The "Opera Bouffe" of Rochester's "Police Accountability Board" Continues! There's Nothing Quite Like a Circus!
Some jokes are just too obvious to be funny.
The ongoing "Opera Bouffe" of Rochester's "Police Accountability Board" is an excellent illustration of this statement.
The PAB was created nearly three years ago.
Approved by the majority of the few people who voted that year, it was intended to investigate malfeasance by officers of the Rochester Police Department.
All it has really done is to be a pretentious, expensive, demoralizing nuisance to local law enforcement and taxpayers.
The PAB presumed that they had the power to discipline and fire police officers based on their findings, which is in violation both of the City Charter and New York State law.
The PAB also presumed to be independent of and superior to Rochester's City Council, which City Council denies.
In short, the egomaniacs of the PAB consider themselves to be answerable to no one.
For the last two years, the PAB did nothing but spend the annual $5 million budget they were allotted by City Council. They investigated no claims during that time.
And nobody at City Hall could be bothered to supervise their spending.
They also hired a lot of people, all cop-haters, with grudges against RPD.
There was never even the pretense that the PAB was or would be unbiased.
And that's all they did. Except for making scandal.
Earlier this year, two "prominent" members of the Board quit, citing problems that they did not wish to be a part of or make public.
Then, in May, Executive Director Conor Dwyer Reynolds, better known as "Porn 'Stache Guy," claimed that he had been sexually harassed by Board Chairperson Shani Wilson.
Well, there IS no accounting for taste, after all.
Rynolds promptly filed a complaint with the Board and was then suspended with pay, while Wilson quit.
The Board then claimed that Reynolds was responsible for the hostile work environment at the PAB and hired Duwaine Bascoe to be "acting manager," while Porn 'Stache Guy filed a lawsuit against the City and the Board, claiming that his suspension was illegal for technical reasons.
He lost.
In the meantime, City Counci, after two years of wasteful and unaccounted spending on the part of the PAB, finally got around to asking what the Hell they had been doing for two years.
In response to the glassy-eyed stares of the PAB, the President of City Council cut their allotment in half and suspended any hiring on their part until they actually started to investigate something.
Then, a horde of cop-hating groupies of the PAB showed up at City Hall to demand that the PAB get its full allotment NOW! They didn't get it.
Then, miraculously, hundreds of complaints about the police ended up on their desks overnight!
Just coincidence, huh?
And now the story gets juicier!
Last week, two of PAB's executives were fired.
Mike Higgins, Director of Policy and Oversight, and Mozart Guerrier, Deputy Chief of Community Engagement were given the heave-ho after having been hired only in May.
Mike Higgins stated that he had been unceremoniously kicked out in retaliation for complaining that Bascoe showed up at a meeting either drunk or under the influence of drugs.
Fancy that!
And now the PAB's staff is demanding that Bascoe be fired since he "stoked and enabled an atmosphere of harassment, intimidation, retaliation and confusion."
Hmmm. It sounds very much like the charges made against Porn 'Stache Guy when he was suspended.
I guess everything old is new again.
It also seems like the PAB isn't done with Porn 'Stache Guy, either.
Yesterday, the PAB requested that the New York State Attorney General's Office launch a full-blown investigation into Porn 'Stache Guy's activities since he was suspended from office.
They are claiming that he is still meddling with the PAB, despite his suspension, and holding meetings with various interested parties that is causing trouble because it is interfering with the City's continuing investigation of him.
According to the public release, such activities are criminal in nature
That statement was made by Bascoe.
You know, the acting manager whom half of the PAB's staff signed a petition to remove from office for creating a hostile work environment.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
In the meantime, the PAB is continuing to waste its funds by merely titillating the taxpayers with the asininity of their scandals, their inability to do the jobs for which they are being paid and unwillingness to work together to pursue their Hellish crusade against RPD.
Perhaps that is, in the long run, their only function: To be a not-so funny clown show for the residents of Rochester, consisting of a Board made up of rejected potential cast members of Honey Boo Boo.
Frankly, it's time we defunded the PAB and sent these parasites packing.
They are, after all, a dysfunctional, expensive, useless and unnecessary lot.
And NOT amusing.
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