Three cheers for the first publication of FOIL requests by the public of the City of Beacon. We have been asking questions, and getting a lot of “Please submit a FOIL” type answers, and noted that the FOIL requests that were casually promised to be on the website, were in fact not there one month later. On a Friday evening, after we published this article wondering where they were, the first batch has been published! Under a tiny link on the City Clerk’s web page. Coincidence? Perhaps. Was this on a Friday afternoon agenda? Maybe.

Meanwhile, there have been 2 sets of FOIL requests published so far in the 8/21/2020 batch:

“FOIL Request: A list of all officers or administrators who have been employed by your department at any point since the start of 2010”

2010 was the last year of the Federal Investigation of the Beacon Police Department. Oversight by the Federal Government remained active until 2016. You can hear Mayor Lee Kyriacou recount those early days here on the “Wait, What Is That?” podcast.

A list of 34 officers has been published here.

“FOIL Request: The name of any probationary police officer who quit or was fired during their probationary period since Jan. 1, 2010, and any documentation reflecting that separation from service.”

A list of names was provided. Documentation for two of the names was provided. One letter of resignation was from Trooper Katelyn Ruffolo, who resigned in January 4, 2018 to went on to work for the New York State Police.

Officer Ryan Murphy was the second resignation letter provided with the FOIL. Ryan resigned on March 6, 2020, and had been hired in January 2020, as reported by the Poughkeepsie Journal. Ryan is a Red Hook High School graduate. He was hired along with two other officers during the time when Newburgh laid off 15 police officers and 14 firefighters (Beacon hired one officer from that round of layoffs - Michael J. Connor).

Former Beacon Police Chief at the time Kevin Junjulas said: “he would have hired as many Newburgh officers as possible, but the Dutchess County civil service exam has different requirements from the Orange County civil service exam, making it impossible for officers to transfer unless they previously took the exam.” This is an important note to remember as we discuss Civil Service rules and how they define a job, and make hiring, firing and demoting possible and even easy.

To learn how to submit a FOIL to get information that is otherwise denied to you after a simple email request, click here.

Beaconites don’t usually hear about resignations of officers during public City Council Meetings. These may be discussed during the Executive Session portion of the meeting, which happens after the public portion.