Syracuse Common Council Meets with Citizen Review Board on December 1, 2025
Syracuse Common Council Meets with Citizen Review Board on December 1, 2025
The Syracuse Common Council convened with representatives from the Citizen Review Board (CRB) to discuss the board's recent operations, case management improvements, community outreach, and the need to update its enabling legislation. Council members praised the CRB for its progress and collaboration.
Discussion Items
-
CRB Case Management and Backlog: The CRB reported receiving a backlog of approximately 157 cases due to a glitch that directed online complaints to the wrong email from October 2024 until recently. Out of these, 38 cases required full processing and are approaching their 18-month expiration deadline in February 2026. The CRB also sent closure letters for 57 expired cases from 2022-2023, but 15 letters were returned as undeliverable.
-
Complaint System Glitch: The glitch was discovered when a complainant received a receipt but the CRB did not receive the complaint. The issue was resolved with IT support, and the affected cases were identified and processed.
-
Community Outreach and Education: The CRB has engaged in multiple outreach efforts, including tabling at the Center for Alternatives, participating in a "Monster Mash" Halloween event at the Community Folk Art Center, visiting Roberts Middle School to educate students on police interactions, and planning to attend a senior fair at OCC. The CRB also distributed brochures and "what to do if stopped by police" cards.
-
Collaboration with Syracuse Police Department: The CRB holds quarterly meet-and-greets with police chiefs and has toured the 911 dispatch center to understand call prioritization. They have received data through evidence.com, which has streamlined case reviews. The CRB also passes relevant findings to the police chief even for cases that cannot be adjudicated.
-
Board and Staff Updates: Board member Margaret Ann Chase's term expires in December; the CRB has requested the mayor to extend it to a full term. The board has undergone training on case review processes. The CRB is still seeking an investigator, having faced challenges with applicant status (e.g., temporary work visas). The board works closely with a new administrator and staff.
-
Legislative Update: Don, on behalf of the CRB, stated that the current legislation is "antiquated" and needs updating to remove limitations. Council members acknowledged this and agreed to work collaboratively on amendments, beginning with an official ordinance to authorize changes.
Key Outcomes
- The council and CRB agreed to begin the process of updating the CRB's enabling legislation, starting with an official ordinance from the council.
- The council requested that the CRB share a compilation of recommendations sent to the Syracuse Police Department so council members can review them.
- The CRB will schedule a meeting with the incoming police chief after the appointment.
- The CRB will continue to clear its case backlog, conduct community outreach, and work on data-driven analysis of complaints.
- Council members expressed satisfaction with the CRB's progress and committed to continued support.
Meeting Transcript
A lot of the investigating of the cases. So even though we don't have an uh full time uh investigator on staff, um, she has been handling um the dominantly uh the bulk of all the investigations that are coming through. So I just want to make a I want to make a correction. Okay. So she's the uh first district. So we got that in reverse. Okay, so I'll go ahead and get that uh corrected when I get back to the office. Is that competitive? Do you feel uh you when you were doing interviewing? Did you have enough applicant? It wasn't the attraction there. Yes. Okay, okay uh a lot of people were applying but just didn't have the investigative piece that they needed to actually do the job. They have done other things within law enforcement, but just was not able to give me what I needed for investigative. Okay, okay, that's good. That's good. Yeah, continue, please. Um also so we've been getting in a ton of new cases, new and old cases. I'm trying to catch up on those cases that will be expiring soon. So we're my main focus is to hit those cases first so that we can at least give them some kind of explanation as to what's going on with their case. We also discovered that the complaints that were being submitted, there was a glitch, so they were going to Raynet's email address and not coming to CRB. Um and we discovered that when someone called and said that they had submitted their complaint and they got a receipt back saying that we received it, but we never received it. So we gave a call to tech and we figured out that we were not getting them, and we figured out why we weren't getting them. So in the process of doing that, we did get that corrected and fixed. We had gotten was it 1507 cases, 1570. Going into um hyperspace. And how long was that going on in terms of that? October until we just recently caught it. October of last year to now. Yes. Wow. Yes. And these 157 is what time what time? 2024. There were some from 2022. Okay. But then there were some that was 2024, and we did discover that even in some of the cases, we already had them, so they submitted them online, but they also brought them in. So out of the 154, 38 of them actually needed to be processed from the beginning. So we're pretty good on that with the 2024. Um, we've been working pretty closely with um the police department and their um and the ops, the professional standard. We've been working closely with them with getting new cases in. Um we have a ton of those that are coming in as well. But again, it's it's about investigating and finding out what we can and can't deal with. Um our community engagement specialists have been putting a lot of things out on to our social media pages to let them let people know to inform the community of what type of cases we can and can't handle. We've been getting some that come from Liverpool, some that are from state troopers, some that are from within the jails, um, and those that are within the jails, we all we refer them to um their committee so that they can be investigated as well. In the county? Yes. Okay. Okay. You talked about expiring cases out of 157, how many are expiring?
openpublica.com