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Davis: Bossi broke policy

In a three-hour meeting Monday night in which the city's aldermen and police commission made little tangible headway in their attempt to begin the restoration of public trust in the police department, Alderwoman Sharon Davis gave both sides some new information to mull over.

Davis produced a thick, white binder containing the city police's policy and procedure manual, a document which Commission Chairman Robert Ebbinghausen said during the meeting he has not seen.

She quoted from a section on the police chief's oath concerning public trust – which she said she feels was violated and thus the oath broken – before citing two more specific department policies she thought applied to Police Chief Anthony Bossi's handling of a child pornography investigation that began in August.

Both citations came from Chapter 11, concerning internal affairs.

The first describes as "immediate priority" situations involving "extremely serious allegations requiring immediate investigation and extensive use of department resources. The Chief of Police will notify the chair of the Police Commission," it reads.

A few pages later in the chapter, the policy states that "in order to ensure that privacy rights of all involved parties are protected, the support services commander, upon receipt of a subpoena duces tectum will immediately forward such document to the city attorney's office."

"The city attorney will review the request in light of applicable state statutes and case law," it continues. "The city attorney's office, in taking legal steps, should seek to uphold the policy of the police department."

"I think policy was violated by what's written in this book," Davis said, referring to the fact that neither the police commission chairman nor the city attorney was made aware of the police department's investigation into the possible presence of child pornography on the computers of Sgt. David Schauwecker, a situation which escalated into a criminal investigation by the State Police. "…there are things in there that if the commission isn't aware of, needs to be aware of."

Davis said she came by the police manual by requesting the city clerk to find out if there was one. City Clerk Henry Heck was able to obtain a copy from Bossi's secretary, according to Davis. Davis let Ebbinghausen borrow her copy when the meeting broke out.

As Allaire had forewarned in his planning of the meeting, it did not follow the course set out on the agenda. He opened the meeting, which attracted a handful of residents, by trying to broach the subject of the aldermen's desire to have representation on the five-member commission, but the conversation quickly turned to what Allaire described as the driving issue – the department's "leadership, or lack thereof."

Ebbinghausen reiterated what he said at the commission's last meeting with the public, from their standpoint "Tony Bossi has done nothing wrong."

"There is nothing to suggest he needs to be replaced," he said. "Until the whole thing plays out and we have all the facts we're not going to take any action."

Alderman William Notte said he didn't think a specific policy violation was necessary to remove Bossi from office.

"A longstanding history of bad decision making is grounds enough if the situation's dire enough," he said. "And I've certainly heard from enough people who think the situation can't get much worse."

Each of the four residents who spoke outside the rail on the public's faith in the police chief expressed similar opinions.

"I have been following these extremely closely but what I've heard tonight is extremely dismaying," said resident Liz Randall.

While City Attorney Andrew Costello kept both the aldermen and commissioners away from too specific a discussion of personnel or disciplinary actions in open meeting, he also interceded when Allaire brought the conversation back to the aldermen's desire to take a more active role in the police commission.

He cited charter language that bars the mayor, aldermen and school commissioners from serving in any other public office either elected or appointed – except for those, like the aldermen's representation on the Rutland Redevelopment Authority – otherwise provided for in charter. He said he felt that what Allaire was trying to accomplish conflicted with that charter language.

Ebbinghausen said that the commission did not support the idea of an alderman serving on their board anyway.

"As a board we've talked this over," he said. "Whatever we have that we feel you people need to know, we'll go through the city attorney (to relay to you.) Is that fine?"

The aldermen did, however, pass a motion to refer to charter and ordinance committee the time of day of the police commission meetings. They will look to require that the commission meet in the evenings.

Asked after the meeting what he felt had been accomplished in the discussion Allaire said that he thought in terms of "concrete actions, maybe not as much as the board might like."

"But I think it's very clear how the Board of Aldermen feels in its lack of confidence in the police chief," Allaire said after the meeting. "If that message was delivered strongly to the commission then I think we've accomplished something."

Both boards agreed they will try to meet again in two weeks.

stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com