Despite public comments—some pleading, some critical—urging Old Saybrook’s Police Commission (PC) to play a more active role in overseeing the police department, particularly when it comes to citizen complaints, the PC again voted along party lines to adopt an amendment to the bylaws codifying the process by which public complaints and other communications are handled by the PC and the police department. The vote was 5 (Republicans) for and 2 (Democrats) against.

Issues of transparency, accountability, and oversight have been roiling for months. According to Commissioner Renee Shippee, one of the two Democrats on the PC, in the three years she has served on the PC, it has never addressed a citizen complaint. And this summer a resident asked her why, as a commissioner, she had not responded to or acted upon a letter of complaint sent to all members of the commission. Shippee had been entirely unaware of the letter’s existence.

According to meeting discussions, mail for the PC and commissioners usually uses Town Hall’s address and is most often picked up by Chief of Police Michael A. Spera or another Old Saybrook Police Department (OSPD) employee. It is unclear how often and under what circumstances mail addressed to the PC as a whole or to individual commissioners is received by commissioners and discussed at PC meetings.

In response to public complaint, Spera, at the Aug. 24 PC meeting, presented a communications plan that seemed largely to mirror the existing handling of mail. PC Chair Frank Keeney revised this plan in consultation with town counsel Michael Cronin and town labor attorney Patrick McHale.

This new bylaw states that correspondence addressed to the PC or individual commissioners that is received by OSPD is to be shared with the PC chair. If the subject is a “personnel matter,” it will be handled by the chief and the chair “shall notify commissioners of the general nature of the correspondence.”

If the correspondence does not relate to a personnel matter, it will be discussed at the next regular PC meeting.

Correspondence received by the OSPD that is addressed to an individual commissioner will be forwarded to that commissioner and a similar procedure will follow: If the letter relates to a personnel matter, it will be handled by the chief and the addressee “shall share the general nature” of the letter with the other commissioners.

The bylaw does not provide a procedure by which the PC may follow up on citizen complaints, nor does it address the possible conflict of interest in cases where the complaint involves the chief.

Public Comments

More than one resident objected to comments made by PC Secretary Joe Maselli at the October PC meeting that members of the public were reacting emotionally.

“It’s hard for some people with emotional responses...to look at the facts that we present and they react and make comment not taking those into account,” Maselli said.

He went on to say that the PC, as a public commission, operates under a set of guidelines that might not be understood by members of the public, most of whom work in the private sector.

“Do not dismiss us as not knowing the facts when the OSPD hides them from us and the PC and from the lawyers hired to defend residents,” said resident Laura Parker Gray.

She reminded the PC that commissioners are elected to hold police accountable.

Gray also asked the PC to “[f]ix the correspondence procedure. We have right to file incident reports and complaints without fear of retaliation and retribution...You have a duty to read mail from constituents and be available to constituents.”

Keith Margotta praised Shippee and Commissioner Alfred “Chub” Wilcox for working to “improve oversight for the civilian complaint process. Thank you both for having the courage to stand on higher moral ground.

“As a Republican, I can’t help but feel betrayed by the five Republican police commissioners,” Margotta said. “They all serve at the pleasure of Spera rather than the taxpayers.

“If you are fearful or unwilling to serve in the capacity for which you were elected, perhaps volunteering at the food pantry is a better fit to serve our community,” he continued, adding that “the only responsible action for the town of Old Saybrook...is to sever [Spera’s] contract with the town.”

Chloe Carlson spoke for herself and her husband, Bruce Carlson, saying they’d submitted a letter to the PC on Nov. 17.

She called this an “opportunity to seize moment and lead the OSPD into an era of heightened accountability, transparency, and public trust.”

The Carlsons’ letter calls for a fair process in response to civilian complaints, including a report on complaints received at each regular PC meeting, a transparent review of Spera, and an “independent organizational study of the OSPD.”

Linda Mahal, in addition to objecting to Maselli’s comments at the October PC meeting, reminded the commissioners that on Oct. 10, 2015, “five years to the day” before the controversial OSPD questioning of C.J. Roy, a young man with Down syndrome, about the theft of a street sign, “an individual was killed in an action in which the OSPD participated.

“We have heavily armed police working on our streets and policing all of us,” Mahal said. “We need to look at how [the OSPD] must evolve to preserve human life.”

