155 - Discipline and charges.

§  155. Discipline and charges. Except as otherwise provided by law, a  member of  such  police  department  shall  continue  in  office  unless  suspended  or  dismissed  in  the  manner hereinafter provided. The town  board shall have the power and authority to adopt  and  make  rules  and  regulations    for   the   examination,   hearing,   investigation   and  determination of charges,  made  or  preferred  against  any  member  or  members  of such police department. Except as otherwise provided by law,  no  member  or  members  of  such  police  department  shall  be  fined,  reprimanded,  removed or dismissed until written charges shall have been  examined, heard and investigated in such manner or  by  such  procedure,  practice,  examination  and  investigation  as  the  board, by rules and  regulations from time to time, may prescribe. Such charges shall not  be  brought  more  than  sixty days after the time when the facts upon which  such charges are based are known to the town board. Any member  of  such  police  department  at  the time of the hearing or trial of such charges  shall have the right to a public hearing and trial and to be represented  by counsel; no person who shall have preferred such charges or any  part  of  the  same  shall sit as judge upon such hearing or trial.  Witnesses  upon the trial of such charges shall  testify  thereto  under  oath.  No  member  of  such  department  who  shall  have  been  dismissed shall be  reinstated unless he shall, within twelve months of his dismissal,  file  with  such  board  a  written application for a rehearing of the charges  upon which he was dismissed. Such board shall have the power  to  rehear  such charges and, in its discretion, may reinstate a member of the force  after he has filed such written application therefor.    Any  member  of  such department found guilty upon charges, after five  days' notice and an opportunity to be heard in his defense,  of  neglect  or  dereliction  in the performance of official duty, or of violation of  rules or regulations or disobedience,  or  of  incompetency  to  perform  official  duty,  or  of  an  act  of delinquency seriously affecting his  general character or fitness for office, may be  punished  by  the  town  board  having  jurisdiction, by reprimand, by forfeiture and withholding  of salary or compensation for a  specified  time  not  exceeding  twenty  days,  by  extra  tours  or  hours of duty during a specified period not  exceeding twenty days, by suspension from duty for a specified time  not  exceeding  twenty  days  and  the  withholding of salary or compensation  during such suspension, or by dismissal from the department. Such  board  shall  have  the  power  to  suspend,  without pay, pending the trial of  charges, any member of such police department. If  any  member  of  such  police  department so suspended shall not be convicted of the charges so  preferred, he shall be entitled to full pay from the date of suspension.  The conviction of a member of such police department by the  town  board  shall be subject to review by the supreme court in the judicial district  in  which  such  town  is  located  in  the  manner  provided by article  seventy-eight of the civil practice law and  rules,  provided  that  the  proceeding  is  commenced  within  thirty days from the determination of  such conviction by the town board.