Troy's Community Newsletter

Mark Whitman - Troy's Public Safety Commissioner

Could you give the residents of Troy a little background on yourself. Where you lived prior to Troy. What your educational background and work experience is & how it qualifies you for this job?

I started in law enforcement in 1972 at the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Department. I was finishing my last quarter of college when I was offered a job in there & was drafted out of there into the United States Army. I served during the Vietnam conflict but in Fort Riley Kansas at a work release prison as a correctional officer. I returned to Palm Beach, Florida and then made the jaunt back to my hometown Hornell, New York where I went on the job in 1975. I was promoted to sergeant in 1977, captain and then chief in 1982 There I served 15 years as chief of police. I held various offices within the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police. I have an associates degree from Monroe Community College, a bachelors of arts degree from Florida Atlantic University in criminal justice and my masters from Alfred University in community service administration. I'm a graduate of the FBI Academy. I have multiple certifications.

Please describe what Hornell is like and what similar problems does Hornell share with Troy.

Hornell is situated in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains. The similarities are striking. I think the resiliency of the people of both Troy and Hornell are very similar. Hornell at one time was a railroad thriving metropolitan area with a township and city of about 35,000 people. When the railroads went belly up Hornell was devastated, since that time different companies came in. The industrialized areas are very similar. The geographic location right at the foothills differs. The differences is that Hornell is in a valley and actually Troy is situated at the base of hills and right along the river. The valley of Hornell is much broader and wider. Basically, the problems are we have our street crimes which are closely associated to the insidious drug problem. We imported most of our drug thugs from the Rochester area. You find Troy midpoint between Montreal and NYC and it's right on I-87. If you wanted to dub I-87, you could call it cocaine alley. Troy is the midpoint, you can easily disappear through the night using Routes 4 and 7 to Massachuchetts and Vermont. The type of offenses we dealt with are also very similar. But of course on a much smaller scale. When we had drug sweeps, we would net 35. In Troy, you would do 90!

What type of manager are you and how do you think your management style will be most effective in Troy?

I manage by walking around. I'm not a thumbs type, I'm an inclusive. The more information gathered from internal and external sources the better we're going to be. I believe in participatory government. I believe that we are a paramilitary organization not a democracy that we're working under as far as police officers. I think if you ask, you will get the best information. Any decision made without all the information available will come back to haunt you. But I don't think you need to have a meeting for every decision. I think that's something that will be very helpful to the Troy police department. I think creating a communications network is conducive of good ideas and good management styles. I have a proactive approach. The end result of what we want to achieve is to become a community oriented or customer oriented police department. When you come from small town America, you've never really left the community oriented policing. Those are buss words that are circulating through the larger departments. I've always been a very customer oriented police officer, all the way through the ranks. I think basically your members of the Troy police department are like that.

What are the top three areas of concern that you have with the police department? Does the Mayor share your concerns? Where do they differ?

One of the primary areas we have to focus on is our focus! Our direction! What do we want to look like in five years, in ten years? I think along with that is the perception of the police department. I think we've done a very poor job of marketing ourselves. These folks do a heck of a good job with what resources they have. They've done an admirable job. Most recently the latest murder. From the moment we entered the crime scene to tracking the individual to apprehension. It was like clock work. They know how to be policemen. Our direction has got to change a little bit and the way we've provided services in the past has got to change. That is not a single project by the police department. That's a community effort! It's a philosophical change. In order to make the type of police to be customer oriented, problem oriented, community oriented policing, to make those things effective and to work, then government has to understand it, the citizens have to understand it and your police department has to understand it and buy into it. The main concern that I think I have is that we're ingrained with a behavior and attitude so deeply. We will come out of that. We're currently having meaningful negotiations. We're listening to their viewpoints. I think it's been a long time since that's happened. Ninety percent of the way home is, is to understand what the other viewpoint is. My personal goal is to sit right there and negotiate a contract. We have a golden opportunity. We have no money. It's an opportunity that we can collectively sit, talk and discuss the problems. I think when there is no money and you're in a difficult situation you have a golden opportunity to discuss issues and do a change of direction. I want you to know that both units that are negotiating are very cooperative and they have their concerns and they need to protect those concerns and I don't think anybody is making any thing personal in this process. I think it's going to be a better police department when we negotiate it and it's going to be a better community as a result of this. Mayor Pattison is not a thumbs on, autocratic person. Here's a budget, here's your mission, tell me how to do it! I think we mesh very well. The thing that's glaring when you come to Troy, there's very entrenched attitudes, we have to break that chain, we have to straighten that out. No one is trying to hurt anyone else, it's just a matter of trying to have control of their agency. It's my humble opinion that that's what's going to happen.

