ITHACA, N.Y.—Thomas Kelly started his first week on the job Monday as the chief of the Ithaca Police Department (IPD).
He stepped away from nearly 23 years at his hometown police department in Schenectady, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. Right now, Kelly said he’s trying to be a “sponge” as he gets to know Ithaca’s police force, the city’s officials, and the community. He’s recently moved into the city limits to familiarize himself with the lay of the land.
He is taking over a department just beginning to mend a strained relationship with City Hall.
The city renegotiated its labor contract with the police union in October. The new contract provides a significant pay bump to officers as IPD tries to recruit fresh talent to its force.
The department recently hired three new officers — two of whom transferred from other law enforcement agencies in New York state and received a $20,000 signing bonus.
Kelly told The Ithaca Voice that he feels “optimistic” about getting the department fully staffed. With a permanent chief, and a fresh labor contract in place, he said he sees stability in the department’s future.
Restaffing the department, including the chief position, has proven expensive for the City of Ithaca. The department has lacked permanent leadership since the spring of 2021. Kelly joined with a $50,000 signing bonus to be paid out over three years, a $15,000 stipend for moving, and a base salary bumped up to $150,000 from $132,000.
The City of Ithaca is still working to make significant progress on its landmark public safety reform effort, Reimagining Public Safety — a plan that city officials have emphasized will require an adequately staffed department.
Kelly said part of what drew him away from the Electric City and to the City of Gorges was Ithaca’s plans for law enforcement reform.
The city’s Common Council finalized a framework for the reforms in April 2023 with support from representatives from the union that represents Ithaca’s police officers. The path to this version of the policy has been rocky at times: in 2021, former Mayor Svante Myrick drew national and local attention for an initial proposal to do away with IPD altogether. That proposal has since been abandoned.
While the reform plan in its current state has departed from Myrick’s initial proposal, the initial plan exacerbated a years-long conflict between the police union and City Hall over a 10-year lapse in a new labor contract.
Kelly said he is familiar with the “pretty drastic changes” in Myrick’s initial 2021 proposal. As an outsider, Kelly said he saw a breakdown in trust and communication between the department and city officials, but the plan he sees in place today has “a lot of positives.” The City of Ithaca has committed to strengthen whistleblower protections for police, improve training protocols, and pilot an unarmed responder program among other initiatives.
The city and Tompkins County have also moved forward with another police reform proposal: making it easier for the public to obtain data on arrests, prosecutions, and case outcomes. The aim is to reveal potential bias in the local criminal justice system. It’s an effort that Kelly approvingly noted.
“There’s a conversation we can have based on facts as opposed to appearances, and if there is an issue we can address it,” Kelly said.
When Kelly began his career in law enforcement in 2001, the Schenectady Police Department was embroiled in tumult and scandal. The FBI began an investigation into the department in 1999 that concluded Schenectady police had committed extensive civil rights violations. Five police officers were eventually sentenced to prison for supplying informants with drugs and various corruption charges, including the city’s former police chief, Greg Kaczmarek.
Kelly said that these grim days at the Schenectady Police Department helped to shape his perspective on law enforcement. He said he saw how a department in turmoil damaged trust with law enforcement in his hometown, and he joined the force with the intent of helping it “transition” to the reformed police department it reportedly has become today.
Kelly named building trust between the department and community as one of his priorities as chief, as well as maintaining high standards within IPD, and “accountability and transparency.”
Kelly said he would like to see a high degree of community engagement, with officers visiting schools and festivals to give people who haven’t had the opportunity to speak with police one-on-one the chance to do so. Officers, he said, also need to “learn to be comfortable having uncomfortable conversations.”
“After something traumatizing has happened within the community, that’s not the time to try and work things out,” he said. “Now is the time to bring people to the table.”
Kelly said it is his priority to build partnerships with organizations that have the “resources and expertise” to help connect people with services like mental health care, addiction services, food stamps, or housing.
It’s a strategy he said will be important to addressing issues like addiction, particularly in the “Jungle,” the homeless encampments around the inlet on Ithaca’s West End.
Kelly noted the case of Thomas Rath, whose disappearance in May from the Jungle has turned into a kidnapping and murder case that has seen 13 people charged in connection with the crime so far. Police have an obligation to get involved to solve crimes that may affect homeless individuals, Kelly said, but he added that law enforcement is “not the only answer” when addressing the underlying issues of the Jungle, such as addiction and mental health.
“When we start talking about a serious concern like the Jungle we have to take a step back and take a look at what the issues are that are there,” Kelly said. “Is [setting up an encampment a crime? Is homelessness a crime? No. Substance use and disorder is not a crime. Mental health is not a crime.”
In Schenectady, Kelly described a process where police would connect individuals struggling with addiction to counseling and detox services. Kelly said that he wanted to see a similar program formalized at the Ithaca Police Department.
When asked to explain his vision for the department in greater detail, Kelly said that he wanted to earn the trust and support of its officers and the broader community before putting out too many specific program ideas.
“I don’t want to put names to programs because I want the support from the department as well as their trust,” Kelly said. “And these programs are going to be all of ours, as well as the community.”