PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

Monday, April 14, 2025 - 9:30 AM

Kenneth Hughes, Chairperson

Ike Tyler, Vice-Chairperson

Chairman Hughes called this Public Safety Committee to order at 9:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Matthew Brassard, Chris Clark, Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Kenneth Hughes, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Matthew Stanley, Davina Thurston, Michael Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Meg Wood and Mark Wright. Favor Smith was excused.

Department Heads present: James Dougan, Judy Garrison, Roy Holzer, Mary McGowan, Mike Mascarenas, David Reynolds, Matt Watts, Dan Woods and Heather Sheehan. Miriam Hadden was excused.

Also present: Michael Langey, Josh Favro, William Tansey, Michael Watts, Eric Weyand and Roger Allen.

HUGHES: Good morning everybody I’d like to call this public safety committee meeting to order. Would you please rise to salute the flag. We will start with the Veteran’s office. Is Mr. McNally here? I don’t see or hear him so we are going to move onto the County Sealer, Mr. Woods. Good morning. Mr. McNally, was there a Veteran’s office report?

MCNALLY: No report this month.

HUGHES: Okay, thank you. Judy, no report from the Veteran’s office. Mr. Woods, how are you doing?

WOODS: I am good sir, how are you?

HUGHES: Good. What have you got for us?

WOODS: If everybody turns to the second page of their packets you will see my report. Anyone has any questions I’d be happy to answer.

HUGHES: I have a question. Do we ever advertise what your findings are on social media or anywhere out for the public? No? Okay.

MASCARENAS: Others do.

HUGHES: Other who?

MASCARENAS: Not for Veterans but DSS if we were to find somebody of guilty of DSS fraud we’ll put you in the newspaper and all those fun things as a tool to deter people from trying to fraud the government. If that’s what you’re looking for some kind of deterrent?

HUGHES: Yeah, I bring it up because I mean you do a lot of good work and you inform us of what’s going on but I think it probably just dies here with that information. Maybe I’m wrong and I know that people that shop at Dollar Generals in the world are generally of a social economic class where they really can’t afford to be ripped off and that’s unfair to them and you’re doing good work to kind of counter that and I’m just wondering if it’s worthwhile in any way, shape or form to educate the public of your findings just for the facts. No bent or bias out of the way just here are the facts. Just a thought on my end.

MASCARENAS: Yeah and we can help you with that in terms of getting something out on our primary Facebook page.

HUGHES: I’m not looking to make more work just looking to take what you do and –

MASCARENAS: He does an annual report at the end of the year that is pretty comprehensive.

REUSSER: It’s a public service not only does it inform people of getting ripped off it also is a deterrent to the companies that are doing the work.

HUGHES: Checks and balance.

DELORIA: I’m still not a Facebook user okay so you said public Facebook maybe on the website for people like me.

MASCARENAS: Yeah anything we do now we have multiple platforms to publish that information yes, absolutely.

WOODS: I want to make sure running it by everybody else that when information is put out afterwards even though they have paid these fines and accepted the fines it’s not an admit ion of guilt so is there a fine line between putting the information out and considered slander because it is not admit ion of guilt this is an inspection that was done by an official but not – I don’t want to step on any toes.

HUGHES: It’s a good point.

THURSTON: I have something to add to that. So for example looking at the 18 package checks for Price Chopper in Lake Placid so, for example some of those package checks may have been cereal from General Mills that were underweight in the box now is Price Chopper expected to weigh every box of cereal that they put on their shelves to verify that it’s 10 ounces of cereal before they put it on their shelf? I think the answer is clearly no so if you’re putting Price Chopper had 180 underweight items that’s actually not correct. General Mills had 26 underweight items, Kellogg’s had, do you know what I’m trying to say? So I think that what he is saying about they are not admitting they are guilty of it they are selling the product so Kellogg’s is guilty of it, General Mills is guilty of it not Price Chopper per say.

