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Ten Reasons Why Frederick Akshar Should Not Be a County Sheriff

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by Judy Arnold, Ruth Blizard, Rozann Greco, William Martin

  1. Akshar is a committed, pro-life, anti-abortion politician. As Sheriff will he take responsibility for enforcing NY state laws affirming reproductive rights?
  2. Akshar has a long record of unethical behavior and poor judgement at the workplace. 1) As a Captain in the department, he had sexual relations with the mother of the victim in a case he both supervised and testified in. 2) He supported a fellow Deputy, his partner at the time, in her questionable intervention on behalf of her nephew’s DUI car crash. 3)  As State Senator, he hired a later partner to work for him in his Albany office, and doubled her salary .
  3. Akshar supports, and will fund, more police in schools. As Senator he proposed legislation for a retired police officer in every school, estimated to cost $200 million. This, despite the local lesson of the Broome County school officer who failed to act on many warning signs about guns and violence of the Susquehanna Valley High School student who shot 13 Black persons in Buffalo.
  4. Akshar has been consistently militated and voted against the legalization of marijuana. As Sheriff will he be responsible for enforcing NY state laws that have legalized marijuana?
  5. Akshar will continue to block public reporting of officer wrongdoing. He has repeatedly sought to roll back the state law which requires police and sheriff departments to open up disciplinary records for inspection.  He will continue Sheriff Harder’s refusal to release deputy records as required by the state—including past investigations of his own behavior while a Deputy.
  6. Akshar worked for Sheriff Harder for thirteen years as a Deputy and Undersheriff, supporting his regime that resulted in 13 deaths in the jail, state investigations, and several lost lawsuits for wrongful deaths (e.g. 2011, 2015).  No comment from Akshar then or now.
  7. Akshar proclaimed in 2018, “Sheriff, you have my unwavering commitment to do everything in my power to ensure that you remain the Broome County Sheriff”–until this year, when Akshar decided to run to replace Harder – Interesting that Harder supports Akshar’s opponent.
  8. Akshar has worked, past and present, to increase funding for the police and jail despite falling crime and decreasing population locally. It now costs over $100,000/year to keep someone in the BC Jail, awaiting trial, double the cost of 5 years ago. No problem here for Akshar.  We can look forward to further increases.
  9. Akshar has consistently opposed any criminal justice reforms that would reduce incarceration in general or decrease the racial disparities in local policing, prosecution and incarceration. He would roll back bail reform for even the most minor, non-violent crimes, while wealthy business men and politicians wait for trial at home (e.g. Adam Weitsman, Thomas Libous, Mathew Libous…).
  10. Akshar has friends in high places:

 

Binghamton and Broome Must Seize the Hidden Gem in NY’s Budget: $250 Million to Tackle Vacant Properties

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Thanks to the unprecedented infusion of federal recovery dollars, the state’s budget approved in April is loaded with massive, one-time investments. Some have attracted critical media attention (Bills stadium deal, Exhibit A), while some have escaped the spotlight. One of those hidden gems is a $250 million allocation to the Restore NY program, which has been described by Republican and Democratic mayors over the years as one of the most effective state-local partnerships in decades.

The Restore NY Program was first launched in 2006 and designed specifically to help communities tackle vacant and abandoned properties particularly in urban centers and historically disinvested neighborhoods. This surprising but incredible quarter billion allocation represents another unprecedented opportunity for local governments to address what is a top priority in virtually every community across the state: quality, affordable housing.

With the first round of $100 million in competitive funding to be announced in July, and the remaining $150 million to be announced in October, there is an urgent need for local officials to foster open, transparent, and inclusive conversations about how to leverage this opportunity to both tackle vacant properties and address affordable housing needs for Binghamton residents.

For inspiration as to what’s possible, current officials and decision-makers need only review local history, and take lessons from the award-winning efforts of Matt Ryan’s administration.

The 2006 launch of the Restore NY program coincided with Matt Ryan’s first year in office as mayor, and state officials promised three years of funding. Each year saw steep annual increases in available funding: $50 million in 2006, $100 million in 2007, and $150 million in 2008.