In recent years Troy has seen increasing crime and drug trafficking. As we all know, perception has a way of hanging on. What do you plan on doing to help Troy change the perception that it is an unsafe city filled with drug traffickers. Do you see any permanent solution to the drugs on our streets?

The fact is that there are several programs we are entering in to. As you know we have the COMBAT grant. We recently just had the drug sweep. We have ongoing drug investigations. You noticed when we did the sweep the street crime went right up to nothing. The night patrol are a creative bunch of officers. They are making prostitution arrests, drug arrests. These are uniform officers that are being crafty. They have a different type of policing. Days have a different type of policing. The day shift have entered into the zero tolerance policing. Targeted areas will have strict enforcement of loitering, littering, quality of life, prostitution, drugs, disorderly acts, the nuisance crimes. It's our belief that if we give the folks an opportunity to to recoup their neighborhoods they will. It will be their responsibility thereafter. With the quality of life crimes we will increase the arrests we have had. We will be approaching the issue of perception. If you see more officers, you see it is a safe place. We do a good job of reporting our crimes and certainly when the drug problems are out there you will get the associated crimes that go with them, associated buglers, assaults, crash and grab. When we had the drug sweep, those all came to a halt. That's what the quality of life crimes and that enforcement will do as well. It will have the high visibility, it will have the attack on everything from littering, loitering, panhandling. We're interacting, we've had meetings with the homeless and working with the county government on child protection and the economic development folks. We're looking for opportunities to pass on to people, rather than giving people no options. Some things that neighborhoods can do is to participate in the neighborhood watch program, help with community policing, get the churches in the neighborhood to participate, get the parents in the neighborhood to participate. They can do neighborhood clean-ups and call the police when they see something that is not right. Citizens calling us with information gives us a chance to collect information, because you don't see anything done right then, don't get discouraged. That information is invaluable to determine how we can approach an issue, how we can attack an issue and how we can assess an issue.

In light of the recent drug busts, there appears to be a return of activity on Troy streets by those that were arrested during this raid. How can you reassure the residents of Troy that our police department will continue to fight this problem and maintain this as a priority in their schedule of work load?

You're going to see a high visibility in patrols, more frequency of patrols and different types of patrols. The daytime shift is out there on bicycle patrols, sneaking up on these people left and right. You will see more foot patrolling. You're going to see more police officer contact engaging the communications center with different procedures we want to go through. We're looking to different satellite offices so that people can go up to and make reports that we're tying up patrol officers time with. I ran last years complaints, you can see that there are all kinds of complaints. (3039) We're looking to increase traffic enforcement. We're improving the police station, aesthetically. Our DPW has been working on this during the winter. They've done an excellent job. The fire department is switching over to work on codes, that's going to help us with some of these absentee landlords. We're looking at different pieces of legislation. All these things collectively are going to come to fruition and then all of a sudden people are going to feel good about themselves and they should feel good about themselves right now. This is not a crime ridden area, it's different than what it was ten years ago, but it's not that bad.

I was at the last council meeting when a gentleman spoke of an ongoing problem with a drug house next door to his mothers. He stated that they have reported this to police for two years. Another resident with similar activity outside her home complained to police for five years. This is an excessive amount of time to have something taken care of. The recent drug bust reportedly took four months to compile evidence and make the many arrests. We realize that this was with the help of outside agencies but we feel that the frustration expressed by these citizens is warranted. What type of handling procedures limits expedient handling of these problems?

Since that time, we had our traffic units up there and in one day we made 18 tickets on that street. We've enhanced patrols in there. We're making efforts to help these folks, does that mean we're letting something go in another area? Hopefully not! We have gone up there since this was brought to my attention. I don't know what happened five years ago, or two years ago. I'm certainly willing to take all the stone people want to throw at me dated January 2, 1997 and here after. I can't part the sea, I can't walk on water but we are going to make every effort to take back the neighborhoods and give them back to the people. It is my firm belief that this is America and that no one should be a hostage in their own home, on their own block in their own city. It's just not what America's about, especially the economically disadvantaged that have fallen prey because they can't get out. Those are the people that need our help the most. We're making every effort. I can appreciate his frustration and sympathize with him and I can only tell you that we're going to put forth our best effort to change that whole mess and turn it around. But once we do, and we will, we will be successful. It is incumbent upon those neighbors to help it work. Some of the programs we are going to do for the elderly are the "Are you OK?" program. The daily computerized call in, added security blanket. Once we get that up and running upon acceptance of a grant, we can then add on to that "Latch Key Kids". We know that times are tough, but tough times do not last. Tough people do. The resiliency that's in this town, it's not the first time it's gone through this and it's not the last. Trojans are a tough bunch. I can see it as an outsider, I can appreciate their problems, but they will overcome. And we're going to help them. Now I can't give you a specific plan about what's going to happen on 9^th Street or what's going to happen on 5^th Avenue. Places where we can't arrest these people, we will make our prescience known. We have a truck that's all painted up, it has all the lights. We're going to go out, these young thugs want to just sit there and do some shooting. We're going to light up the street, when they move on to another corner, we're going to go there and light them up there. They'll probably call the ACLU and everything else and say they're being harassed, Our premise is that we're making it brighter and safer. You want to do you're drug dealing, here's some light to do it in. The people that are buying the drugs are not necessarily the residents here. They're from Colonie, Latham, Clifton Park! We're not here to infringe on anyone's rights. But we are going to be tougher on crime. We're going to provide a service. Something that you can rely on. We are going to make a difference. I hope the community, the little communities within this community will pick up on that and make a difference. This is not a one person job, this is not a one organization job, it's an effort by the community. I think trust is the organizational glue that holds everyone together. But that's got to be citywide. If we were to market ourselves better, the people would see that they have something to trust in. I think that Mark Pattison is doing a bang up job, and remember, he's doing it coming out of a hole. Can you imagine what he could do with his administration with that 8 million dollars that he didn't have to pay in debt or in old bills. Troy would be a showcase. Don't loss sight of that!

