In the Town of Tonawanda all eyes were on Monday night’s Town Board meeting. Tempers boiled over during the public comments section of the session, where citizens aired their grievances on the ongoing battle between the Town Board and Police Union over an alleged “ticket strike.”
While the town residents used their time during the public comments section to grill Town Supervisor Joe Emminger the town’s police officers used the opportunity to go after each other. Captain William Krier went after Police Union President Andy Thompson during his prepared remarks for what he called dishonest and unsubstantiated attacks on Police Chief James Stauffiger – even calling it a smear campaign. This led to animated conversation between the two after the meeting which lasted over 20 minutes. Thompson said the frustrations between the two come down to communication.
“Yeah, I think a lot of our issues stem down to communication and I don’t think we see a lot of communication come down from the administrative level down to us. So, you know then I hear during his speech that I’m the one who needs to be changed in leadership, which I have 84 members behind me that would disagree but once again it all comes down to conversation and compromise, and their side really isn’t willing to compromise right now.”
Thompsons says that he was not satisfied with how the situation with now former police officer Bikramjit Singh went down. Further calling it a witch hunt.
“We're sworn to protect. We're expected to have integrity, and Officer Singh has integrity when Officer Singh says, that's garbage, that's garbage, and you have to trust officer Singh.”
Supervisor Joe Emminger previously told BTPM he believed the slowdown in traffic tickets was retaliation for a misconduct charge against former officer Singh.
The town board is still in the process of obtaining outside counsel and completing their investigation before a hearing with the Public Employment Relations Board.
