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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Judge sides with civil service commission
Continued from page 1
this point in time,” said Newburgh Mayor
Judy Kennedy.
The commission held the open, competitive exam for the position on March
5. The test opens the job up to candidates
from around the state with less experience than Cameron, who has served with
the City of Newburgh Police Department
for 19 years. Cameron was appointed acting and then provisional police chief after
police Chief Michael Ferrara retired last
year.
“The test was taken by, I believe, seven
people,” said Kennedy. “As the rules stand
now, out of the top three, we must choose
our new chief.”
As per the Civil Service Commission
rules, police chief candidates are required
to have at least five years of experience as
police lieutenant in order to take the promotional test. Cameron has two.
These requirements are more stringent
than in other municipalities, including
Middletown, which also has its own civil
service commission and requires just two
years of police lieutenant experience for
the promotional exam.
Earlier this year, Cameron, Kennedy
and City Manager Michael Ciaravino
requested the commission amend the
requirements for the promotional exam,
offered to employees already working
for the city. The commission refused the
request. Cameron opted not to take the
open test on principle, claiming the commission was being unfair. A petition filed
in court by Ciaravino and Cameron in
February described the test requirements
as “arbitrary and capricious.”
The mayor’s view
The current requirements also state
Cameron would have been eligible to take
the promotional test if he had two years
of experience as deputy police chief. “One
of the real sticking points that we had was
that, in 2010, we eliminated the position of
deputy police chief,” Kennedy explained
at the council meeting last week.
“From 2010 to now… we had three lieutenants who could have been, any one of
them, appointed to be a deputy chief. That
could not happen since we did not have
that position open. So, these officers were
doing a lot of deputy chief work through
the last five years. None of it was considered by this commission.”
Kennedy noted that, “in general, civil
service was set up to help people to be
promoted from within.” Indeed, New York
State Civil Service Law states, “vacancies
in positions in the competitive class shall
be filled, as far as practicable, by promotion from among persons holding com-
petitive class
positions
in a lower
grade in the
de par tment
in
which
the vacancy
exists.”
“We have
had an excellent police
chief in Dan
Cameron,”
s a i d
Ke n n e d y.
“He’s recogCameron
nized at the
state level. He’s recognized at the regional
level for many things. But now we’ve got
a crap shoot because we have got three
people and we have to pick one of them.”
Legal costs, transparency
Councilwoman Cindy Holmes, a former
civil service commissioner, offered some
insight.
“There are civil service rules, regulations, procedures and processes that have
to be followed,” Holmes said. “They can
be amended or adjusted, but you have
to have all three commissioners that are
going to do so. If you don’t have the two
to one vote, then it’s just not going to
happen.”
Holmes referred to the lawsuit, which
brought the city to court this month. “The
bigger problem for me is there was a lawsuit that we have to pay for on both sides,”
she said. “We have to pay both lawyers,
for the city suing the city....”
“That is something that should have
been rectified internally,” Holmes said.
“We shouldn’t have to go to court for
that.”
Councilwoman Karen Mejia agreed.
“This seemed to me like one of those
instances when we could have come
together as a collective body and figured
out what was the best thing for the City of
Newburgh,” Mejia said.
“We have a police chief that is very
much loved by the majority of the community, very well respected with our state
agencies. I don’t have an answer as to why
we went the route we went. I’m not going
to opinionate on one side or the other
because I don’t have all the information.”
“One of the things that I have addressed
to the commissioners of the civil service…
is on making sure the meeting notes and
meetings when the civil service commission meets are posted and open,” she said,
adding she has received “more questions
about the civil service commission” than
any other subject since she was elected to
the council.
Mejia said the commission’s meetings
were not held on a regular basis. “I’ve
been told they are on an as-needed basis,”
she said. “We need to be better than on an
as-needed basis.”
Cameron’s view
Chief Cameron remains steadfast in his
belief that the civil service commission
rules are unfair. “How can you tell me
I am required to have more experience
than someone who hasn’t worked here
before?” said Cameron, during an interview with the Mid Hudson Times.
“According to Civil Service Law, if an
open, competitive test is a