Southampton Village PBA Casts Vote of 'No Confidence' In Mayor Jesse Warren

Members of the Southampton Village Police Benevolent Association last week unanimously approved a vote of “no confidence” in Mayor Jesse Warren in his role as police commissioner.

A letter to the Village Board dated August 18 lists an array of reasons — six in all — for the vote.

The mayor has dismissed the department’s complaints as part of a smear campaign orchestrated by political foes.

In the wake of Governor Andrew Cuomo calling out the region for incidents that did not comply with his NY PAUSE executive orders, and the launch of “Southampton in the Streets,” which included a crowd dancing in front of one Main Street restaurant in violation of the orders, the mayor blamed Village Police Chief Thomas Cummings for lax enforcement and called upon the Southampton Town Police to patrol the village, the PBA claims.

“He continues to request the Southampton Town Police to patrol the village,” PBA Vice President Dave Dorchak said this week.

The union leader said the mayor “won’t let go of that wall” — referring to graffiti targeting Mr. Warren with crude inscriptions and drawings on an art wall erected in Doscher Park this summer. The wall also included the message “Back the Blue” and a blue line, voicing support for police.

The union claims the mayor interfered with an investigation into the matter and called the governor’s office implying that the Village Police Department was incompetent. “He wanted to push the investigation up to somebody else.” Mr. Dorchak said.

The investigation into the vandalism is still ongoing. Video of the area was taken to the county’s computer crimes bureau, where technicians were unable to enhance it.

The request to have Town Police assigned to the village and the mayor’s “subversive” investigation into the art wall graffiti were the first items on the PBA’s list.

Adding to the list of complaints, the PBA vice president said the mayor visited residents of a local minority community, bringing up the salaries of officers and speaking about “de-funding” the department — abolishing the department and turning its responsibilities over to Town Police. “We had that come back from the community,” Mr. Dorchak reported.

Rather than comment on the individual points of the letter, Mr. Warren offered a statement via text.

“Not only do I fully support our men and women in blue, but I proposed a 5.95 percent, or $452,854, increase for SVPD,” he wrote.

“It’s unfortunate that our police union is being manipulated in what is very clearly a smear campaign driven by a certain former mayor who’s trying to get his son elected,” the mayor added, referring to former Mayor Mark Epley and his son Zachary Epley, who is running for Village Board. “I’m confident most village residents will see through it, and I applaud the officers who continue to put their lives on the line for our community every day.”

"He wants to blame me, and the reality is, it's his own actions with the police department that this is going on," the former mayor said. "I found out about this after the vote, which had nothing to do with us. He has to take responsibility for his own actions." Mr. Epley recalled that during his first month in office last year, the mayor posted a memo to Village Police Chief Thomas Cummings on social media. "He was saying officers were harassing the surfers and telling them not to enforce the code. The Police Department hasn't liked him since then... that's how he started out with them."

Deputy Mayor Rich Yastrzemski, who is also the village’s deputy police commissioner, said of the letter, “There’s frustration there, and it’s come to a head, and it’s unfortunate. It’s the last thing I’d like to see.”

A longtime champion of law enforcement, the deputy mayor said the vote was “a pretty serious assertion — I can’t recall it ever happening out here.”

The murder of George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of police officers in May set off waves of protests and rallies against police brutality and racism across the country. While the deputy mayor emphasized that enmity toward police was not an overt sentiment locally, nationally, police are “vilified at every corner.”

The mayor’s participation in a vigil for George Floyd held in Agawam Park in June may have been perceived as a lack of support for a local department already demoralized by the current environment, adding to their frustration, the deputy mayor suggested.

A recent social media post by the mayor’s significant other, with a meme, “Blue Lives Don’t Exist, Your Career is a Choice,” compounded the sense of betrayal felt by law enforcement, the PBA claimed. The mayor “has shown support for an organization with an anti-police message,” the letter states.

The mayor’s own Instagram post insisting on his support for police, including proposing a raise for officers, didn’t help. “He didn’t vote for a raise — he voted against the budget,” Mr. Dorchak pointed out.

The raise, included in this year’s budget, was stipulated as part of a contract negotiated by former Mayor Michael Irving’s administration and adopted before Mr. Warren took office. “Mayor Irving signed that contract,” the union leader said.

Following a dispute with other members of the Village Board, Mr. Warren voted against the current year’s budget.

The PBA is not in contract talks with the Village Board currently.

The union leader also spoke of how overworked and understaffed the police dispatching department is.

“If he’s so concerned about the police … he has yet to hire a qualified dispatcher. They have a dispatcher who got 100 on the test, and they have not moved on him,” Mr. Dorchak said. “I’m concerned for their well-being, I truly am.”

At an August 13 meeting of the Village Board, Mr. Warren named a candidate he wanted to hire for an open dispatcher position. However, the Civil Service process was still underway at the time of the announcement, and, according to Mr. Dorchak, “that person isn’t trained.”

The failure to hire a dispatcher was listed in the letter, as was a failure to approve purchase orders requested by the police department.

The membership hopes the vote will prompt the mayor to surrender the role of police commissioner to someone else. Under village law, unless the mayor delegates the role to another village trustee, he assumes the mantle of police commissioner.