Meeting for the village of Pleasantville today is Monday, May 12th.

And

we have a raft of things to do tonight.

But the first item on our agenda, and I think the most important is uh a promotion here in our police department, and I invite our chief Eric Kretzner to report what is going on.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor Shear, Village Trustees, Village Administrator Morrissey, members, family, and friends of the Pleasantville Police Department and the Pleasantville community.

The recent retirements of our two senior members of the patrol division have created vacancies, and we are here tonight to promote James Charletti to Sargon.

Currently, James is serving as one of our detectives and our youth officer, a role that has made him a fixture at the schools, teaching classes and interacting with students and staff.

As many of you know, James was raised in Pleasantville and comes from a family committed to helping others and public service.

His grandfather bought the lot next to his parents, built the home in which he raised his family and lived there for eight decades.

His father Tony served this department as police chief for almost 20 years, and prior to that was a member of the fire department and a captain of the ambulance corps.

His mother Bernadette recently retired from a 42-year nursing career, where she not only cared for her patients, but also mentored countless of the next generation of nurses.

James and his brother Anthony are graduates of the Pleasantville schools and both began their careers in larger law enforcement departments before transferring closer to home.

But as important as his family and history are to the person James is, they are not why he is being promoted tonight.

In short, James is being promoted for the positive impact he has had on this department since he arrived.

As a police officer, James was able to merge his long history in Pleasantville with the skills he developed in the NYPD to effectively address both criminal and community activity.

Since being promoted to detective, he has brought skill, knowledge, and compassion to his investigations, many of which have involved children as victims, witnesses, or suspects.

While James certainly has the experience to meet his new responsibilities, Lieutenant Bill Martin, Lieutenant Woolman, and I came to our decision based on the person he is and the thoughtful way he approaches his work.

James has always recognized the larger issues in policing and the role we as individual officers play in connecting with the people we serve.

His ethics are exemplary and he embodies the importance of public trust in a community like ours.

Throughout his career, James has been someone other officers knew they could trust.

During the interview process, he spoke about having the opportunity to work with some of the officers we've recently hired, and he looked forward to both sharing his knowledge and learning from

them.

Let me give you an example.

Every year we ask members of the department for their input as we prepare our budget.

This year, James came to me and reported that he and our Spanish-speaking officers recognized the need to meet our immigrant population where they were, and he wanted to start a program where Spanish-speaking officers outreach to the community.

He suggested we would benefit from making them more available and approachable to build trust and rapport.

It's a plan and a program that accomplishes the goals that the village board has set and enhances our department, our standing as a department and as a profession.

But

James is not Hispanic, he does not speak Spanish, and at the time he wasn't a supervisor.

It

was James who brought the idea to me because he has the respect of his peers and a reputation to get things done.

Without rank, James has James has made himself a leader in this department.

And tonight, with the opportunity to promote him to sergeant, his rank will meet his stature inside the department.

I'm very confident in his future as I recommend him to the board tonight.

Lastly, I would like to thank the other two candidates who interviewed for the sergeant's position.

They have shown great respect for the process and support for James, and their professionalism is very much appreciated.

On a side note, uh tonight, as the mayor uh asks James's wife to come up and pin.

Uh, she will be pinning uh Chief Tony Charletti's original sergeant shield that he wore during his time here uh to sort of carry on the traditions and the uh the family sense that we're trying to create here in the village.

So

thank

you.

See that we've already

saved money.

James, can you join us here uh for the overtop office?

Um you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm old enough to remember when you were in high school.

And was it a red car?

Yeah, and and the guy got to school really early every day to get that very specific parking space.

So uh he was modeling

uh

proactive behavior even back then.

So you've done something right.

You did lots of things right now.

So James, uh, would you uh raise your right hand and repeat after me?

correct me if I'm wrong but I'm old enough to remember when you were in high school and was it a red car yeah and and and the guy got to school really early every day to get that very specific parking space so uh he was modeling uh proactive behavior even back then so you done something right you did lots of things wrong so James uh would you uh raise your right hand in hook and repeat after me hi James Charlie James I do solemnly swear do solemn this work to support the constitution of the state of New York uh support the constitution of the state of New York I should constitution of the United States Constitution of the United States the code of the village of Pelletville code of the village puzzle and to discharge my duties to discharge my duties as sergeant to the police department as sergeant of the police department to the best of my ability that's my ability congratulations sir is your wife get ready for your opportunity to open with it did you hope Tony with this pin I still feel the thing family we need a couple of pictures here she's going to share with you or the other police all right let's get she's painted how about lieutenants get in here come on yeah oh you can say all right to our knowledge is the first time we have had a chief's offspring as a sergeant yeah well so thank you chief thank you ex-chief thank you new sergeant thank you to Carly Philly family and thanks to Kevin and Jesse how the time it's a great night all right let's make it official with resolution yeah hey congratulations congratulations thank you so much for red car song yeah thank you all right let's jump ahead to resolution 169 and make this official resolve the board of trustees based on the recommendation of the chief of police hereby appoints james charlaty to police sergeant job title code is 133 at a salary of 148 May 13th 2025 is there a second second all in favor aye welcome Charlie we invite you to stay for our dry as dust uh meeting but we fully understand if you wish to escape report is supposed to yeah thanks right congratulations you guys all look super sharp in your uniforms brownie points I like you better trouble thank you so much well initiative thank you all right uh so uh so well to everybody great night a great step forward police department and a great night for the Charlotte family thank you chief uh gruntsner so I have a bunch of announcements to make but uh let's hold that as well so as not to hold up our flow of police matters uh tonight is uh our quarterly update from chief grutzner uh on the goings on of the Pleasantville department so we welcome you back thank you all very much the opportunity so everybody jump right in um you want to move around a little you have a little better view of that you have my back to anyone uh so this is the the usual uh rundown of our calls for service just kind of keeping track most of our numbers are staying relatively uh relatively steady so no uh nothing of great note here next please um i know the uh pedestrian committee was in uh and i just wanted to reiterate sort of our um my position and what we're doing is as especially in regards to the traffic and pedestrian concerns with

We

have my back to anyone.

So this is the usual uh rundown of our calls for service, just kind of keeping track.

Most of our numbers are staying relatively uh relatively steady.