Jerry Jennings' leadership is the issue for us all here and the performance of his appointees in critical agencies is central to that.
In the case of the Albany Police Department, what I have seen is a series of five potentially effective executives who have never been given the opportunity to really mold the department. Indeed, Tuffey asserted that it was "broken" when he took office and proceeded with yet another reorganization to "fix" it. And though he ran dog and pony shows to sell it all over town, the whole plan was written without any public participation.
The general dissatisfaction I've heard expressed everywhere I've been this campaign season, whether it's here in upscale Center Square, the downscale South End or the working class First Ward is very consistent. The people want "community policing" and for the first time in the twenty years since I first encountered that concept, they pretty much know what it means. I've always told people, especially in communities of color, you have to know what to ask for. Well, now they do.
The APD is generously staffed. It's been provided with modern technology. Crime statistics are down. But the community is unsatisfied because now the community knows what it wants and APD is not giving it to them. The iconic moment I witnessed was in Pine Hills in June where a very testy audience kept interrupting a police commander who plaintively kept telling us about his powerpoint. The people don't want some slick corporate production. In the absence of true leadership committed to community policing and victim responsiveness Jerry's numbers could plunge to the bottom of the Hudson and people still wouldn't be happy.
At 423 State Street, there is a SUNY building where they installed Tom Constantine when he retired from the DEA. His first project was to lay the foundation for the Law Enforcement Executive Institute -- an advanced management program for developing a cadre of municipal police executive level personnel for the purpose, not only of better management, but to further professionalize our senior managers to better insulate them from political influence. It galls me to know that this sophisticated initiative was worked on so close at hand and we are not enjoying its benefit. See: http://www.constantinescircus.org/leadinst.htm
In the end and in all fairness, the problems outlined by the Times Union are not Chief Tuffey's doing. Nor can one blame Tuffey, Nielsen, Wolfgang and Turley before him. They are Jerry Jennings' doing. It is he who has subjected the office of Chief of Police to de facto term limits, allowing nasty things to fester, the members of the force to be deprived of organizational stability -- meaning real leadership -- and the community to be denied the opportunity to develop a real relationship with the department -- o, and the cops to get a contract.
