After many months of work, the Old Saybrook Police Commission has made progress on updating one of its bylaws. The commission will now allow both positive and negative public comments to be made at its meetings.

In the November 2021 election, Old Saybrook voters overwhelmingly voted in five new members of the Police Commission who ran on a platform of changing how the commission oversees the Old Saybrook Police Department. Part of that oversight was a proposal to change some of the bylaws of the Police Commission.

The commission began discussions on proposed bylaw changes in early 2022. After several months of work, the commission unanimously voted at its March 27 meeting to adopt a new bylaw concerning public comment that allows for both positive and negative comments to be made at Police Commission hearings.

Under the previous bylaw regarding public comment, members of the public were told to “refrain from presentations that discuss the work performances of specific employees of the Department of Police Services in a negative manner, regardless of whether or not the employee is identified in the presentation…”

Commission chairman Alfred Wilcox said in the past that it was “silly” to hear only the good comments and not let people express their frustrations in public.

The new bylaw allows for negative–and positive - comments to be made by members of the public. Members of the public are encouraged to send commendations, comments, or complaints about specific employees to either the police commission or the chief of police. The new bylaw does ask the public to refrain from identifying any specific employees either by name or references that could identify any specific employees.

Public comment is not allowed regarding any active investigation or arrest awaiting adjudication.

“I’m happy with the progress we made on this bylaw and am looking forward to continuing to make progress,” Wilcox said.

The commission is still working on other proposed bylaw changes regarding the commission members’ responsibilities and how citizen complaints are handled.

Amending the commission bylaws has been a long and sometimes contentious process.

In April 2022, the commission voted to approve four new bylaws. One allowed for both negative and positive sentiments during public comment sessions, a second allowed the commission members to gather information for investigations on their own, a third changed how commissioner correspondence is received, and a fourth changed how the commission handles complaints from people who might be wary of the department’s willingness to investigate itself in an unbiased manner.

Despite a letter from Town Attorney Michael Cronin advising against adopting the new bylaws, the commission voted to approve several of the proposals at an April 25, 2022 meeting.

However, in June 2022, First Selectman Carl Fortuna sent a letter to the Police Commission instructing the members to rescind the newly passed bylaws. In the letter, Fortuna wrote in part that after the April meeting, “I contacted CIRMA [Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency], the Town of Old Saybrook’s liability carrier, and I expressed my concern that the Police Commission was acting against the advice of town counsel.”

Fortuna wrote that he was concerned about the town being subject to potential liability issues. CIRMA then referred Fortuna to another attorney. Fortuna said he supplied that attorney with all relevant documents and told the attorney that he was concerned only about the liability issue and that if the new bylaws are legal, they should remain in place.

Instead, the second attorney also opined that each of the bylaws should not have been passed.

At a June 27, 2022 meeting, the commission voted to rescind each of the bylaws passed two months earlier. At that time, the commission announced an intention to work on crafting new bylaws that would be legally permissible.