Part-time Woodstock police officer Phil Sinagra wants to be reinstated. He says the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did not substantiate complaints against him.
“It was my understanding that I was put out because of the EEOC,” Sinagra said on February 27. “The EEOC report came back: No determination. So why am I not being brought back to work? If there’s something else going on, I’m not aware of it because, again, nobody’s given me any communications from the town — so I’m kind of in the dark.”
Town supervisor Bill McKenna has said Sinagra was put on paid leave for reasons other than the investigation.
“I tried to reach out to Bill McKenna,” Sinagra said. “I left him phone messages. I tried texting him — even the day that he won the election, I texted him and congratulated and never got a response back. I texted him to find out where I stood. I never got anything back.”
That was when Sinagra decided last week he needed to reach out to the town board.
“I was a cop for 24 years full-time. There was never a situation where one side just shuts down and completely refuses to talk to you,” Sinagra said. He was hired as a part-time Woodstock officer in 2019. Prior to that, he was a full-time officer for the Cornwall Police Department for many years.
“Normally you try to resolve issues,” Sinagra said. “Good or bad, you still keep the line of communications open to resolve the issues. This has seemed too broken down here, and I don’t know why.”
McKenna said Sinagra had been informed.
“He should know why he was put on leave,” said McKenna, who added that the issues with the officer were still under investigation.
“I’ve always had a lot of respect for Bill McKenna,” Sinagra continued. “I still respect him as a town supervisor. I hope to go back one day and continue working there and be able to work comfortably with them. And I don’t have any animosity. I’ve learned a long time ago, sometimes jealous people will make allegations about other people.”
Sinagra said he has been waiting patiently “to allow the town to exercise what they needed to do. I now feel like I am being singled out and targeted at this point.”
In May 2023, four police officers and a former dispatcher filed EEOC complaints claiming a hostile work environment and a culture where sexually inappropriate comments by Sinagra and chief Clayton Keefe were tolerated.
A 2022 internal investigation conducted by McKenna with the aid of labor consultant Michael Richardson determined most of the complaints were unfounded, but that some corrective action was needed. Sinagra said he never received a counseling letter. Nor was any disciplinary action taken against him.
The five complainants, through their union attorney, were dissatisfied with the town’s handling of the complaints and requested the EEOC investigation.
Sinagra said he was in the middle of getting the Woodstock Police Department accredited by advocating for operational efficiency and procedural changes. He surmised that activity rubbed some people the wrong way. “Police officers don’t like change,” he said.
Sinagra refused to confirm or deny making the comments alleged to him in the EEOC complaints without the presence of his attorney. He said any arrangement where he parts ways with the department is out of the question.
“I wouldn’t agree to something there because in my mind, then you’re saying you’re guilty of something and I’m not. We are a 22-person police agency. There’s like five people that had an issue. One of them’s not even there, and she wasn’t a cop. She was a dispatcher,” said Sinagra. “I guess what I’m frustrated about is that everybody has a right to due process. Right, wrong and different, we all have a right to due process.”
Sinagra said he didn’t even know the conditions of his administrative leave.
“Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months,” Sinagra complained. “And here we are nine months later, and I’m in no different place than I was nine months ago. And I know no more than I knew nine months ago.”
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