3:27
The legal bills to taxpayers are adding up in the fight between the City Council and the mayor over who should run the police department in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The city has paid out just under $60,000,so far, to a Worcester law firm to represent Mayor Domenic Sarno, who has vowed to appeal a judge’s ruling that a City Council approved ordinance creating a five-member Board of Police Commissioners is “valid and enforceable.”
Asked about the expense, Sarno declined to comment.
City Solicitor Ed Pikula said the city’s Law Department could not participate in a case that pits one branch of city government against the other, so an outside counsel had to be hired. The attorneys representing the City Council are not charging for their work.
Police OT under scrutiny in Holyoke
A Holyoke police supervisor responds to a call on Sargeant Street on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING
Holyoke police respond to a call in the 100 block of Suffolk Street on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING
Holyoke Police station on Appleton Street, photographed on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING
Holyoke Police cars parked at the William S. Taupier Municipal Parking Garage on Division Street on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING
Holyoke Police cars parked at the William S. Taupier Municipal Parking Garage on Division Street on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. STAFF PHOTO/KEVIN GUTTING
Meriden leaders to review recent gunfire incidentsÂ
Meriden leaders to review recent gunfire incidentsÂ
May 06, 2021 05:43PM By Nick Sambides Jr., Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN â Gunfire hit a Harrison Street apartment building for the second straight night on Tuesday, the fourth time in two days that city houses were struck by bullets, and city officials are starting to worry.
Police found eight bullet holes in a building and several spent shell casings in a parking lot at 27 Harrison St. after a 911 caller reported the incident at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday An apartment at the three-story apartment building was also hit by gunfire at about 8:05 p.m. on Monday while a family was inside.
Residents Demand Police Reform, Point To Racial Disparities In Watertown Arrests
Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin, from the group Watertown Citizes for Peace, Justice and the Environment, is working to open up lines of communication between the Watertown Police Department and city residents.
Marilyn Schairer / GBH News
Watertown Police | May 6, 2021
Watertown residents are demanding that local police be more accountable and transparent after public record requests revealed that Black residents are arrested at a rate five to six times higher than white residents.
Nearly 200 people attended a contentious virtual meeting of the Town Council’s Public Safety Committee late last month, when members of the Watertown Citizens for Black Lives group presented data and proposed several anti-racism initiatives they would like to see implemented within the department.
Meriden leaders to review recent gunfire incidentsÂ
Meriden leaders to review recent gunfire incidentsÂ
May 06, 2021 05:43PM By Nick Sambides Jr., Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN â Gunfire hit a Harrison Street apartment building for the second straight night on Tuesday, the fourth time in two days that city houses were struck by bullets, and city officials are starting to worry.
Police found eight bullet holes in a building and several spent shell casings in a parking lot at 27 Harrison St. after a 911 caller reported the incident at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday An apartment at the three-story apartment building was also hit by gunfire at about 8:05 p.m. on Monday while a family was inside.