ALTAMONT — Two part-time officers were dismissed from the Altamont Police Department Tuesday as part of the new commissioner’s restructuring project.

After an executive session, the Altamont Village Board voted unanimously to take Peter Yakel and Richard Vanderbilt off the force.

Yakel and Vanderbilt have not been on duty for a long time and have not been available to fit into the department’s schedule, Public Safety Commissioner Anthony Salerno said.
"I feel it’s important that, in order to be a police officer, you have to work as a police officer," Salerno told The Enterprise.

Mayor James Gaughan told The Enterprise that the officers’ inactivity was the only reason for their dismissal.

Salerno, who works nights as an Albany Police investigator, was appointed Altamont’s commissioner in August after an examination of the department by a citizens’ committee. Residents had been complaining about excessive police presence in the village of 1,700, which is covered by the Guilderland Police Department, the Albany County Sheriff’s Department, and the State Police. The committee recommended keeping the department in the village, but was critical of a full-time commissioner that couldn’t make arrests and of so many part-time officers.

Subsequently, the commissioner, Robert Coleman, offered his resignation. Coleman was active in an officer’s training program, and the ranks of the village police swelled during his tenure.

When Salerno took over in the fall, three officers resigned and five others got letters from Salerno, stating that he couldn’t fit them into the future work schedule.
"We had too many officers when I came, and I felt it wasn’t appropriate," Salerno said on Wednesday.

Nine part-time officers remain in the department. Salerno said, usually, one officer is on duty plus himself. An officer is on duty at all times, he said. During peak times, like the during the Altamont Fair, held anually in August, Salerno said, more officers will be on duty.

The nine remaining officers are the ones who most want to be there, Salerno said.
"They’re committed," he said. "They want to work and they want to help people."

Salerno has also created a department mission statement and a standard operation policy, provided more training for his officers, and employs a mounted and a bicycle-riding officer.

The police department now has the capability to take the lead in any kind of investigation, including criminal investigations, Salerno said.
"That was my ultimate goal," he said. "We’re a full-service agency."

Altamont Police investigations have led to two high-profile arrests recently: one of three juveniles for stealing computers from Altamont Elementary School, and another of Thomas Stevens, of Altamont, for stealing his mother’s identity to make over $50,000 of credit-card purchases.
"This is the professional policing that comes from a well-trained, experienced force and that comes directly from the commissioner," Mayor Gaughan said.

The nine part-time members of the Altamont Police Department are: Matthew T. Hanzalki, Scott A. Mannarino, Maurice McCormick, Walter Pajak, Melanie Parkes, Todd Pucci, Patrick Thomas, Josh Davenport, and Kenneth Lebel Jr.

Thomas is the community-relations officer, and Pucci and Lebel are training officers. Parker sometimes patrols on a horse and Lebel on a bicycle.