While most communities identified one large vacant property to tackle, the Ryan administration took a uniquely different approach that won awards, statewide praise, and set a model that other upstate communities would follow for the next couple of years.

Over the first three rounds of funding, Binghamton applied for and won more than $5 million in Restore NY grants, which helped address about 100 vacant and blighted residential structures, most of them pulled from Broome County’s annual tax foreclosure list.

Residents, through the Binghamton Neighborhood Assemblies, helped identify for the administration which long-time eyesores in their neighborhood should be prioritized for demolition.

The administration partnered with local affordable housing nonprofits like First Ward Action Council and Opportunities for Broome, as well as small local contractors, to fully rehab other vacant properties into affordable housing opportunities, both for homeowners and renters.

New single-family homes were constructed on vacant lots, which hadn’t happened in years.

The city’s first-ever energy-efficient, ADA-compliant permanent affordable housing project was completed on Lisle Avenue in partnership with the Binghamton Housing Authority.

Gut rehabs were carried out in partnership with students from Broome Community College to give them in-field experience alongside classroom instruction–and reduce the costs for local contractors.

Binghamton partnered with Metro Interfaith to create the Binghamton Homeownership Academy, which was tasked with building a pipeline of qualified low-income first-time homebuyers while affordable housing developers worked on a pipeline of new homes.

A national expert on deconstruction was brought in to train a couple local demolition contractors how to salvage materials for resale, sending less debris to the county landfill and reducing the costs of demolition to benefit local taxpayers.

Following some demolitions, vacant lots were transformed into community gardens, including the downtown urban farm. At the same time, the administration was providing staff time and nominal financial support to build the capacity of a group of passionate community gardening volunteers who eventually launched VINES, which has been a major asset to neighbors and neighborhoods for more than a decade.

A new partnership with Binghamton’s PricewaterhouseCooper Scholars Program, which became an annual tradition that persists today, transformed an overgrown parking lot at the end of Walnut Street into a playspace and park that continues to serve as a community hub for neighbors.

(A slide deck I developed in the fall of 2013 during my final months as the City’s Director of Planning, Housing, and Community Development and which summarizes our successes of Restore NY–with cool pictures!–can be found here.)

The Ryan administration utilized three rounds of Restore NY funding to not only leverage $6 million more in private and philanthropic investments, but also demonstrate the power of community-driven revitalization that values and prioritizes resident input, deep community partnerships, and a culture of risk-taking.

It wasn’t easy. But the better approach hardly ever is.

That’s why many local leaders chose the easier approach. They’d keep this opportunity quiet, meet behind closed doors with the well-connected developers in the area, and shovel millions of Restore NY dollars into one vacant commercial building, promising “catalytic and transformative” results for the neighborhood. The result was usually the same: the production of more “market-rate housing” that priced out most struggling residents and over time shoveled generous profits back into the developer’s bank account.

That can’t happen here, not now. Like most communities across this country, Binghamton’s housing crisis was severe before COVID-19. Our housing crisis today is an urgent five-alarm fire.

Locally, non-student tenants face a nearly impossible task to find decent, affordable housing. Our very low-income neighbors are barely holding on in the face of imminent homelessness—or have already fallen. Emergency shelters are at capacity, and funding is drying up.

With the opportunity this year alone to win up to $6 million in awards over two rounds of Restore NY funding, I encourage residents to talk with our local officials and urge them to consider the following:

  1. Be open, transparent, and inclusive in the brainstorming and development of Restore NY applications. Start yesterday, given the first round of $100 million in funding will open in mid-July.
  2. Prioritize housing justice—not fancy promises of ‘transformative’ economic development. The State commits almost a billion dollars a year to Regional Economic Development Councils (“Hunger Games”), and there are already plenty of other state, county, and local economic development incentives and programs. Restore NY funds should be directed to vacant residential properties, and result in the production of quality affordable housing, portions of which should serve extremely-low income households.
  3. And if the City does request funding for one or two large vacant properties, local officials MUST require that ALL residential units created with Restore NY funds be affordable for at least 30 years (though permanent affordability is preferable). In fact, the state is even offering additional funds for applicants that promise to create affordable housing units.
  4. Bring an immediate, temporary end to Broome County’s tax foreclosure auctions. With millions available to address vacant properties, Broome County should cancel any scheduled tax auctions, temporarily halt the use of tax auctions, and instead work with local partners and agencies to ensure the pipeline of tax foreclosed properties—most of them vacant and blighted—are included in Restore NY project applications and either demolished or repurposed in a way that benefits our residents, strengthens our neighborhoods, and advances equitable outcomes.

