The Southold Town Board is planning to have a draft resolution outlining police protocols, town board oversight and communications with the public and other agencies during federal immigration raids ready by its Aug. 25 meeting.
The board stopped short from considering adopting the measures as a local law — which had been recommended by five members of its Public Safety Task Force convened earlier this spring.
Pictured Above: Members of the Southold Town Board discussed proposed safety measures during immigration raids at their Aug. 11 work session.
A draft local law had been proposed this winter in the midst of several chaotic immigration raids throughout the East End by the Latino advocacy group OLA of Eastern Long Island. Both East Hampton Town and Village passed laws modeled on the OLA draft this spring.
After a meeting to hear from the public in late July and about an hour of discussion during an Aug. 4 work session, the Southold Town Board discussed the components of the proposed resolution for about half an hour at its Aug. 11 work session.
“I would like to put that (the local law) aside right now and focus on what are our goals and what are we trying to achieve… how do we get there?” said Councilwoman Alexa Suess at the start of the Aug. 11 morning discussion.
“We’re talking about all the pieces, all the nuts and bolts, all the work that East Hampton Village and Town have done,” explained Councilwoman Kate Stevens when asked about the board’s progress by OLA Executive Director Minerva Perez at the board’s regular meeting that evening. “What we’re all talking about are the same pieces. I hope that’s clear.”
“This is a framework that allows for the mission to continue, so it’s not getting buried in 1,000 pages of policy,” she added.
Police Chief Steve Grattan said he and Town Attorney Ben Johnson still plan to meet to discuss legal matters surrounding a draft “outside agency policy” that would govern how the town police department interacts with other law enforcement agencies operating within the town, and on how that interaction would be communicated to the Town Board and Town Supervisor, who serve as Southold’s police commissioners.
The policy is expected to spell out how the Southold Town Police would act in a peacekeeping capacity to de-escalate potential conflict between residents and immigration agents.
“Nothing has changed” since an earlier draft “other than the notification” of the commissioners, he said. “The highest supervisor available will make the notification. That will be the chain of command.”
Under normal circumstances, he had said at the Aug. 4 meeting, notification of such incidents would have to reach the police chief before it was relayed to the commissioners.
Councilwoman Anne Smith, a former school superintendent, suggested the board come up with clear policies for when and how other public organizations, like schools, would be notified. She questioned how a chaotic immigration raid that took place in February near the Greenport School would have been different if the protocol was in place.
“Maybe it would not be much different, but we would all have had an understanding of what’s going on,” she said.
Councilman Brian Mealy said he’d heard over the weekend that residents had been concerned about a Department of Homeland Security vehicle seen in Greenport on Sunday — DHS vehicles are often in eastern Southold Town due to their work on Plum Island, and Chief Grattan was able to confirm they were not involved in an immigration operation.
“I heard three or four ways that you told the right people,” said Mr. Mealy. “[Greenport] Mayor Stuessi knew because you talked to him about it. You’re already doing it the right way. That’s essential.”
Board members also discussed how to format of a standing group of people — either a task force or a committee or a working group, possibly comprised of members of the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force and Police Advisory Committee — to review communication and actions taken by the town during the incident.
“We need to draft a resolution memorializing the things that have already happened, the next steps and things we can agree to,” said Ms. Smith. “That is important for the public — to see us, clear and upfront and voting, as opposed to the law we’re not voting on.”
She added that, since the task force did not reach a consensus and issue a report from the full group, “I do think, as a town board, we need to write a final report so that exists.”
But two members of the task force who recommended passing the law were concerned that a simple resolution did not go far enough.
“I know other members of the group of five are concerned that we not get stuck,” said task force member Carolyn Peabody via Zoom at the evening meeting. “We need to have public information about what’s going on and about the steps that are going forward.”
“I think figuring out policies and procedures quickly is important,” said Greenport Village Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson, who also served on the task force. “But there’s no reason the law can’t be looked at at the same time…. Think about going at parallel tracks.”
She added that the five members of the task force had “come to the conclusion, for transparency and accountability, that it’s much better as a law than a resolution. In the village, we go through so many resolutions that they’re hard to find, and people don’t know how to look for them. The code is one document that people can search.”
“Including the village is important,” she added, “because all of these actions have been in the village.”
“I want to echo what members of the task force recommended,” Ms. Perez told the board at the evening meeting. “Their recommendations were not light. They were meaningful and well thought out. I want to make sure we’re not losing that…. There’s accountability around a law. It’s something that’s clearly stated to an entire community, and it’s not on the shoulders of law enforcement, but also our schools, our health care infrastructure, and our ferry system, where damage can be done when there is chaos or injury that can stem from panic. I’m here to make sure that stays urgent.”
Documents relating to this project are being uploaded by the town to this webpage.
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OLA Director, Ms. Perez, comments at the August 11 Southold Town Board meeting make clear that OLA’s principal concern is that a police policy or administrative procedure is not enough because it can be changed, overlooked, or “buried.” OLA therefore wants the Town to enact a binding local law with an enforcement mechanism.
That is precisely why the Town Board should be cautious.
No one is suggesting that Southold ignore public safety, transparency, or the treatment of immigrants. The real question is whether those objectives require this particular ordinance, with all of the legal obligations and litigation exposure that come with it.
The fact that members of the Public Safety Task Force spent significant time discussing these issues does not establish that the OLA draft is legally necessary, legally sound, or the best policy for the Town. The Town Board has an independent responsibility to examine the consequences of every provision before turning recommendations into binding law.
OLA argues that a law is needed for “accountability.” But accountability can be achieved without creating a new cause for litigation against the Town. Clear written police procedures, employee protocols, reporting requirements, training, and public Board policies can all be transparent and publicly available. They do not have to be “buried,” and they can be reviewed and updated as circumstances or federal law change.
That flexibility is an advantage, not a weakness.
The OLA proposal goes considerably further. It places legal requirements on Town employees and municipal operations, addresses access to nonpublic Town property, creates rules concerning interactions with federal immigration officers, and—most importantly—allows taxpayers and allegedly aggrieved persons to go to court seeking enforcement.
That changes the issue from one of good administrative practice into one of potential litigation.
The speaker also referenced schools, healthcare infrastructure, and other community systems where panic or disorder might occur. Those are legitimate subjects for discussion. But concern about what might happen is not, by itself, evidence that Southold needs this ordinance. Before adopting a law carrying legal and financial consequences, the Board should ask what specific Southold incidents have occurred, what existing procedures failed, and which provisions of this proposed law would have prevented those failures.
The burden should be on proponents of a new local law to demonstrate that the law is necessary and that its benefits outweigh its risks.
There is also a false choice embedded in the argument that the Board must either adopt the OLA law or “walk away” from the issue. Those are not the only alternatives.
Southold can adopt clear, publicly available administrative protocols governing police response, employee conduct, access to nonpublic municipal areas, incident reporting, training, and appropriate disclosure. The Town can continue the Public Safety Task Force and revisit those procedures whenever necessary.
That approach addresses the stated public-safety concerns without creating an ordinance that may require employees to make complicated legal judgments in real time or invite residents, taxpayers, and potentially federal authorities into court over its interpretation.
Urgency should not substitute for careful drafting.
The Board’s responsibility is not simply to demonstrate that it has acted. It is to choose the approach that protects residents, employees, public safety, and taxpayers while creating the least unnecessary legal exposure.
For those reasons, the Town should not advance the OLA proposal as written. It should instead adopt narrow, transparent administrative guidelines addressing the legitimate concerns that have been identified, without creating a new and potentially open-ended local law.