Martin Luther King Day events on Long Island offer learning, service newsday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force is hosting a virtual question-and-answer session with members of the town police department Monday.
Cindy Clifford, the task force chair, said the Zoom event, which has been dubbed Synergy and is set for 7 p.m., will give community members the opportunity to ask questions and communicate with the police force.
“It’s not designed to be grilling them or putting them in a hot seat as much as it’s an opportunity to communicate everyone’s experiences and expectations,” she said. “The police … work hard, they’re sometimes in a difficult spot. And there’s a lot of misunderstandings that happen at times.”
Larry Street of Riverhead (center) and other Anti-Bias Task Force members at a 2018 event.
The Riverhead Anti-Bias Task Force plans to host implicit bias training sessions that would be open to public-facing town employees, as well as community members involved in local fire departments, ambulance and the school district.
Cindy Clifford, the task force chair, and Michelle Lynch, the vice chair, appeared virtually before the Riverhead Town Board at Thursday’s work session to request funding for the training session through the community benefit agreement with sPower solar. That agreement authorized in 2019 allotted $150,000 toward the advancement and promotion of an education and employment initiative, which is where the task force is seeking funds. There’s $135,000 remaining in that fund for education, officials said.