public once cameras go into effect. • Police information posted on non Village sponsored Latino Facebook Page. Chief will give a status update in September. • Epi pens update. Chief reported that their training group Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps advises against using Epi pens. He will follow up at another time. • Book Lending Library update. The PBA has declined to participate, with no further information available. • # of hours officers spend in the school update a) Officers have spent approximately 400 hours in the school from September 2025 – June 2026. While the number of hours is significant, this can be seen as a possible negative as an SRO would have far more hours with one-on-one contact with our students and have better information about safety needs. b) Our officers do not participate in all safety meetings with the school security company. SROs in other schools generally participate fully. • Youth Cadet program update. a) Approximately 24 students participated in the program. Approximately 5 students will graduate this year. Additional students are expected to sign up next semester. b) Youth were at the Flag Raising ceremony and were professional and helpful. • Letter to the Latino community, update. No update currently. Chief will follow up with Manager Healy for Manager Healy’s suggestions to improve the letter. • National Night Out August 4, 2026. Time: 4:30 – 8:30 a) Items discussed last year for National Night Out but not implemented due to staffing, etc. 1. Photo ID and fingerprint cards of children for parents to take home with them. Chief Nikitopoulos has ordered 500 fingerprint cards. 2. Possibly a representative from the Crisis Response team. Chief Nikitopoulos will follow up. 3. Information about crime prevention. Chief Nikitopoulos will follow up. Information needs to be offered to the public with explanation of what it is and not just left on the table. b) Police cadets will man the dunk tank. c) Jeremy Davis is attempting to hire a student band to play at National Night Out. If that is not possible, a DJ will be hired. d) Chief Nikitopoulos will ask Manager Healy if the village shuttle bus is available for the event. This may attract upper village residents. e) Chief Nikitopoulos will ask Manager Healy if banners can be placed at the Municipal building. f) Chief Nikitopoulos might use the department’s message board to advise residents about National Night Out. g) Chief Nikitopoulos will ask Officer Davis if he would like to conduct a raffle of a basket of donated items from village businesses. He would need to secure donations. • From April 22, 2025, minutes: Follow-up / update needed: Police Reform Task Force Priorities a) Foot Patrols. Chief Nikitopoulos reported that the department conducts foot patrols during school lunch hour in the upper village. He will assign officers to bicycles as needed. He will not send officers to bicycle school this year due to a lack of interest among the officers. Foot patrols will not be added beyond the school lunch time. b) Interaction with youth. Chief Nikitopoulos reported that Officer Ward has an excellent rapport with our youth, as do several other officers. Chief Nikitopoulos does not believe additional youth outreach work is needed currently, but he is open to suggestions. c) Community engagement. The PAC will assist the PD at community events such as Summerfest and Coffee With a Cop. d) Training explained to the public. The committee has written numerous articles about training for the website’s community information project. The PAC is adding several more articles in the coming months about non-training issues. The Chief will review all articles already written and let the PAC know if there are areas of training that should be shared with the public in a general “police training” article. e) Photos of officers working in the community. A video monitor will need to be purchased, and this will need to wait until next year’s budget and discussions with the manager as to feasibility and location, if it is determined the Village wishes to move forward with this project. f) Videos. The Chief has advised that he would like to hold off on videos at this time. 2026: Continue to hold off on videos currently due to national pushback to the 2025 video. • Additional Chief reports a) The police department will have new Glock guns in September. The PAC might write an article for the website about the new guns, red light making the guns more accurate, etc. This can also be discussed at the December Town Hall. 4. Trustee Liaison reports a) Memo requesting signage at entrances to the Village for red light cameras. The Board has not had a public meeting on this subject and Trustee Slippen will follow up when they do so. b) Memo requesting a public outreach campaign for all Village cameras. The PAC will follow up when more cameras come online. 5. Review of National Police Week and Summerfest 6. Soccer game As per the Village manager, there will be no summer soccer game due to liability/ insurance concerns. 7. Ian Murtaugh provide updates. • ESL classes and community outreach. a) The library is not interested in having Officer Jandres give a talk about police to their ESL class due to participants speaking many languages other than Spanish. b) The school does a formal English Language Learners class from September – June and is not interested in a “drop in” type class. c) Ian will follow up with the library to determine if there is anything else needed from the PAC. d) Officer interviews for the webpage. Ian will follow up on previously written interviews and submit them to Chief Nikitopoulos. e) Ian will write additional interviews for newer officers. • Latino community outreach, Additional ideas for Latino Community outreach? Tabled until the September meeting due to time constraints. a) Possible idea: Food event, music (local musician, not large crowd attracting) for kids, with Edwin reading to kids, etc. at Vasallo park? Other officer read in English in addition to Edwin. Contests such as egg on a spoon, sack races, etc. for kids? b) Add vendors with information of interest? Ie renters’ insurance, immigration attorneys, County representatives for information about available assistance for their kids such as SNAP, housing, Ossining Open Door, find a Dental Van (May be impossible at this late date), etc. ? Additional information that Gustavo feels would be helpful. 8. Additional articles for the PAC webpage. While it is not expected that anyone will read all articles on the webpage, residents should be encouraged to read articles that address a resident’s specific interest. • Cannabis use: Written and submitted in 2025. With a proposed Cannabis dispensary slated to open in Harmon, this might be a topic of interest to residents. Article needs updating. Carolyn will update and submit to Manager Healy with Chief Nikitopoulos’ approval. • Homeless: What assistance can the police provide and what can they not do? Carolyn will rewrite the article. Pan handling not to be included. • Police training. What training they receive that would be of interest to the public. Some items are available in the PAC articles section. Do we need additional articles? • Traffic stops. a) Chief Nikitopoulos would prefer a village training class and will follow up on scheduling one. The previous proposed class did not attract residents. 9. Mass Casualty Incident training memo to the Board and Manager. See below draft. See note #4 at end of agenda. • The PD does not train with FD and EMS for village events. • The PD does train with additional local police departments. • Chief Nikitopoulos will follow up with FD Chief Columbo to determine if joint FD/ PD training is something they wish to pursue or if they wish to have meetings about mass casualty joint response. 10. Community survey. • Meeting to discuss survey July 16, 2026, 6:30 a) Ask the Board and manager to provide questions they have for the community that would assist them in their future agendas? • Additional business Teri Lukin reported that she received a complaint about Black Rock Park. She advised complainant to follow up with a police report. Chief Nikitopoulos reported that the PD is following up with the complaint. PAC members to bring ideas for youth outreach, Latino community outreach, and other ideas for the PAC to the September meeting 8:10 Adjourn