"Does Police Board Need Executive Staff?" Times-Union, June 25, 1963
Primary tabs
Below is a scanned image of an editorial from the Times-Union. The editorial, "Does Police Board Need Executive Staff?" questions the need for paid staff on the Police Advisory Board when "...there is no business..." for the board. The editorial argues that the board confuses cops on how to implement law "...fairly, yet firmly." Smugness and paternalism drip from the editorial. The clipping can be found at the Local History Department of the Monroe County Library Downtown Branch. "Does Police Board Need Executive Staff?" is an editorial and was published in the Times-Union newspaper on June 25, 1963.
While the Police Advisory Board became law on March 26, 1963 to address complaints against officers who used "excessive and unnecessary force" against them, the Locust Club police union did everything in its power to thwart it from actually accomplishing anything. Two injunctions were slapped on it by the court preventing it from conducting investigations and forwarding recommendations to the chief of police--it's primary functions. By the mid-1960s, new appointments to the board were needed to meet quorum in order for it to do its work. But neither Democrats nor Republicans appointed anyone to the board after it was found constitutional by the courts in 1969. It was then defunded and abolished in 1970 by the new Republican Party-lead Rochester city government.