What are some warning notices you can give to Troy property owners to help them avoid renting to drug traffickers and prostitutes?

We can't do background investigations on tenants! I went to a community meeting and somebody wanted me to run backgrounds on someone. It's illegal. But look it, if someone comes up and has a fistful of cash and says I'll rent this place right now, no questions asked. That's a red flag. If you rent to a mother with two kids, keep track of your property, make sure it stays that way. Ask for references, check out the references. If somebody says yeah, they were a great tenant, boom, hangs up on you then you should ask for more than one. Don't be so quick just to rent the property. Check them out. You don't need the police to do that, you can do that. Know your eviction laws and your procedures. Make your tenants aware of them. If your tenants know your not going to tolerate any nonsense, then don't. Don't be a paper tiger. You're in a tough business if your a landlord. Get involved in the community where your property is. Be a part of the solution not the problem. If you live next door to someone that has an absentee landlord, don't hesitate to call them if you see a problem. If there's a party at three o'clock in the morning, call that landlord.

Many citizens in Troy feel that part of the problem with their police department is that over 50% of the officers do not live within the city limits. How effective do you think they can be when they're really not a part of the community? (i.e. children don't go to school here, they don't play in our playgrounds, they're families are not a part of the everyday community.) What are your thoughts on this?

I don't know if that's necessarily a problem. I have had the opportunity to discuss several issues with these folks. They are very sincere, they do want to make a difference. They have a sense of pride, both organizationally and in the community. The majority of these people were Troy residents at one time, maybe even grew up here. But because of the housing stock being three hundred years old, and with young families, they needed to find something that was a different neighborhood. You can't hold that against them. Do they do their job and are they effective in the communities? Do you necessarily have to live in the community that you police? I don't think it's necessary. Let's be realistic, the citizens would think higher of you if you lived in the community you worked. Most of your cities have a 10, 12, 15 mile limit so that you can respond to calls in a reasonable time. I don't think it changes their outlook. Does that mean we don't have our problems. A police officer living inside the city, is it going to change his attitude towards policing, no. Now if your going to ask me, should they be in there to help pay their own salary and taxes or whatever, if that's the issue then that's something your going to have to legislate or negotiate. You certainly can't make it retroactive, but you can apply it to the new hires. I think it's two different issues.

What are your thoughts on an independent Citizen Police Review Board? Do you think this is something positive for our community?

As we live and breath, it's right here. I am in favor of a police objective review committee. I am not afraid of an outside opinion take a look at what we do. In fact, I think it will enhance our image with the people. We don't do everything so well that we can walk on water. We make mistakes. We know that. There may different ways to do things, tell us. We're not afraid of that. We're looking for that input from other areas in the community, to say hey look, maybe your not looking at something the right way or maybe that there are differences we're just not seeing or accepting, for whatever the reasons. We'll look at those.

We offer you an opportunity to talk to the residents of Troy. What would you like to say to them?

I think the first thing is that you have a great city. You have a resilient group. They need to know that their police department is sincere and that we're going to make every legal effort to transpose the perception problem of this city. Because 95% of it is this perception problem. I understand perception is reality, but the reality is that Troy is a safe place. We have some trouble spots and we're going to work on them but I don't think that people have to live in fear. I think that the attitude of your police officers is exactly that. To make it an area that people want to live here, regardless of whether they live here or not. I hope you come to understand my sense of humor and that the police department is an advocate of it's citizenry and that we're going to make it a better place. It may not fit everyone's expectations, but we're going to make it a better place.

In cooperation with Troy United Ink Corp., a not-for-profit corporation
Items published herein do not necessarily represent the opinions of Troy United Ink Corp., its officers or it's Board of Directors.

B a c k