ITHACA, N.Y. — Common Council received a round of presentations Wednesday on Reimagining Public Safety, including the progress of the city’s unarmed co-response program.
For some council members, the presentations were a welcome update on one the city’s most ambitious policy initiatives. But for some new councilors, the update also prompted them to question the rationale behind certain aspects of the city’s public safety reform plan.
There has been significant change in City Hall since Common Council reached a final version of the Reimagining Public Safety enforcement in April 2023. The city completed a transition to a city manager form of government with the start of 2024, the mayor is now a voting member of the Common Council, and the 11-member council has five members that took office at the start of the year.
Establishing an unarmed co-response unit in the city of Ithaca has been one of the key initiatives of the Reimagining Public Safety effort.
Common Council passed a resolution in December 2023 to partner with Tompkins County to replicate its CARE Team co-response program established in March 2023. Under CARE, or the Crisis Alternative Response and Engagement Team, a licensed professional clinician employed in the mental health division of Tompkins County Whole Health accompanies law enforcement on calls.
During an update on the city’s CARE team, Tompkins County Whole Health Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health Harmony Ayers-Friedlander said about a quarter of police-involved shooting deaths nationwide are linked to mental illness, and that the CARE Team represents the most urgent kind of crisis service response.
Ithaca Police Department Chief Thomas Kelly told The Ithaca Voice that the city CARE Team is up and running, and so far has responded to about 20 unique calls a week.
Kelly, who stepped in as chief at IPD in December 2023, said, “We’re 100% committed to reimagine policing. I think what we’ve learned over the past few years is that law enforcement is an essential component, ensuring and being there for everybody’s safety, but then recognizing what that role is.”
Alderperson Phoebe Brown reacted with dismay following the presentations. While mental health crises were discussed, Brown said she was “hurt” not to hear any of the speakers emphasize local law enforcement’s relationship with the Black and brown community.
“You talk solely about mental health, substance abuse, those things, nothing about cultural sensitivity,” Brown said
Brown later said in the meeting, “We didn’t ask for whole-whatever” in reference to the city’s partnership with the Tompkins County Whole Health Department on a city CARE team.
“Whole Health department was not included in the plan,” Brown said. “That wasn’t originally included in the Reimagining Public Safety plan.”
Brown, who voted to partner with the Tompkins County Whole Health Department, told The Ithaca Voice after the Wednesday Common Council meeting that she supports the CARE Team. But she said she wanted to see the city’s unarmed responder program developed in line with a working group plan that the council previously distanced itself from in favor of the plan adopted in April 2023.
Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo told The Ithaca Voice that at the time the council gave the greenlight to collaborating with the county to establish a city CARE Team, it was in order to put a co-response model in place. He said the council has the power to shape and implement other unarmed responder programs going forward.
Common Council decided last year to charge the deputy city manager with the duty of implementing the city’s unarmed responder program. The position that is yet to be hired, let alone given an exact job description.
But the need for the position was questioned by some councilors.
Alderperson Patrick Kuehl said that while he was not involved in creating the city’s current Reimagining Public Safety plan, he thought another administrative position might not be the best use of public funds.
“It seems to me that […] we keep adding administrative bloat, when what we should be doing is we should be focusing those finances towards on the ground people who are doing stuff, like unarmed responders,” Kuehl said.
He added that the city already has a chief of police who could implement the response team.
Kuehl’s concerns over cost resonated with Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio.
“I think I would want to be better convinced why we would need another level of administration,” Fabrizio said.
Kelly said he felt a deputy city manager would benefit the city implementing its Reimagining Public Safety plan.
“Having someone that can work directly with the city manager makes sense. Certainly working in conjunction with law enforcement — I think would be effective,” Kelly said.
Cantelmo said, “I certainly understand that it’s natural for some folks who are getting caught up to speed to have questions.” He said he recommends anyone with questions about the deputy city manager position to review the council’s report, and its previous meetings “to really see why we’ve arrived where we’re at.”
Kathy Zoner, a former chief of the Cornell University Police Department, was hired as a consultant by the city in October 2023 to help implement an unarmed responders program.
She told Common Council Wednesday she believed the delay in implementing an unarmed responder program is due to a lack of bandwidth.
“One of the reasons I believe that an unarmed response team has not been formulated yet is because there has been no one to spearhead it,” Zoner said. “Literally, there’s no one in the city governance that has the bandwidth to take on a project of that size.”
Council’s Wednesday meeting did not include a voting item related to Reimagining Public Safety. One goal of Wednesday’s Common Council meeting was to provide City Manager Deb Mohlenhoff with input to design the deputy city manager position job description. Mohlenhoff said she wanted to get the council’s feedback on incorporating other specific issues, like addressing the city’s homeless encampments, into the advertised duties of the deputy city manager.
Mohlenhoff said Wednesday what she was hoping for was to see if council was comfortable with expanding the job description of the deputy city manager. She said Wednesday, “I think we got a little bit of clarity tonight.”