WOODS: Package checking and pricing accuracy are a lot different. One is based on more of guilt of the party that sent the product there a lot of stuff is packaged in house with Price Chopper, Hannaford, Walmart any big bakeries that’s their own doing and that’s the store’s fault itself but you’re correct that it is sometimes the distributor that is the one at fault when you fall into pricing accuracies which is more your Dollar General or Family Dollar finds all of that is in house just comparing prices with the sticker price to what their customer is being charged so they are picking up an item that says $5.00 on the shelf and they get up to the register and they are being charged $10.00.

THURSTON: Right that’s also part of being under staffed right? I mean, clearly we have under staffing throughout the entire county so you know I think we have to be careful.

HUGHES: I agree.

DELORIA: We have to err on the side of caution here because I’ve always relied on FOIL you want it, FOIL it you know what I’m saying? I think I mean you can provide information to the public so that you’re being transparent on what you’re doing or been hired as one of your duties as municipal government however you always have to in this particular matter and what Dan is saying we want to cautious here.

HUGHES: Fair points thank you. Any other comments for this discussion or for Dan? Dan, thanks a lot have a great day. Board of Elections – Mary McGowan and Roy Holzer

HOLZER: Good morning everyone. In your packets Mary and I worked on a monthly report we are going to be starting every month we hope to have a little statistical breakdown of what the Board of Elections is doing and working on. Real briefly, Mary and I prepared a little update as well. We processed a total of 119 designating petitions recently. Speaking to social media we have a Facebook page for Board of Elections and every day we do wrap up and our average views were 3599 views so people are checking on our page sharing the information.

Reminder, you can start circulating your independent petitions tomorrow. Filing dates start May 20^th also Mary and I are attending the Essex County Job Fair on May 8^th representing the Board of Elections as we need more election inspectors throughout the county and I will turn it over to Mary.

MCGOWAN: And at the job fair we will also work on getting more interested voters especially younger ones. There is no special election for the congressional race as you all know and the good news is that we’re on budget still on track and that has not changed. We are also hosting the summer conference in August in Lake Placid. We are the host county for that. Primaries there are few towns that will have primaries not all 18 in Essex County – Elizabethtown, North Hudson, Ticonderoga, Willsboro and Wilmington at this point and then our little public safety newsletter piece that we are giving you now. The top part is all our daily activities which are done every day checking voter registrations and addresses and mail processing obviously those things. Other activities they will change month to month depending on how far long we are in the election process and then the election preparation is listed towards the bottom that’s where we get the busiest so our next big thing is the primary for the independent petitions that will be coming out.

DOTY: Mary, in situations where a town might have a need where petitions are filed for referendum type situations could your office give to me an estimate of the costs to run in a special election?

MCGOWAN: We could figure that out for you, for your town yes.

HOLZER: Were you talking about a special election or just having a referendum on the ballot in November?

DOTY: I can’t actually answer that because I think it’s an option where we could have a special election prior to November because of an urgency situation or just the back page of a ballot. I realize when we went through cannabis votes that was the last time referendums were put in front of us challenging from petitions. I’m looking at the same situation right now for a different matter but just wondering what the cost of a special elections would be and I realize it’s different if we wait until November but it may not be an option.

HOLZER: Well, we can find that out for you. We do have a set procedure too like if you any of your towns are getting ready to put a referendum on the ballot in November like changing terms of office or any other legal issues we have a whole packet that takes you step by step, creating your local law, having your town attorney check it out they are always subject to a mandatory referendum when you’re talking about term changes and things like that but we have a whole packet that we can provide you.

DOTY: That will serve for now that way you don’t have to do extra work. I’ll stop and get that. Thank you.

HUGHES: What’s the summer conference that was mentioned?

MCGOWAN: It is statewide election Commissioners Association Conference. There’s one every winter and every summer. Lake Placid was chosen as the site for the summer. It’s in August the 26^th through the 29^th somewhere in there.

HUGHES: Thank you.