I acknowledge the rules have changed over the years, and Restore NY applications need to identify a cluster of vacant properties in a defined geographical area, making the Ryan administration’s approach with the first three rounds (taking all vacant and blighted residential properties from the County’s tax foreclosure list, regardless of where they were) very difficult. But it’s not impossible.

Here are a few details of the program for those who like to geek out:

  • Binghamton will be eligible to ask for up to $3 million in EACH round (July and October)
  • For residential properties, the following limits apply:
    • Up to $150,000 per property for rehab
    • Up to $30,000 per property for demolition
    • Up to $70,000 per rental unit for rehabbing multi-unit rental properties (and an additional one-time bonus of $150,000 per rental property if all units are affordable)
  • Applicants will need to commit a 10% match (can be cash or in-kind, as in staff time)
  • Round one will be launched around July 11, and communities will need to submit a letter of intent within 30 days, and the final application will be due 90 days after that (same process for the launch of the October round of $150 million). The letter of intent and application will need to identify the exact addresses of the properties.
  • Only local governments can apply (cities, towns, villages, and counties—but counties will need to coordinate with the municipality in which the properties are located)
  • Land banks and nonprofit affordable housing developers aren’t eligible to apply, but no question both should be brought into local conversations as soon as possible to discuss partnership opportunities

 

Binghamton still has more than $12 million in ARPA funds (federal pandemic recovery awards), which has a spending deadline of December 31, 2026.

The state will soon announce $50 million in grant funds available to the 26 operating land banks, which includes Broome County Land Bank.

And now there’s $250 million available through Restore NY to tackle vacant and abandoned properties.

The next few years present an unprecedented opportunity to transform vacant properties into meeting our community’s urgent affordable housing needs.

Please join me in encouraging our local officials to seize it.

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Tarik Abdelazim works for a national nonprofit that helps communities equitably and effectively address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties; serves on the Broome County Land Bank board; and played a lead role in the design and implementation of the City’s award-winning approach to Restore NY as Binghamton’s Deputy Mayor and Director of Planning, Housing, and Community Development from 2006 – 2013 in Matt Ryan’s administration.

Broome County: Fears of Crime and Reform

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On Violence in Broome County: Why is gun violence increasing? And crime not?

That’s a paradox that you won’t hear from local media or elected officials. The stories they bleat at us repeat a fearful line:  violent crime is escalating and threatens us all, daily.  And people across the county and state clearly have a heightened fear of crime as a result. Sheriffs, police chiefs, and elected officials now amplify this fear to demand we rollback criminal justice reforms and refill emptying jails and prisons. But have criminal justice reforms had this effect, and what do we do?

Sheriff Harder and Regional Sheriffs vs. Reforms

Bail reforms passed in 2019 eliminated bail for most misdemeanor and non-violent charges. Opponents propose new legislation to grant judges more autonomous power to incarcerate “dangerous” persons and imprison those with substance use and mental health problems. State Senator Frederick Akshar and past Binghamton Mayor Richard David have launched a statewide campaign towards this end, as have current Sheriff David Harder and regional Sheriffs. Rolling back reforms would be accompanied by more funding for police, prosecution, and incarceration. New York’s New Mayor Adams and President Biden agree. Governor Hochul and conservative Democrats, including Broome County Executive Jason Garnar, have conceded and proposed their own 10 point program to rollback recent reforms.

None of these advocates for more incarceration have produced systematic evidence or analysis of the impact of reform to support their legislative proposals.  Simply put, the facts and data we have don’t match these fearful visions—as suggested by the seeming paradox between fears of rising crime and actual crime rates.  To unpack these contradictions we need to take a straightforward look at crime and violence.

