Voters in Rye approved an Election Day ballot proposition to create a public safety commissioner position. Doing so will also bring about a new Department of Public Safety in the city, just the third such department in Westchester County.
With more than 6,100 ballots cast, the referendum easily passed with 68 percent of the vote.
As a result, the city police and fire departments will be transformed into a Department of Public Safety unit with one centralized public safety commissioner providing oversight.
Currently, the city of White Plains and the county are the only municipalities in Westchester with public safety departments.
Rye City Mayor Joe Sack, a Republican, said the new position makes sense from a cost savings and cost effectiveness perspective.
The goal of the changeover is geared toward streamlining oversight of the two departments with an eye toward addressing outstanding issues within the city Fire Department, particularly a lack of top-down leadership.
Sack stressed to the Review that the departments themselves would not be combined, just
the oversight.
In doing so, the idea is to leverage the professional management currently in place in the Police Department. With that mind, the city is expected to turn to current Police Commissioner Michael Corcoran, who was hired by the city back in February, to now also oversee Fire Department operations. “[Corcoran] has not been offered the job nor has he accepted it,” the mayor said, “[but] we assumed he would be in line for it.”
This isn’t the first time that the city has discussed the idea of a public safety commissioner. Talk of streamlining fire and police previously took place during the Republican administration of former Rye City Mayor Douglas French in 2012. But that discussion didn’t lead to any action.
Issues within the city Fire Department have existed for some time. Calls for increased professional firefighter staffing have been ongoing coupled with the dichotomy between the professional firefighters and a dwindling volunteer base.
Traditionally, the Fire Department has always been run by the Board of Fire Wardens, a committee of volunteer firefighters. But Sack said that based on the city’s analysis and discussion, that hierarchy may no longer be working effectively based on the challenges of the 21st century, for things such as recruiting and budgeting.
