From stepping off at Congress Park to the steps of City Hall, Black Lives Matter activists held a rally Sunday afternoon to put pressure on Saratoga officials to adopt their “50-point” plan for police reform.

April 1 is the state-mandated deadline for cities across New York to adopt and implement a police reform plan or risk losing state funding.

Rally organizer Chandler Hickenbottom says they’re focused on one of the plan's key points, which is forming a Civilian Complaint Review Board.

“We are hoping to make everyone aware about the 50-point plan that the police task force came up with,” said Hickenbottom, “which is giving the public an opportunity to have a voice and police the police."

They say having a CCRB would create transparency and accountability involving interactions between Saratoga police and the public.

At the height of the BLM movement last summer, Governor Andrew Cuomo responded with Executive Order 203, requiring local governments to submit an outline on how they would address racial bias in policing. But BLM activist Lexis Figuereo said the heavy lifting has been left up to community members and advocates like him to get the city to adopt real police reform.

“It was not organized and it didn’t have specific rules for every single thing, so the police task force had to come together and figure out how to do it best," said Figuereo, "seeing how this executive order was put together because of the community and the blood of George Floyd and many others."

The Saratoga Springs City Council will hold a special meeting on March 31 at 7 p.m. to vote on the city's police reform plan. To join the Zoom meeting, you can register on the city's website.