Bad To Worse

Memorial Day weekend is less than two months away, and Southampton Village still doesn’t have a permanent police chief — or a police captain, for that matter.

The department has been without a top cop since September 2021, when Chief Tom Cummings retired, something he didn’t want to do. Though the department hasn’t been rudderless — Lieutenant Sue Hurteau has steered the ship on an interim basis as acting police chief — the cloud of uncertainty has hung over the Village Justice Center for far too long.

Mayor Jesse Warren says he shares in the frustration that the village has yet to install a new chief. In explaining away the delay, Warren shifts the blame to Suffolk County Civil Service for the long time it takes the agency to administer and grade a chief’s exam.

But the blame is not fairly placed on Civil Service, as bureaucratic as the agency may be. Municipal leaders know — or at least they should know — that replacing department heads is a lengthy process. Good leaders think ahead and prepare for smooth transitions.

Warren chose instead to all but carry the chief out of office, giving Cummings a choice between signing a separation agreement or having his benefits stripped away. It was no choice at all, and Cummings signed that agreement in July 2021. It was a fiscal decision most people would have made happily, and one few will get the chance to.

Cummings can be described as a steady hand who led the department without controversy. There was no urgent reason for the mayor to remove him. Cummings would not compromise his values in order to meet Warren’s demands for absolute subordination. Other village employees, it seems, might have faced the same choice.

Concern is growing among rank-and-file police officers and community members alike that Southampton Village could enter one of its busiest summers in history without a police chief. This situation could have been avoided if the mayor and Village Board had compromised with Cummings, granting him one last contract and providing the village time to vet candidates, get back Civil Service exam results, and have that aforementioned smooth transition.

Warren has long complained that Cummings’s contract was too generous with taxpayers’ money; even if that’s true, the taxpayers could have afforded another year or two with him at the helm. What they can’t afford is a destabilized police department at the height of summer. Even if a permanent chief is named tomorrow, there is no time left for a new chief to get up to speed before the season starts.

The best hope for the department and the village now is to appoint a chief who knows the village and the people who make it special. Bringing in an outside person now could take the situation from bad to worse.