STANLEY: I just wanted to throw out there again especially for you Mr. Holzer since you’re new. There is a public outcry for a second polling location in the Town of Jay. I know it’s always come down to having enough polling workers but I just wanted to get it on the record so we are looking to have one and if there is some way we can help encourage more polling officers I would definitely like to work with you guys to open that second location.

HOLZER: It is noted and Mary mentioned that when we were going through different polling sites that that’s your wish to go back to two spots. So we are definitely looking for more inspectors.

STANLEY: Thank you.

HUGHES: You guys have a resolution?

HOLZER: We do. We are looking for resolution to change our hours in the Board of Elections during the summer months. You have the resolution there I believe.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ESSEX COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS TO CHANGE THE HOURS OF OPERATION TO BE OPEN FROM 8:00 A.M. TO 4:00 P.M. BEGINNING MAY 12, 2025 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 15, 2025. Stanley, Tyler

HUGHES: Discussion? All in favor aye, opposed – carried. Anything else this morning for us?

MCGOWAN: That’s it.

HUGHES: Keep up the great work. Thank you very much. District Attorney’s office. Good morning.

LANGEY: Good morning everyone. I do have a resolution I am requesting for Advent e-Learning. They are the company that handled part of our traffic reduction program. The resolution, which you should have is to approve a contract paying Advent and annual fee of $1200.00, to accommodate their costs for additional infrastructure costs, it says future enhancements and necessary security to continue their service with the county. If you don’t remember, Advent e-Learning was a website that the county now uses to process some of the traffic tickets that are written in the county. Last year it looks like the county received $53,875 through this program and the same exact amount was split between the local towns they also received $53,875 depending on how many tickets were processed to their town through Advent e-Learning. The initial year of this contract was no cost to us and the second year came around the free ride I guess was over so now it’s a $1200 ask for them to keep doing this. Cost wise, it seems like $1200 is worth a $120,000 so I would recommend you go through with this contract at this point. Hopefully there’s not an annual raise of $1200 every year. If there is maybe we would look into different companies to deal with but I think the carrot in the beginning was we are not going to charge anything come with us, and now it’s $1200 which given the amount of money the county and towns earn is reasonable at this point. Are there any questions?

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER EXECUTE A ONE-YEAR CONTRACT WITH ADVENT e-LEARNING DIVERSION/TRAFFIC REDUCTION PROGRAM IN DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN THE AMOUNT OF $1200.00, FOR ADDITIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS, FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS AND NECESSARY SECURITY WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Tyler, DeLoria

HUGHES: Questions, concerns? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried. Anything else?

GILLILLAND: As you know, the budget is being held up in Albany over Discovery.

LANGEY: Yes.

GILLILLAND: Do we have issues in your office either with having dropped cases or with staff being able to keep up with Discovery requirements and the second part of the question is a number years ago I was at NYSAC and I think the Nassau County DA gave a presentation and discussed the ballooning costs of massive amounts of data storage you are required for filing, amount of years for any case including all digital discovery issues. Is that an issue for us as well?

LANGEY: The storage is not yet. We’re okay with the storage. As far as the volume it’s an issue. It’s a challenge to keep up. It’s a challenge, we have to go back and check and make sure every department that was there gives us what they are supposed to. For example, if the State Police arrest somebody and there’s six police officers there, three of them were just standing there, had nothing to do with the case, they didn’t arrest anyone, if they don’t give us their body camera because something may have been in the background that could be an issue that results in dismissal or results in evidence being suppressed so it’s not just, I think the holdup is they are trying to make sure that we are having to turn over relevant evidence that matters to the outcome of the case not – there was a form that somebody filled out that has nothing to do with the outcome of the case or the evidence but since that form was not turned over and you said you gave us everting now you’re violating the Discovery Law that’s the main burden is it’s a burden to get things that were never turned over before that really have no effect on the case but it’s a form or it’s five people had a camera, we didn’t know there was a sixth person in the background, somebody finds that out and they say well, you told us you gave us everything you didn’t give us the sixth person because that person didn’t dock their camera at the end of the day. Those are types of issues we are dealing with on thousands of cases a year so every single case there’s always that what did we get, you didn’t give us the total report for a car that got towed so it is an extreme burden to get them every piece of paper even if it didn’t matter and then it’s up to the Judge whether or not to should the case be dismissed, should there be a sanction, those are things that I think are holding up the deal they want it to be narrower, they want it to be more things relevant to the case that will actually effect the outcome of the case and things that don’t affect the outcome of a case they want to decrease our burden of turning that over and if you don’t, there shouldn’t be such a big sanction for not doing it. I think that’s the main reason for the holdup but as far as do we have enough storage now? We do. Video cameras take up a lot of storage so that’s probably going to be a problem in the future.

