The Black Comedy of the Police Accountability Board, or How to Flush Millions of Rochester's Taxpayers' Dollars Down the Toilet

Some jokes are just too obvious to be funny.

Such is the case of Rochester's Police Accountability Board.

Originally the brainchild of Rochester's cop-hating City Council and ex-Mayor Lovely Warren, it has done nothing in the two and a half years since its creation other than to annoy and demoralize the Rochester Police Department and spend millions of dollars that it can't account for, which is pissing off the city's taxpayers and embarrassing City Council.

The greatest public relations scam since the Fast Ferry, City Government convinced people through subliminal messaging that they needed and wanted the PAB until people demanded a referendum vote on the matter, which the cop-hating City government graciously consented to do.

Three-quarters of the people who voted in November 2019 wanted it.

But only one-third of those registered to vote in Rochester bothered to go to the polls.

Such is the failure of democracy in the City of Rochester.

Content with this "majority," City Council went about creating the PAB.

The PAB, as originally envisioned by the cop-hating City Council, would consist of a board of civilians with no connection to RPD, with no legal training and with no knowledge and experience of police tactics, to review cases of supposed police brutality, to discipline, fire and to bring lawsuits against miscreant cops.

Much of this was in violation of NYS law.

Ex-Mayor Warren's plan stopped short of PAB having disciplinary authority over RPD, reserving that for herself and her chief of police.

Guess which plan City Council opted for?

And the circus was on.

Not knowing what they were doing, they promptly appointed Conor Dwyer Reynolds as Grand High Poobah of the PAB.

Conor, a Yalie with a law degree and connections to the local domestic terrorist organization, Free the People ROC, certainly had the anti-cop credentials necessary to lead PAB, which City Council never intended to be impartial.

Notably, he was seen and videotaped on election night 2021 with others of his ilk chanting "Fuck the police," as if to affirm his bias for all to see.

Unfortunately for Conor, the androgynous Stanley Martin was opposed to his appointment.

Stanley Martin, of Free the People ROC, is best known for being the ringleader of the riots that began in Rochester on May 30, 2020 and for also stating that he/she didn't care if Rochester burned.

Martin wanted to be made executive director of PAB because he/she is Black and Conor, despite his anti-cop sentiments, is White.

There IS such a thing as Black racism, after all.

Martin eventually got his/her consolation prize when he/she was elected to City Council in November, 2021, benefitting from a democratic process that he/she shrieks doesn't work for Black folk!

And, to his/her dismay, Conor remained as executive director, with an annual salary of $72,000.

Meanwhile, the farce of PAB began to heat up.

There was always something unreal about the entire concept, smacking of Candide, and clearly never well-conceived or organized. A fantasy its promoters believed that, once created, everything would fall into place, despite its obvious flaws. A Frankenstein monster posing as a dapper, debonair and beneficial man about town.

"Puttin' on the Ritz!"

Perhaps City Council hoped Rochester would never notice, since they see we residents merely as sheep, to elect them and then be disregarded, except for the noisier extremists.

City Council announced that prospective candidates for the Board send their resumes and letters to City Hall and instructed employees there to inform prospective candidates they must be city residents.

Then, in a reversal of that policy earlier this year, the Board hired a former news "reporter" who lives in Irondequoit, straining PAB's credibility

Ex-Mayor Warren earmarked $5 million in the city budget of 2021 for PAB, which really wasn't doing anything other than to collect their salaries.

City Council claimed authority over PAB, which Conor refused to accept, stating that PAB was independent of the dictates of the City Council, which promptly caved into Conor.

Then PAB claimed life and death powers over the cops they would eventually investigate, to which the police took exception, sued PAB and twice the courts upheld the police point of view, that PAB could only review instances of police officers' malfeasance and advise, nothing more.

PAB wasn't going to have any teeth in their crusade against the police and promptly appealed the ruling for the third time.

And the police made it quite clear that they were not going to cooperate with the PAB in any fashion. Why should they when they don't have to?

So, with nearly fifty people getting paid and having nothing to do with lots of time to do it in, they spent money.

Not wanting to use city-owned property and equipment for their organization, which would cost them nothing, PAB promptly rented space from the new Gannett building downtown for $29 grand a month. The space had been water damaged and was contaminated by mold and mildew. It isn't clear who is supposed to pay to clean up the mess to make it habitable.

Of course, City Council approved this wasteful expenditure.

PAB claimed it was necessary to maintain their independence from City Hall, but a more likely reason was to maintain its secrecy away from prying eyes and ears because, while the PAB demands transparency from City government and the Police Department, it has been unwilling to practice transparency itself and resembles nothing so much as a conspiracy.

Then PAB decided to spend nearly $300 grand on furniture and equipment for their new headquarters, rather than use the city-issued stuff for free.

The height of PAB's folly was their plan to buy two SUVs for their use, never indicating what the need for such vehicles were.

They couldn't use their own vehicles?

And they kept delaying the time they would be starting their "work," which they never started at this point.

Even more laughably, Rochester's current mayor, Mahweak Evans, earmarked another $5 million for PAB in his 2022-23 budget!

That's $10 million in two years and nothing to show for it.

Finally, the shit hit the fan.

The PAB announced that they were putting Conor Dwyer Reynolds of administrative leave until their investigation of charges made against him was concluded.

That's all they said, and it sounded mysterious.

Rumors were swirling after that statement that the charges revolved around instances of sexual harassment, racism and unfair hiring practices.

But the PAB never ventured to clarify anything further.

And finally, after allowing PAB to walk all over them, City Council took action, because they were embarrassed by the antics of the monster they had created, and it had clearly gotten out of control.

City Council froze all hiring by PAB and put all of its expenses under the discretion of the Council president and its chief of staff and directed that an independent counsel undertake the investigation against Conor (and PAB).

While Stanley Martin (remember him/her) whined that he/she wanted PAB to remain "independent," the fact that nobody could account for where all of PAB's money went meant that somebody had to go in and shake things up, if PAB was going to survive, especially when too many outspoken people were shouting that PAB was an expensive rip-off and should be dissolved!

Then, enter Duwaine Bascoe, whom PAB elected to serve at its interim leader in a last-ditch attempt to preserve some semblance of independent leadership, if not its integrity, which never existed.

Claiming that PAB will start reviewing cases against police officers in June, he blamed RPD's lack of cooperation with PAB for the delay, carefully avoiding the fact that RPD has no reason to cooperate with PAB.

That is still to be decided in the courts, with the city yet again appealing the decision that favored RPD.

What we are left with is an expensive cop-hating albatross that can only act in an advisory capacity and nothing more, a demoralizing nuisance for RPD and taxpayers alike.

And Bascoe offered no insight into the charges against Conor, their peculiar accounting practices, their grasping greediness or PAB's clear lack of transparency.

Which doesn't speak well of him, either.

Being a blowhard is not suggestive of a strong leader. In fact, it suggests quite the contrary.

But Stanley Martin should be happy.

A Black man has replaced a woke White man as head of PAB.

Which won't really make a damned bit of difference for that wasteful, biased organization of untrained amateurs.

 ***The photos of Dwyer Reynolds and Duwaine Boscoe are from City Newspaper, while that of Stanley Martin's arrest was from WXXI***