The Real Ken Runion

The Town Board will be re-visiting the recommendation of the 3rd Judicial District Administrative District Judge that Guilderland add a third Judge to its court staff.  This became the center of controversy at the March 3, 2009 town board meeting.  Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich oppose the recommendation and believe the Guilderland Town Board should direct the police department to not issue tickets for some DWAI infractions and for Aggravated DWI infractions.  Their contention is this would reduce case load.  Here is a snippet from the draft minutes from March 3, 2009 Guilderland Town Board meeting:

Councilman Redlich said, “ My conversations with Judge Bailey, and this is something I have heard from Judge Crummie and I have heard it from a number of other Judges in Albany County, is one of the things that people should know is, driving the burden on our Courts is the District Attorney’s DWI policy, plea bargaining policy, and so they have a lot more hearings.”

Supervisor Ken Runion said,  “But there isn’t anything that the Town Board can do about the DA’s policies. That is between the District Attorney and the Court system.”

Councilman Warren Redlich said, “No, that’s not completely true. No, that’s not true. You said before that you wouldn’t do what I suggested, which is that we could have our Police Department adopt policies like, not writing DWAI tickets on .05’s or let’s say it was a .22 or a  .20 and above where the DA has a policy on this, that they could not write the Aggravated DWI and write it as a Common-Law DWI and that would mean we might have a lot less hearings.  These are things we could do.”

Councilman Pastore asked, “ Are you saying we have the province to do that?

Councilman Warren Redlich said, “Absolutely.” Absolutely, we do.”

Supervisor Ken Runion stated that he disagreed.

Councilman Pastore said, “I think that’s a slippery slope.  We are going to legislate how our Police Officers, under what circumstances they are issuing tickets?”

Councilman Warren Redlich said, “Absolutely.  We absolutely can, and we absolutely should.”

Supervisor Ken Runion said, “ I don’t think that we can, and I don’t think that we should, so I guess that we are really going to disagree on that one.”

Councilman Warren Redlich stated that they did disagree.

Councilman Pastore is absolutely correct that this is a slippery slope.  Board members are public officials and required by their positions to enforce the laws of the State of New York.  Because Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich disagree with the DWI laws in the State or their enforcement does not give them the right or the responsibility to direct police officers when or how to enforce criminal violations.

Warren Redlich’s and Mark Grimm’s suggestion would take Guilderland in the direction of becoming a police state. This is not the first time that Warren Redlich and Mark Grimm have made this and similar suggestions. Please stay tuned to this important issue in town and watch the town board meeting on cable channel 17 or attend the meeting at 7:30 PM on March 17, 2009.