GILLILLAND: I guess to follow under that is if there is no changes in the Discovery Law come years you will probably come to the board asking for more people to be able to handle the workload?

LANGEY: Correct and we’ll have to have a serve with a greater capacity that’s going to happen. We are only three years into this all officers having video cameras on them but if we have to save that a video takes up a lot of storage so it’s going to go up because the more years we do this the more we are going to have to keep.

GILLILLAND: Thank you.

HUGHES: Thank you. Any more questions for Mr. Langey? Thank you very much. Moving onto Emergency Services. Mr. Watts, good morning.

WATTS: Good morning. Does anybody have any questions on the report that we submitted? Alright, I’ll move into resolutions then. Authorizing to go out to bid for a new and refurbished shelter for Terry Mountain Site with funds to come from our SICG 2022 grant funds. The building that is currently up there that has our radio equipment is in very, very bad shape. The roof leaks. We’ve got tarps on it, we’ve done a lot just trying to mitigate the problem but it’s very deteriorating.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO GO OUT TO BID FOR A NEW AND REFURBISHED SHELTER FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES RADIO EQUIPMENT AT THE TERRY MOUNTAIN TOWER SITE WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM SICG 2022 GRANT FUNDS. Stanley, Doty

HUGHES: Questions, concerns? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried.

WATTS: Authorization to go out to bid for tree trimming and pole maintenance for the Terry Mountain Tower site with funds to come from SICG 2022 grant funds. The power line that goes up through there every year we get nailed two or three times in the winter of spending $10,000 to fix the line because the trees come down so we need somebody to go up and do that and there’s a couple of poles that the bears have pretty much chewed through half of it.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO GO OUT TO BID FOR TREE TRIMMING AND POLE MAINTENANCE AT THE TERRY MOUNTAIN TOWER SITE WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM SICG 2022 GRANT FUNDS. Stanley, Wright

HUGHES: Discussion? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried.

WATTS: A resolution recognizing national EMS week on May 18-25^th.

RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING NATIONAL EMS WEEK MAY 18-25, 2025. Tyler, DeLoria

HUGHES: Questions, concerns? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried.

WATTS: And I have a couple others that didn’t get on the agenda. One is for T-Mobile to conduct a structural analysis of an existing tower and antenna system at Belfry Mountain site in Moriah. They are looking to rent space from us and we want to do an analysis up there to make sure it doesn’t interfere with anything we are doing.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING T- MOBILE TO CONDUCT A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF AN EXISTING TOWER AND ANTENNA SYSTEM AT THE BELFRY MOUNTAIN TOWER SITE. Wright, Stanley

HUGHES: Questions, concerns?

STANLEY: Should we be the ones paying for the analysis on the pole? I know we tried to get our highway radio antenna on the Verizon pole on Paleface Mountain and we were going to start with a $25,000 service fee should that be passed to T-Mobile?

WATTS: We talked about that and basically what we came up with is we would have them do it and then we would have our own people review their findings.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, so we do pass that cost onto the individuals that are doing the survey but I also wanted an independent reviewer verify that what their people say is true because it could impact us long term in terms of any expansion we want to do or any other service that’s provided so it’s more of a checks and balances thing on our part to ensure what consultants is putting in front of us can be verified to be accurate.

