The Rochester City Council has approved a contract with a consulting firm to help the embattled Police Accountability Board develop a strategic plan, even as the agency faces new legal hurdles.
On Tuesday, Council approved a $100,000, one-year contract with Rochester-based Breakthrough Leadership Consulting. The contract tasks Breakthrough with establishing a “roadmap for the PAB to achieve its mission and vision.” The bill was introduced by Council President Miguel Melendez and is funded entirely from the budget of the City Council and Clerk, of which the PAB is a subagency.
The bill passed by a vote of 8-to-1, with Councilmember Bridget Monroe voting no.
The future powers of the PAB, however, are uncertain. Earlier this month, the Rochester Police Locust Club filed a lawsuit arguing the PAB was working outside the boundaries of the law. That move followed the PAB’s release of 31 redacted investigations of officer misconduct in September.
In court filings, the Locust Club argued that the PAB’s actions violated prior court decisions that restricted the PAB’s powers to investigate misconduct.
“The Locust Club contends that...PAB does not have the authority to conduct investigations into individualized allegations of officer misconduct, to attempt to obtain testimony from RPD Officers, either by voluntary request or through subpoena, to issue findings or recommendations for discipline, or to publicly release investigatory reports,” the complaint reads.
If that argument is upheld by the court, it would effectively hobble the agency’s ability to perform investigations of police misconduct.
When it was formed, the PAB was supposed to have the power to compel discipline on officers. But soon after, in 2020, the Locust Club sued the city and prevailed in getting those powers stripped from the board. The city unsuccessfully appealed that decision.
At a Council meeting earlier this month, Councilmembers raised questions on what the long-term future of the agency could look like given the new legal challenges.
“If the Locust Club gets the remedies it’s asking for, it will strip the PAB of such essential powers, rendering them unable to do what they are charged to do,” said Councilmember Stanley Martin, a longtime supporter of the PAB. “This is significant, this is a big deal.”
Councilmember Willie Lightfoot argued that despite what the court may rule, Council has an obligation to set the PAB on solid footing.
“It’s been in court before, it’s won some things in court, and it’s lost some things, concerning police accountability,” Lightfoot said. “But we can’t act as if we’ve already lost, or something has changed, because it has not.”
The PAB was approved in a 2019 referendum vote by a wide margin, but it was immediately saddled by court challenges and internal strife under its inaugural executive director Conor Dwyer Reynolds. Reynolds was ousted from the agency in 2022.
In June, former Rochester City School District Superintendent Lesli Myers-Small was tapped to serve as the agency’s new executive director.
Myers-Small said the PAB will continue to operate as “status quo” as the court case moves forward.
“We’ll certainly build contingency plans and think about what it might look like should they be successful, all the way or partially,” Myers-Small said during the meeting earlier this month. “But when it comes to a strategic plan, we’re operating from a place of where we are right now, and I think that’s very appropriate.”
In related news, the Council also approved adding $50,000 to the city’s contract with the law firm Hancock Estabrook, bringing the total up to $130,000. Hancock Estabrook is representing the city in an ongoing case before the Public Employees Relations Board over PAB staffers’ attempt to unionize with Workers United.
That bill was previously voted down in October. Corporation Counsel Patrick Beath said the additional $50,000, or close to it, had already been billed by the firm.
