9 Citizens Proposed

To Review OPD Rules

By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

ONEONTA – A list of nine proposed members of a Community Advisory Board to review OPD rules and procedures was contained in the agenda for the upcoming Common Council meeting, released a few minutes ago.

Council, which will act on Mayor Gary Herzig’s recommendations, meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall.

The mayor said the list includes “people from a lot of different perspectives.”   He expects the commission, which will choose its own chairman, to convene in late August or early September, since it includes two college students.

Among the members are two speakers from recent local “Rallies for Justice” that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd while being taken into custody in Minneapolis:

• Bryce Wooden, who related how state troopers mistook his parents, a teacher and a corrections guard, as suspect in a prospective drug deal in 2020, invading their home at grilling them at gunpoint.

• Shannon McHugh, who chairs the city’s Commission on Community Relations & Human Rights.

Also proposed are:

• John Adams Jr., representing the NAACP, Oneonta chapter.

• Two City Hall representatives, freshman Council member Luke Murphy and Personnel Director Katie Böttger.

• Two administrators from the colleges,  Robert Compton, who chairs SUNY Oneonta’s Africana & Latinx Department, and Biama Charles, Hartwick’s assistant director of residential life & housing.

• Two college students, SUNY’s Stacy Zuniga and a Hartwick student to be determined.

In an executive order following George Floyd’s death and the resulting protests, Governor Cuomo has ordered all 500 communities in the state with police departments to form such commissions, and file a report with recommendations to Albany by April 1.

The county Board of Representatives may name its commission and soon as Wednesday, to review both the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s investigative uni9t.  The Village of Cooperstown is also required to take action.