Reimagining Public Safety in Ithaca: An Overview

Against the backdrop of heightened public awareness of
police brutality, racism, and calls across the United States
for police and criminal justice reform, Ithaca’s Common
Council voted unanimously for the Reimagining Public Safety
resolution in March 2021. The central piece of this resolution
stated the City of Ithaca intended to replace the Ithaca Police
Department, which currently has exclusively armed police
officers, with a “Department of Public Safety.” This would include
both armed and unarmed officers and would have a civilian
superintendent for increased accountability. This way, police
officers would only be armed in situations that call for such
measures, which is hoped to reduce the risk of police officers’
presence escalating situations.
On the website of People For the American Way (a non-profit
organization former Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick is now
Executive Director of), Myrick writes about the Reimagining
Public Safety resolution, of which he has been a leading advocate.
He states, “The goal would be to reduce the frequency of sending
armed officers to address situations that really call for social
workers medical or mental health personnel. These situations
could involve residents experiencing mental health crises, crises
arising from homelessness, and other challenges. Changing the
city’s policy to an unarmed response in these cases dramatically
reduces the risk of violence or injury to residents, and makes
everyone safer.”
In July 2022, the Common Council voted eight-to-two in favor
of accepting the Report of the Reimagining Public Safety
Working Group and continuing to seek public input on
community-centered public safety. As part of the vote, the
governing body agreed to create a civilian leadership position that
would oversee the City’s public safety response systems. The
Common Council also pledged to create a public safety committee,
require community-centered training for first responders, provide
improved technology for community safety efforts, implement
public reporting, and improve data collection. Alderperson
(member of the Council) Cynthia Brock voted against this
resolution, citing ethical concerns about the influence of outside
groups—such as the Park Foundation, the Center for
Transformative Action, the Dorothy Cotton Institute, and People
for the American Way—and monetary contributions to the report.
Alderperson Jeffrey Barken, who said that negative public opinion
about police and Reimagining Public Safety itself caused multiple
officers to resign, also voted against the resolution.
Following this vote, Ithaca City Attorney Ari Lavine announced
that the City of Ithaca would be hiring a lawyer, Kristen Smith, to
investigate Alderperson Brock’s ethical concerns. A second
investigation into Former Mayor Svante Myrick, a strong
supporter of police reform, and the third-party organizations
involved in the process would be led by the Ethics Advisory Board.
The City justifies the investigations into the Reimagining Public
Safety process by arguing that Brock’s ethical concerns must be
investigated in order for the Reimagining Public Safety to be able
to serve the community in the just and transparent way it aims to.
However, as Myrick sees the matter, Alderperson Brock asked for
these investigations in order to distract from Reimagining Public
Safety’s important work and the general need for police reform in
Ithaca.
In December 2022, Kristen Smith, the City-appointed lawyer,
released a sixty-page report which found no ethical violations by
the City of Ithaca during the Reimagining Public Safety process,
but some transparency and communication issues. While the
report found no evidence that outside influence had an impact on
the outcomes and recommendations, it did highlight how some of
Myrick’s and other city officials’ lack of judgment and transparency
opened the door for potential outside influence from the
organizations mentioned above. The Ethics Advisory Board is still
investigating and this story is still evolving. Meanwhile, police
reform advocates wonder whether these investigations are
anything more than an unfounded and expensive distraction from
the work that has to be done to end police violence and dismantle
systematic racism in Ithaca.