Updated: Suffolk Legislature Tabled Resolution to Fire Dormer

Updated: The resolution to fire Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer was tabled at 7:05 p.m. before the full legislature could vote on the resolution, number 1371. 

Legislator Jon Cooper made a motion to approve that was seconded Legislator Jack Eddington. A motion to table was made by Legislator Jay Schneiderman and seconded by  Legislator Thomas Barraga and, as is the procedure, was voted on first and was approved.

The resolution will be on the legislature's June 22 meetig agenda.

Original article: A resolution to fire Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer was approved by the Suffolk County Legislature's public safety committee June 3, 4 to 1. 

At today's general meeting, currently in progress, Legislator Jon Cooper plans to call for a vote.

"I have my resolution giving fixed terms and I have a separate resolution to remove Dormer, which, surprisingly, made it out of the public safety committee," Cooper said Monday, adding that the media coverage of the death of three people on a houseboat in Huntington Harbor may have been the impetus for the committee's decision.

"The stories formed this foundation for asking a lot of questions of a lot of top police brass. The best indication that their answers were not satisfactory is that my bill to remove Dormer made it out 4 to 1. So I thought that was a pretty powerful statement and certainly a vote of no confidence."

He said after discussions with his fellow legislators, he truly has no idea how the vote will turn out.

"A couple have told me that the real problem is [County Executive Steve Levy] and that Dormer is just following orders and if he disagreed he'd be fired," Cooper said, adding credence to another of his proposed legislations on the agenda today. That is to institute fixed terms for appointed officials.

Both Levy and Dormer at a Huntington Chamber of Commerce event Monday night at Indian Hills Country Club, where Dormer was being honored for his community involvement.

Dormer said that the honor was really for the men and women of the police force.

"And in the same way that when they attack me they are attacking the men and women of the police force," he said. "This whole thing is misdirected. The lawmakers of the legislature should be concerned with saving the taxpayers money. I am a department head who, by the way, has saved money and brought crime down and put more cops on the street. Yes, there are less in headquarters. Some were taken from behind desks and put on the streets.  When the county executive was elected to that office in 2004 there was a mandate to reduce the size of government. This is the first time that the department has been run like a business. And this is part of the pushback. I know this police department is one of the most outstanding in the country and we will continue to be so. The county executive is the chief financial officer of the county. He controls the budget. And I have a good relationship with that CFO."

He said he does not support fixed terms for appointed positions, either.

"A county executive or a mayor a governor needs to have the ability to have his own team in place," he said.

He said that the use of the houseboat incident by his opponents to remove him is unethical.

"Using the tragic death of three people for political purposes is outrageous. I have stated that whether that boat was staffed or not, the response of our officers was first rate. They were there within minutes. This had been off-line for years in the winter," he said.

Cooper said that simply is not true and provided data from the marine bureau that shows the operation of Bravo, the 40-foot marine patrol boat assigned to Huntington, has decreased. The data states that the boat patrolled 65 percent of the time when Levy first took office in 2004 but only patrolled 22 percent of the time in the winter of 2009-10.

Levy voiced his support for Dormer Monday as well.

"Why anyone would want to dismiss a commissioner who has both cut crime and costs is beyond me," Levy said, adding that the county attorney has said the resolution is not legal. "Regardless of what the legislature does, we think a dismissal vote is not supported by the charter. It violates the county charter."

The Public Safety Committee tabled the resolution at the April 22 meeting after the county attorney testified that the county charter does not give the legislature the power to do so, while the legislature's counsel disagreed. The resolution states that Section C23-9 of the charter does give the legislature the authorization to fire an appointed department head.

Cooper said he added a resolution to the agenda so that the county charter would be amended. The new resolution states that the charter authorizes the legislature to remove any appointed officer but that this "removal provision is not in harmony with other sections of the charter which state that various department heads serve at the pleasure of the County Executive after they are appointed and confirmed."

Because of this, the legislature determines that it's "necessary and prudent" to amend the charter to clarify the legislature's authority.

The legislature needs 12 votes to override a potential Levy veto.