Gloversville police chief to retire at year’s end
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The Gloversville police chief will be leaving his job, but not until the end of the year.
This news comes from the mayor after their lengthy common council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 27.
13 Investigates has been hearing for more than a week now that Mayor Vincent DeSantis asked the chief, Anthony Clay, to resign after our series on the opioid crisis in Gloversville.
The mayor and an attorney for the city, Bryan Goldberger, said the chief is retiring and it was the chief’s idea.
Our story, that showed you body camera footage of an overdose happening, got everyone talking about the riff between Mayor DeSantis and Chief Clay.
The Gloversville City Council will hold a much-anticipated meeting. This is a regularly scheduled meeting, but it’s expected to get heated.
It’s been nearly three weeks since Chief Clay allowed our team to take a shockingly close look at the city’s problems.
Our series, and the timing of the announcement about the chief, is nothing but a coincidence, according to Mayor DeSantis.
“His outreach to the community has been exemplary. The fact that I was not happy with the presentation WNYT [NewsChannel 13] did doesn’t have anything to do with my relationship with Chief Clay,” the mayor said.
However, it seemed from the public comment, residents were not buying it.
“We don’t have any other problems than any other city in this country has at this time. None. It is just that we had somebody say, ‘hey guess what? It is here and we got to fight it,” Benjamin Robb said, a resident of Gloversville. “I don’t think they want to. I just do not think they want to. At least their actions show that they don’t. It just pisses me off.”
“This is something where people are coming in and selling drugs in this community, and people are dying,” Matthew Trainor said, a Gloversville resident. “The more the citizens know about it, the more they can be on the lookout and help people who are stuck like that.”
But why did it take so long for the mayor to give a clear answer about the chief’s position?
“Well you know, he did a lot of soul searching. He has been expressing even before this his idea that he’d like to retire. It’s a tough job being the chief,” Mayor DeSantis said.
The mayor says he is completely fine with NewsChannel 13 speaking to Chief Clay.
We have a call out to the chief, but we have not heard back yet.