Malone Police Chief Christopher Premo (Provided photo — Alexander Violo, Malone Telegram)

MALONE — After a series of meetings with the police reform committee and a public hearing where the village’s original plan was roundly criticized, trustees voted to send a revised plan to the state, at a village workshop, Wednesday morning.

According to Mayor Andrea Dumas, the village’s police reform plan went through several revisions and the plan adopted by Trustee’s Wednesday morning was the final draft.

Trustee Norman Bonner asked how many drafts the plan had been through prior to Wednesday’s workshop.

According to Dumas, the final version of the plan was draft 10.

Additionally, Dumas said the village’s police reform committee signed off on the plan Tuesday, with all but one member of the committee emailing the office in support of the final draft.

Trustee Norman Bonner commented on the revision process the village’s police reform plan had undergone since the initial public hearing March 22.

“In my opinion this is exactly the way the system is supposed to work,” Bonner said.

Dumas said the village’s initial draft had been available online for weeks prior to the criticism it received at the public hearing.

“The last week-and-a-half is when we had community members come forward to talk about something we have been working on since September, and asking members of the community to be involved in,” Dumas said, “Some of the comments we received in the last week were comments we could have used weeks ago, when we asked these individuals or organizations to be involved.”

Regardless, Dumas said she was pleased so many people took part in the process.

“We did get everybody at the table and had some really good discussions and conversations, and we worked through a lot of information that came to us through having that one draft spark the community to come together,” Dumas said, “Just because we submit it doesn’t mean we are going to stop.”

According to Karamarie Morton, who helped to compile subsequent drafts of the village’s plan, the document is made up of recommendations for the village’s police department, not requirements.

“That’s why the next task is for the police chief to create a task force,” Morton said, “A lot of the recommendations are not the purview of the police department to handle.”

Morton said the plan also includes recommendations for training the police department is already doing.

According to Malone Village Police Chief Christopher Premo, the department started diversity and deescalation training in 2019.

“We have had everything in place that’s needed to be in place, before any of this really came out, we made some adjustments,” Premo said, “It kind of ended up being the police department was looked at as the answer to all of society’s problems during these meetings, and we have very little control over that, the items we have control over have all been addressed and we have been doing that for a while now.”

Premo said he is glad so many people came forward but reiterated his department’s progressive approach to reform in past years.

“The police department isn’t the root of all evil in society, even though it is kind of made out that way,” Premo said.

Morton said a task force will work through the plan moving forward.

“While there’s a lot of recommendations in there and a lot of requests for training, some of which the police department is already doing, these are all recommendations the next task force goes through,” Morton said.

Morton said the final version of the village’s plan became an overarching community reform plan, in addition to a police reform plan.

“The reality I want to make sure, and the expectation I want to make sure everybody has, is that the police chief is not going to, tomorrow, put all these recommendations into place, he is going to be creating a task force to determine what they can and can’t do,” Morton said, “They might even change it, might even make it even better than what the recommendations are in there.”

Morton said the final draft of the plan includes 72 points.

“Not all 72 are going to happen, it is just not feasible, financially, with how many officers we have, I just want to make sure everybody’s expectation is set and that is kept in mind so we can move forward successfully, and not take away from the police department and what they professionally offer right now,” Morton said.

The final version of the village’s plan is 22-pages, but it totals 173 pages when all of the document’s appendices are accounted for.

The village’s original 13-page draft and its author Calvin Martin received substantial criticism by members of the public.

Martin’s draft referred to minorities in the community as few in number and transient, rather than long-term residents, while emphasizing the community’s French Canadian heritage.

Subsequent drafts lacked the lengthy historical anecdotes of the original, but do include sections focusing on public engagement and a culture of accountability.

The final draft of the village’s plan is available to view on the village’s website.

In June 2020, after George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed while in police custody, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed Executive Order No. 203, an order that mandated all municipalities in the state to re-examine their police departments.

The trial of Derek Chauvin — who faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges, in addition to a third-degree murder charge, for his involvement with Floyd’s death — started this week.