Crime? What Crime? 

Start with the crime situation. New York State statistics show that index (serious) crime rates for Broome County have steadily declined over the last four decades and actually fell significantly from 2017 to 2020 (2021 county figures are not yet released).

Source: NYS, Division of Criminal Justice Services

The apex violent crime, murder, is rare in Broome County, averaging but five a year over the last thirty years, including the last five years.  Robbery, property theft, burglaries, and motor vehicle theft are also down over the last five to ten years.

One conclusion: the propagated fear of a widespread crime wave due to bail and other reforms doesn’t match the reality we face.

What has notably increased in the last year is the incidence of gun violence.  This reverses recent downward trends: state data for the City of Binghamton show that the number of persons injured or killed by gun violence fell from 7 to 4 over 2017 to 2020, but rose to 11 and 14 respectively in 2021.

Broome County is not exceptional here: similar increases have been reported from around the country.

Here we have problem.

Why? Guns, Poverty, Policy

Why is gun violence up? And what might be done about it?

There is little if any evidence that reforms have systematically produced more violent crime. Increases in gun violence have occurred equally in city and states that have and have not adopted bail and related reforms. Data analysis from the Brennan Center concludes simply that “there is no clear connection between recent crime increases and the bail reform law enacted in 2019, and the data does not currently support further revisions to the legislation.” Revised state data are more explicit, confirming that less than 2% of nearly 100,000 released related to the state’s changed bail laws resulted in a rearrest on a violent felony charge while another case was pending.  And that’s down from nearly 4 percent from the prior data set.

Would locking up more persons help, as the blustery rhetoric of politicians insists?  The clear answer is no.  Indeed a good case can be made that jail time increases crime and violence. When people get sent to jail to await trial, overwhelmingly for misdemeanor charges,  they most often lose their jobs, apartments and belongings, and become unable to support themselves or their family.  Jailing the poor generates poverty, homelessness, and social instability–while the powerful and wealthy post bail and go home from court to their families.

There are many local examples, although few make it in to press. Charged with 87 accounts of bank fraud for kiting 3,600 checks, local billionaire Adam Weitsman awaited trial at home (and was able to afford to settle with a $1 million federal fine and 8 months in prison out of a possible 30 year sentence). As the local Press and Sun-Bulletin editorialized on the case, “the US justice system has long been more lenient with ‘clever businessmen’ than street criminals” (January 16, 2004, p.10) Senator Thomas Libous, charged with a felony account of lying to the FBI, and his son Mathew charged with federal tax fraud, awaited trial at home as well by each paying $50,000 bail. Absent reform, this is how the system works:  the poor go to jail and the rich go home. We see these disparities every day in local courts. Bail reform for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies has begun to correct these inequities.

Absent reform, this is how the system works: 

the poor go to jail and the rich go home.

Has “defunding the police,” that vilified phrase, led to a permissive crime spree? Despite all the fearful talk by politicians and law enforcement officials, funding for the police, prosecutors, and the courts has increased everywhere.  Defunding certainly hasn’t happened in Broome County where the number of deputies and district attorneys and funding for them has steadily increased under both Republican and Democratic County Executives—despite falling crime and a drop in the daily jail count from over 500 local persons to below 300 persons recently. The use of force by police has hardly been hamstrung despite the wave of protests before, during and after Black Lives Matter. Far from it: the number of persons killed by police has steadily risen across the country and set a record number in 2021.

Common sense and work by justice studies scholars point to more plausible forces behind increasing violence and particularly gun violence.  In all these areas we need more hard-headed research.

Weapons matter as scholars, police and their critics all agree. A recent profusion of guns into our streets and cities has been noted by many. That’s certainly true locally. Almost ten years ago the County Sheriff reported 23,000 pistol permits alone, and the number has been rising significantly recently. Neither local nor state authorities release data on guns, so the trend is hard to analyze. What we do know is that rising gun purchases nationwide during the covid outbreak have been directly associated with rising violence.