Mark Hand, who, like Gray and Mahal, had commented at the October PC meeting, said he didn’t feel he’d been heard by the majority of the commissioners. Comments like Masellli’s, he said, make it more difficult for residents to speak up at meetings.

Hand argued that Spera “really runs the meetings,” characterizing the situation as “the tail wagging the dog.” He urged the commissioners to “be open and accessible to the voters that put” them on the PC.

Alternative Motion Denied

Before the vote on Keeney’s bylaw, Wilcox, the second Democrat on the PC, proposed an alternative plan. In it, mail addressed to the PC as a whole or to individual members would be forwarded to commissioners at their homes.

The chair would review mail addressed to him or her and, if it related to the PC as a whole, share it with all commissioners.

In addition, the PC would make it known to members of the public that complaints should be addressed to the chief of police and/or the PC. Complaints addressed to the PC would be provided to all commissioners and reviewed at the subsequent regular meeting or special meeting, depending on the severity of the circumstances.

Wilcox’s proposed plan did not detail the process by which the PC would deal with citizen complaints.

In comments supporting his proposal, Wilcox pointed to an existing PC bylaw that Maselli had read before public comment. It states that members of the public with concerns about OSPD personnel are “encouraged to bring them to the attention of the chief of police or, if they prefer, through written communication to the commission chairperson.”

This bylaw, Wilcox argued, acknowledges that citizens might be hesitant to address complaints about police conduct with the chief and prefer instead to appeal to the PC. The Connecticut constitution grants the right of citizens to address grievances with “those invested with the power of government,” he said, in this case, that means the commissioners.

Maselli argued that Keeney’s bylaw, which the PC had reviewed in draft form with Cronin and McHale at its Oct. 26 meeting, met all the standards advocated for by Wilcox.

The proposed bylaw, he said, “insists we are notified and in the loop. Nothing can slip through the cracks if we know about a complaint—the chief has to get back to us. It meets all of that and addresses the concern of the citizens.”

When Shippee expressed concern that there could be a “pattern of complaints” against a police officer that the PC didn’t know about, Keeney said he believed her concern was unjustified.

“If there was a pattern of behavior with a member of the OSPD, I think that the chief would share that with the PC,” he said.

Vice Chair Ken Reid responded with anger about the PC spending “so much time on officers allegedly doing things wrong,” claiming that it was a “handful of people in town that weren’t happy.”

Police, he said, “are out there risking their lives, staying away from their families, dealing with the COVID ...When they deal with some of the people in town that are breaking the law, generally those are the people who reach out to their friends to make complaints to the town.”

Wilcox’s motion, which had been seconded by Shippee, was voted down on party lines, 5 to 2.

Individual Investigations

The new bylaw also prohibits “individual investigations” by members of the PC, as commissioners “may be asked to serve on a decision-making capacity with respect to personnel-related decisions involving member of the” OSPD. The term “individual investigations,” however, is not defined.

The reference is to an ongoing dispute the Republican commissioners have with Wilcox, resulting in a letter of rebuke read aloud at the Sept. 28 meeting and approved by a 5 to 2 vote along party lines.

The matter was also discussed at the October PC meeting with Cronin and McHale, who agreed that commissioners should not conduct individual investigations, though still without clearly defining the term.

In a letter from First Selectman Carl P. Fortuna, Jr., read by Keeney before the vote on the new bylaw, Fortuna said that he, too, agreed with prohibiting individual investigations.

While he has confidence in Spera’s ability to discipline his officers and believes that Spera “justly and appropriately manages his force,” however, Fortuna warned in his letter that a future chief of police and PC chair could theoretically hide a pattern of complaints from the PC.

Fortuna would support the adoption of the bylaw “[i]f the PC feels there are enough safeguards” against this, he wrote.

Spera Responds

Spera began his comments by saying he looked forward to not spending the “majority of the meeting with one or two commissioners questioning my integrity as the chief of police.”

“[D]emonstrating the non-stop bias towards me personally and professionally is completely unprofessional and uncalled for,” he said and referred to “libelous acts outside the meeting or certainly making any comments during the meeting that again brings my work ethics or integrity into consideration without merit.”

He did not specify which comments he found libelous.

Spera, who said he has an open-door policy, encouraged members of the public willing to share constructive criticism to call the OSPD to schedule a meeting with him.