MONTY: We will actually recoup revenue for that? Monthly rent in putting that antenna on our tower so really we are going to get the money back eventually so I agree.

HUGHES: Any other questions?

STANLEY: I don’t want to belabor the point because we need better cell service in Essex County whoever, I’m all for it I just want to make sure we are all getting what we should be getting.

WATTS: Yes.

HUGHES: Good points made. Any other questions, comments, concerns on this resolution? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried. Anything else?

WATTS: Yes. One other one that we brought to the EMS subcommittee this morning it was resolution authorizing our department to institute an on call program to incentivize EMS participation at local fire and EMS agencies.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE EMERGENCY SERVICES DEPARTMENT TO INSTITUTE AN ON CALL PROGRAM TO INCENTIVIZE EMS PARTICIPATION AT LOCAL AND FIRE EMS AGENCIES. Stanley, Wright

HUGHES: Discussion? Any questions? Being none, all in favor aye, opposed – carried.

MONTY: Matt, I want to thank you for you mentioned the active shooter training that was conducted on Friday. It was very good. Very eye opening a lot of good things came out of it for everyone for responders as well as employees but one thing that stood out to me that I think you really, really, really need to do is make sure our evacuation plans are current. There’s been a lot of renovations and a lot of things have happened in the last 25 years that when they were looking at their evacuation plans they walked into an area where the plans did not match the rooms in that area. That can’t be.

WATTS: It shouldn’t. I actually talked to Seth about that after.

MONTY: That’s something that’s got to be taken care of everywhere within here but other than that I thought it was a great event and I hope we do it again maybe even annually. Thank you.

WATTS: Thank you.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, I’ve been here 25 years that’s probably the single most powerful drill I’ve ever been a part of. I had the unique opportunity to watch it from afar and see every aspect of it. I know Sheriff got to see it from the advantage point I got to see it as well and to see the reaction of the staff to the reaction then of law enforcement to the reaction then of our EMS community was really awesome. It was a great day to learn in Essex County and we will certainly from our standpoint be coming back to the board with recommendations to improve our security here but I think the bigger thing was giving our law enforcement community and our EMS professionals really this was a drill for all of Essex County while they responded here this was a drill for being able to respond anywhere and giving them that practice that they rarely get to see all those agencies working together. We had people from the DEC. We had people from Lake Placid, people from I believe Ti PD, we had our Sheriff’s department here, the State Police, the Fire Arms instructors just on so many different levels people didn’t see the amount of work that went into this and building up to what happened and the work that is going to continue after and for our employees that went as far and signed that waiver without them doing that and allowing us to do that drill it was absolutely unbelievable. The de briefing was awesome. We learned a lot from that and our people seemed to really enjoy it. I didn’t participate in the police debriefing. I’m guessing that was a little bit different in terms of how that went but really cool. They did a real professional job. I can’t thank the State Police and DSHS enough for assisting us and just the overall reaction was second to none. It was awesome and Mr. Monty attended as a board representative. I thank him for coming so when I’m making the argument to improve security I had somebody there first hand seeing what happens so thank you for coming.

MONTY: My pleasure.

HUGHES: I’m very sorry I missed it but it sounds like the coordination was exemplary. Great. Speaking of the Sheriff’s office, Mr. Reynolds.

SHERIFF REYNOLDS: So you have my report. If you have any questions on that I can answer any. One thing you’ll notice is our numbers are starting to pick up a little bit so we are being a little bit more active. We just hired a few new deputies that are going to be going to police school soon and our corrections staff we are almost staffed so it will be the first time in seven years that I’ve been Sheriff that we are going to be fully staffed so that’s partial credit to the board and to Mike for working with us with the financial stuff but also we are getting a bunch of applications from State CO’s that are sick of the situation they were put in there so it benefits us. So if you have any questions on my report I can answer?