Rising unemployment and poverty, sub-standard wages, and a lack of housing and basic services have long been recognized as correlates of increased insecurity and violence.  Broome County is especially susceptible along these dimensions: our poverty rate is the second highest of the state’s 62 counties. Affordable housing is in very short supply as regularly reported by the press and local activists. Homelessness has reportedly increased over 200% in the last decade. And as with incarceration, these factors are directly correlated with not just poverty but race.

And almost all analysts point to the as yet uncertain impact of COVID, which considerably exacerbated the sources and likelihood of conflict. It should not surprise us that even road rage shootings are double what they were prior to the pandemic.  As we all know personally, social isolation and the ever-present threat of serious illness and death have heightened the levels of anxiety, anger, and conflict that exacerbate violence. These factors overlap with poverty, coalescing as in the past in poor neighborhoods, where rising levels of violence have often been concentrated.

What is to be done?

What has worked? There is almost no evidence that more policing, already at historically high levels,  offers relief. Police invariably enter after shootings and violence, and lack the ability and resources to treat persons in mental or substance use distress. Introducing armed and uniformed persons to confront unarmed persons undergoing a psychotic crisis all too often results in more violence and even death—as occurred in the only incident resulting in the death of a county or municipal officer in near twenty years.[i]

What might alleviate social causes of violence has been an increasing concern nationwide. In both large and small cities innovative projects exist, often with proven track records.  Two examples demonstrate the work being done.

Most common and effective have been community-based violence interrupter programs that have spread across the country with documented success. Composed of trusted survivors of youth and gun violence, interrupters unlike police are skilled and trained community members who intervene and reach out to those at the center of gun violence.  Interrupters work to address incipient conflicts in their neighborhoods through non-violent means—and provide links to supportive services for housing, education, and employment.

Locality, trust, and respect matter here. Interrupters come from and live in their disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is in stark contrast to local police departments and the county sheriff, who have few members from or live in Black, Latinx, or disadvantaged communities (Broome County has even removed the requirement that county employees including officers live in the county).

Currently police are the first responders,

and the local jail has become the de facto

mental health and substance use treatment center…

A second group of new programs tackle how to work with persons in mental health and substance use distress.  Currently police are the first responders, and the local jail has become the de facto mental health and substance use treatment center—a process that cannot but fail to address root causes as indicated by ever-rising substance use and deaths in and outside the jail.  Cities across the state and county are increasingly relying trained mental health and substance use response teams which call upon police only in the infrequent cases involving weapons.  These projects take different forms, from independent and community-based stabilization centers for those in distress, to teams of street-level mental health and substance use social workers on call and  dispatched by 911 and other agencies.

Providing alternatives to law enforcement are critical for persons in distress and conflict—including both victims and survivors.  Many in our poorer and most marginalized communities are unwilling to access services directed by or tied to the police—as is current the case in Broome County where current and former police direct mental health outreach services. This reluctance is particularly the case among Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, immigrant and domestic violence survivors.

Moving Forward

In recent weeks, social workers and community activists have pressed the Governor and elected officials to abandon the failed policing and incarceration projects of the past, and turn to long-term, community-centered responses to harm and violence.   The recent call from over 100 organizations across the state laid this out clearly: invest $1 billion in community-led gun violence programs and other victim and survivor services.  This past month Black-led marchers against gun violence in Harlem demanded the same. We need to abandon the incarceration policies that have failed us in the past and pursue more productive and just policies in the coming years. Wise policymakers and representatives realize we can’t afford to do otherwise.

Harlem March vs. Gun Violence Feb 3 2022

Notes

[1] The reference here is to the tragic case of Johnson City Officer David Smith confronting James Clark, an unarmed medical technician undergoing a psychotic break outside Wilson Hospital in Johnson City in 2014.  Clark was able to seize Officer Smith’s gun and kill Smith;  Clark was then shot and killed by Officer Louis Cioci. A 204 page investigation by the police force itself produced no explanation; the family of Clark sued Binghamton and Johnson City for failing to follow protocols and training on how to handle persons in mental distress. Smith was the last local county or municipal police officer to be killed while on duty since 2002  (Binghamton, Johnson City, Endicott, Vestal, Whitney Point, Broome County Sheriff).

A related op-ed was published in the Press and Sun-Bulletin, April 10 2022

 

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