NORTHAMPTON — City councilors are discussing whether Northampton should periodically reassess its agreement with a regional police task force after officers in masks and unmarked vehicles have been mistaken for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

During the council’s discussion of a motion to reauthorize a municipal agreement with the Northwestern Anti-Crime Task Force, Wednesday night, Ward 6 City Councilor Christopher Stratton raised concerns about the city’s agreement with the regional collaborative, which unites police from 16 municipal departments across Franklin and Hampshire counties. He noted that the city’s agreement with the task force has no expiration.

“The district attorney’s office and various local police departments have somewhat of a habit of operating in blacked-out vehicles with face coverings that make them commonly mistaken for ICE,” Stratton said. “It’s interesting to learn that this agreement has no end date, so we’re not periodically re-evaluating it, and maybe that’s something we should be thinking about at some point.”

Stratton further clarified that in many of the situations in which Northampton residents report ICE officials in their neighborhood, they are, in fact, referring to task force officers who “visually look the same,” noting that the public should be able to distinguish between “local law enforcement effort and a federal overreach.”

At-Large Councilor Meg Robbins echoed Stratton’s remarks, specifically mentioning an instance last summer in which false reports of ICE agents at the intersection of State and Main streets circulated on social media but turned out to be masked task force officers.

“It was upsetting for people on Main Street to be seeing folks in blacked-out windows and folks in masks,” Robbins said. “[This] is worth a conversation.”

In an interview Thursday morning, Robbins clarified that she has since seen what she presumes to be all-black and unmarked task force vehicles parked outside the Hampshire County Courthouse.

Alan Wolf, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra’s chief of staff, explained at the meeting that the situation Robbins referenced occurred after task force members pulled over a vehicle that was believed to have been throwing trash out of the window.

He said the DA’s office later clarified the incident in a written statement sent to the city and the general public, noting that many of the narcotics officers assigned to the Anti-Crime Task Force often wear masks to protect their identities when they are not working undercover.

“This was related to a time when we were really doing a stepped-up law enforcement effort in Pulaski Park because there was a lot of drug activity and there were a bunch of arrests that came from that,” Wolf said. “It definitely made people nervous when these guys who were doing it, because they did not want to be identified as undercover agents … people, because of the very heightened nervousness about ICE, reacted to that.”

The letter sent from the DA’s office last summer explained that law enforcement assigned to the task force can, at their own discretion, wear masks during police operations — provided that the masks identify them as law enforcement.

Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan also clarified that the Anti-Crime Task Force does not “assist or collaborate with ICE on any form of immigration enforcement.” Still, he wrote that he had directed the regional task force to use masks sparingly.

“Members of our police departments are meant to protect and serve the public by investigating and arresting those who engage in crime, and also by walking the beat and connecting with the community,” Sullivan said in last year’s letter. “Toward that end, I’ve directed all members of the Northwestern Anti-Crime Task Force to use facial coverings sparingly, so as not to alarm the public or sow distrust of law enforcement.”

Ward 3 City Councilor Laurie Loisel, who formerly worked as a DA spokesperson, said in an interview Thursday that she would have to learn more about the task force’s current actions in Northampton before she could formulate an opinion on whether to periodically review the city’s agreement.

“I don’t think that any police should wear masks, but that’s not my call to make,” Loisel said.

The DA’s current spokesperson, Melissa Sippel, could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

While councilors expressed varying opinions on whether to require reauthorization of the municipal agreement with the Northwestern Anti-Crime Task Force, no formal action was taken.