HUGHES: Any questions for Sheriff Reynolds this morning? Good news.

SHERIFF REYNOLDS: One thing the Chairman brought up was the Discovery costs for the DA’s office. It goes to every police agency too because his office does an excellent job of when the State Police arrest somebody or we arrest somebody they watch the video and if they see another agency involved they reach out to us when the state police arrest somebody we may have somebody in the periphery that we didn’t even as a supervisor when we review stuff they don’t recognize that they are involved in the case they reach out to us we have to administratively go through this, make the copies, get everything for the DA’s office so it’s a lot of work on everybody’s part. We have the staff to do it it’s just taking a while from the patrol part and more administrative that our supervisors are doing.

The active shooter training you guys talked about it but the encouraging part for me is when the police arrived. When they heard the gun shots they went right to it. There was no hesitation. Tactically there’s some things we can work on but you’re working with a bunch of different agencies, new people and this building you know I’ve been here 25, 26 years I’m kind of familiar with it and I was chasing people around and watching everything that was happening this is a complicated building to protect so Mike and the board and whoever is involved have their work cut out for them to figure out how to protect this building without putting 20 armed guards around it because it’s going to be a complicated process.

The other thing I wanted to touch on is we just had a crisis intervention training. Three of our deputies went through so that brings us up to seven deputies that are now more skilled in dealing with our mental health crisis that are happening. They graduated on Friday during the drill. That afternoon as one was coming back there was an incident over at Stewarts and our officer used her skills, dealt with it, a mental health professional actually showed up and said I don’t need to do anything here you’ve got this under control so I just want to point out that we are trying to address all the drug issues that are going on but the mental health crisis that we are facing in Essex County, and New York and the United States is enormous.

HUGHES: Sheriff was that crisis training done in house or was that done elsewhere?

SHERIFF REYNOLDS: So one of the instructors was one of our people but it was done up in Saranac Lake with State Police, Saranac Lake PD, and Plattsburgh PD I maybe forgetting some.

HUGHES: Thank you very much. Any questions for the Sheriff this morning? Thank you. Coroners, anybody from coroners here? I will move onto Probation.

SHEEHAN: Good morning everyone. You have my report and I am happy to answer any questions you may have regarding that.

HUGHES: Questions for Heather or Probation this morning?

SHEEHAN: I also just wanted to share that we have the privilege to share hosting our annual New York State Commission of Probation Administrators in the beautiful Saranac Lake so I’m in the process of putting together a welcome packet for that. So at the end of June Probation Directors across the State and their families are going to be joining us in our county so working on a list of restaurants, activities things for them to do so hopefully they love this county and want to come back and visit again sometime so that is what we are working on for the end of June.

HUGHES: Do you need us to send you ideas?

SHEEHAN: I’ve reached out to some but I’m pretty good with a list of things going on so I’m excited about that.

HUGHES: Any questions for Heather? Thank you very much. Public Defender.

WEYAND: Good morning. There’s no report from my office.

HUGHES: No report from public defender. Any questions for that office? No questions. Now conflict defender. Is Miriam here?

GARRISON: She is excused today.

HUGHES: I apologize, it says excused on the agenda. Anything else for this committee this morning?

WRIGHT: Yes, Mr. Chairman if I could I’d like to offer a resolution of condolence to the family and friends and associates of John McDonald Sr. who passed away this past week. He was a generous individual who served his country and his community.

RESOLUTION OF CONDOLENCE TO THE FAMILY OF JOHN MCDONALD. Wright, unanimous

GILLILLAND: I wish want to comment, John McDonald was a former here DA here and also a Veteran of chosen reservoir he saw true hell in combat in the middle of winter during the Korean War. A true hero.

HUGHES: Thank you very much for sharing that. Anything else for this committee? If not, we stand adjourned thank you very much.

As there was no further discussion to come before this public safety committee it was adjourned at 10:10 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors