NEW ROCHELLE, NY (June 2, 2026) — The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement has asked Talk of the Sound to correct reporting that described the organization as “conference-based” — but a review of NACOLE’s own website and documents suggests the characterization is accurate and is not contradicted by any public material the organization has published.
There will be no correction.
Talk of the Sound published an investigation into the New Rochelle Civilian Complaint Review Board in May 2026 finding, among other things, that NACOLE — named specifically in the New Rochelle city code as a required CCRB training provider — could not deliver two topics required by the ordinance: systemic racism in law enforcement and equity and inclusion. NACOLE Executive Director Cameron McEllhiney confirmed both findings in writing on June 2, 2026.
Despite those confirmations, McEllhiney disputed Talk of the Sound’s characterization of NACOLE as a “conference-based organization that does not deliver bespoke training to individual oversight boards,” writing that NACOLE “regularly provides training, technical assistance, consulting, and capacity-building services to civilian oversight agencies, municipalities, counties, and community stakeholders across the United States and internationally.”
A review of NACOLE’s own training pages does not support that characterization.
A First in 20 Years of New Rochelle Coverage
In more than 20 years of covering New Rochelle city government, Talk of the Sound has never seen a specific vendor, organization, or service provider named by name in a city ordinance. City codes specify requirements, standards, and qualifications. They do not name vendors. The New Rochelle CCRB ordinance, adopted October 15, 2024, names NACOLE specifically — by name, in the law itself.
The consequences of that decision cascaded through the entire CCRB implementation. No request for proposals was issued. No competitive process was conducted. No alternative providers were considered. NACOLE was locked in by statute before the board was even constituted. When NACOLE declined to cover two required curriculum topics, the city had no contractual remedy and took 365 days to find an alternative provider.
The question of who inserted NACOLE’s name into the legislation — and why — remains unanswered. Talk of the Sound has asked NACOLE, city officials, the consulting firm that developed the CCRB framework, and CCRB Chairperson Natasha Fapohunda. No answer has been received.
Who Is Cameron McEllhiney?
McEllhiney is NACOLE’s first and only Executive Director — a role that did not exist before her appointment. Her biography on the NACOLE website states she has been a member of NACOLE since 1998 and previously served as the organization’s Director of Training and Education, a role in which she “played a leading role in developing, coordinating, delivering, and evaluating local, national, and international training programs.”
In other words, McEllhiney is not an administrator unfamiliar with the training function. She is the person who built and ran NACOLE’s training programs before becoming Executive Director. Her claim that NACOLE “regularly provides” bespoke contracted training to individual oversight boards is not a misunderstanding. It is a claim made by the person who knows NACOLE’s training capacity better than anyone.
Her biography describes her training work as developing “local, national, and international training programs” — language consistent with conferences, events, and regional gatherings. It does not describe contracted compliance training delivered to individual oversight boards to fulfill statutory curriculum requirements.
McEllhiney is also a founding donor to NACOLE’s Annual Conference Scholarship Fund, established at the 2012 annual conference in San Diego.
What NACOLE’s Website Shows
NACOLE’s Training section lists seven offerings: Annual Conference, CPO Credential Program, Regional Training, Scholarship Program, Virtual Forums, Virtual Training Events, and Webinars.
https://www.nacole.org/training
The Virtual Training Events page states: “No virtual training events yet.”
The Webinars page states: “No events yet.”
The Academic Symposium link returns a page-not-found error.
The Annual Conference — a five-day national gathering scheduled for November 2026 in Louisville, Ky. — is the only fully active, populated training offering on the site.
The CPO Credential Program is a professional certification for individual oversight practitioners requiring attendance at NACOLE annual conferences and accumulation of training hours. It is not a contracted training service delivered to boards or jurisdictions.
The Regional Training Argument
The Regional Training page lists two past events — San Francisco in August 2025 and New York City in May 2025 — and no upcoming events. A protocol document linked on the same page, dated Oct. 26, 2025, states explicitly that regional meetings “were put on hold during and following the COVID pandemic” and that in 2025 NACOLE “once again began collaborating with oversight agencies and communities throughout the United States to revive them.”
New Rochelle wrote NACOLE into its city code in October 2024. At that moment, NACOLE’s regional training program had been dormant for years. The first post-COVID regional meeting did not occur until May 2025 — seven months after NACOLE was named in the New Rochelle ordinance. The protocol document governing how regional meetings work did not exist until Oct. 26, 2025 — more than a year after New Rochelle’s legislation was adopted.
NACOLE’s own protocol describes regional meetings as co-hosted conferences for audiences of no fewer than 100 people. The host organization secures the venue, funding, and speakers. NACOLE manages registration and approves topics. New Rochelle needed contracted compliance training delivered to seven specific board members to fulfill specific statutory curriculum requirements.
The New Rochelle Engagement
The New Rochelle engagement required a year of contracting delays before a single session took place. The delays were caused in significant part by insurance requirements the city imposed — general liability, errors and omissions, workers’ compensation, and disability coverage. An organization that regularly delivers contracted training to individual boards would be expected to carry standard commercial insurance as a matter of course.
The training was delivered virtually — not in person — across three sessions on March 16, March 25, and April 8, 2026. It totaled nine hours, 45 minutes short of the 9.75 hours required by the city code. The shortfall has not been acknowledged by the city or NACOLE. NACOLE’s contract included up to 10 hours of post-training technical assistance that was never used.
McEllhiney confirmed in her June 2 response that the two excluded topics fall outside NACOLE’s standard curriculum and that NACOLE communicated its curriculum limitations to the city before contracting.
The Correction Request
McEllhiney’s correction request arrived June 1 — two weeks after Talk of the Sound sent 18 follow-up questions on May 18 and May 22, several of which went directly to the question of NACOLE’s training model. Her June 2 response addressed three of those 18 questions. Fifteen remain unanswered, including whether NACOLE had any prior relationship with any member of the New Rochelle Community-Police Partnership Board or any city official involved in developing the legislation.
McEllhiney concluded her June 2 response by stating she looked ‘forward to reviewing any updated language before publication.’ Talk of the Sound does not submit copy to subjects of its reporting for pre-publication review.
Fifteen of Talk of the Sound’s 18 questions to NACOLE remain unanswered. This story will be updated as responses are received.
This article was prepared with the assistance of AI tools under the direction and editing of Robert Cox.
Have information about this story? Email robertcox@talkofthesound.com (preferred) or contact via WhatsApp: +353 089 972 0669.