Chief Eric Hawkins assured residents the Albany Police Department resources were being restructured not removed.

"My first message to the community is we are not reducing our commitment to community policing. We will maintain a neighborhood engagement unit, we will maintain beat officers, and in fact, this is going to increase the effectiveness of that unit," Hawkins said.

The department says around 19 officers are assigned 18 different locations in the city to patrol. Under the new plan, the same number of officers would now only have to patrol 10 locations.

Community organizer Danielle Hille feels the changes will dilute the effectiveness of community policing to vital areas.

"We didn't understand the map would so drastically change. The only department that was reduced was the neighborhood engagement unit which is our the flagship of community policing," Hille explained.

The police department says ongoing staffing shortages are forcing them to re-allocate officers to other areas, but it won't interfere with the department's community policing efforts.

"Those officers will be tasked with doing the exact same things with connections and service to the community that we had before," Hawkins said.

Over the past several weeks, Hawkins has addressed a number of policing issues through a series of community hosted forums. Organizers question why restructuring wasn't one of them.

"The fact that you were working on a restructuring of that unit and you did not think it was appropriate to come out and speak to the community, means you don't value our opinion," Hille said.

Hawkins said they had to quickly adapt to new demands of the department.

"It was unavoidable ... we have some staffing needs in training, traffic enforcement, regular patrol, and with the bail reform," Hawkins said.

The department says it will re-evaluate the changes in about six months. Community organizers want the department to halt restructuring until there is further input from residents.