PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

Monday, March 9, 2026 - 9:30 AM

Ken Hughes, Chairperson

Davina Thurston, 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, Kenneth Hughes, Mary Lamphear, Tracie McGill, Steve McNally, Clayton Menser, James O’Bryan, Timothy Pierce, Richard Preston, Cathleen Reusser, Davina Thurston, Joe Pete Wilson and Meg Wood. Matthew Stanley and Michael Tyler were excused. Timothy Follos was absent.

Department Heads present: Jim Dougan, Josh Favro, Emily Evatt, Judy Garrison, Miriam Hadden, Roy Holzer, Mike Mascarenas, Mary McGowan, David Reynolds, Heather Sheehan and Dan Woods.

Also present: William Tansey, Carrie Daly and Jody Whitney.

HUGHES: Good morning, everybody the time is 9:31 a.m. March 9^th please stand for the pledge. Welcome everybody to this public safety committee meeting. We will start with the Veteran’s office Supervisors Pierce and Menser have a report and some information gentlemen.

PIERCE: This is the monthly report of contacts and services. When I was in the office, we had to prepare this monthly for a while and submit it to the state. So, you can see here if you have questions Sara is out today as she is the one that completed it this month. Generally, one of the biggest requests people come in for is financial benefits, compensation claims or pension claims and at the bottom, the comments show $16,000 in retro payments received last month. If you file a claim and it’s more work than needed they come in and get help with that. Health care, there’s PTSD’s is a big one they will come in and file claims for that it takes several months so they’ll get a big retro claim from the Federal Government then there will be an ongoing monthly payment so it doesn’t really reflect on here as to what it shows on here once you see how it is on the disability compensation claims are being handled in the office but it goes through pension, healthcare, insurance, burial benefits one of the other things he does, kind of a Jack of all trades here in this office and they do a great job. If there are any questions I can answer them.

HUGHES: This is a very comprehensive and helpful document. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen anything like this so thank you for your leadership on bringing this to our attention and I’m sure over time we will be able to make comparisons and intelligent questions. It’s really great, thank you.

MENSER: In addition to the form I put a letter on everybody’s desk from the Essex County Leathernecks Marine Corps League possibly one of the more noteworthy veteran’s organizations in the county if not the State. Each year we do an essay contest it is for any high school senior in the county graduating, and they write an essay which is explained in detail in the letter what has to be completed and they can get $500 cash prize. We give out four of those a year. For the last several years the only towns that actually submitted essays were Ticonderoga, Moriah, Crown Point, Schroon Lake and we did get one from Keene one time so we’d like the Supervisors to stop by the school superintendent’s office and say, hey, we are suggesting your people be aware of this even though we do send it to every school unless they get somebody that actually to say hello, how are you doing can you help out this program the students don’t get the benefit. We are asking for help from supervisors to actually make sure the schools are actually aware of it and that it is not just received in an email.

In addition to that, Essex County has the I will say, the great honor of having one of only twenty-one Veteran cemeteries in the entire country. Only three in New York State. Veteran cemeteries are not the same thing as National cemeteries a lot of people get confused. National cemetery, anybody that has served in Congress, Police Department, elected officials they can all be buried in the National cemetery. In order to be buried in the Veteran’s cemetery you have to have been a Veteran yourself or a spouse of a Veteran. We have one of those cemeteries right here in Wadhams every year, we have a wreath program at Christmas time and the Marine Corps League contributes $500 towards that program at last count there was 170 grave sites in there occupied and it cost anywhere from $12 to $17 per wreath and it gets a bit expensive and I was hoping that we could pass some kind of resolution for the county to kick in some pool of money to help support the program.

PIERCE: Let me just speak on the cemetery itself, this is really an incredible benefit that is offered. When I started in the State office for the Veteran’s back in 2006, we had just in that June there was a couple of family members, four graves off to the side and we had just one burial in the main site, but when I left, seventeen years later we were almost fourth row. The local Marine Corps have definitely been very supportive of it and the local Lewis and Elizabethtown Legion I am the commander of the Lewis post we put a lot of support in burials and the office over there, the gentleman and Sara does a good job of running the show for us out there. There’s also a memorial wall out there that even if someone is not buried in the cemetery it recognizes Veteran’s of Essex County if you get a chance go out there an look at it, it’s a nice wall and is actually filling up quite fast and you can purchase bricks for the wall over here at the Veteran’s office.

HUGHES: That’s a really great idea. If I could ask for you to please prepare just a written request of what you’re looking to do, what, where, when, why so that we can get that into county leadership and a better understanding of how we might prepare that budgetary topic that would be great. Thank you very much. Anything else for Veteran’s this morning? Okay, thank you very much. Excellent. County Sealer, Dan Woods. Good morning.

WOODS: Good morning, everyone. First, I do have a resolution for accepting and placing on file the 2025 Weights & Measurers annual report.

RESOLUTION ACCEPTING AND PLACING ON FILE THE 2025 WEIGHTS AND MEASURERS ANNUAL REPORT. Menser, Thurston

HUGHES: Any questions, comments, concerns on Mr. Woods annual report for 2025? Lot of numbers in here Dan. You’ve worked hard and it shows. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Woods on this? All in favor, aye, opposed – carried. Thank you.

WOODS: Thank you. If you turn to the second page, you’ll see my report for February. I will give everyone a moment to look over. If anyone has a question, I’d be happy to answer it.

HUGHES: Any questions for Mr. Woods on his monthly report? There does not appear to be so.

WOODS: Lastly sir, we have been in touch email on about what we can and can’t divulge information on when as far as publicly announcing how people result in inspections. It’s a very touchy subject so, even though a company will pay a fine they’re not actually taking responsibility for failing that, there’s no admission of guilt it’s they are paying the fine to make it go away saying as paying any ticket in court. They are paying the fine, it’s going away. It’s not an admission of guilt so us, actually going out and saying publicly how they are doing on reports isn’t really the wisest in my perspective we definitely need to talk to any of our attorneys and make sure that it’s not getting us into any slander or definition of character. There are reports out there that are being done statewide, nationwide if you see anything and there’s the Guardian at New York City they have foiled every single county sealer in New York State for Dollar General/Family Dollar and they have made their own report and they put it in their newspaper if you want to cite those. We’re not stating that we are citing a report of a story that has already been published. We’re not taking blame for it, we’re still getting the word out, but we need to be careful when it’s coming from our mouths as Essex County and not getting any backlash on our end. Does anybody have any questions more on that?

HUGHES: I would just say that we have spoken and speak about that kind of holding more publicly accountable and I appreciate the conversation that you and I have had back and forth about what can and can’t happen, what should and should not happen and I appreciate you sharing with our colleagues this morning what exactly that is because we do not want to put ourselves in a situation where we are hurting ourselves from a legal standpoint. It is difficult to swallow but I think it’s just the way the world is working right now and you’re doing your job by observing, identifying data driven decisions and holding them accountable if they get a fine there’s no admission of guilt they move on. We can’t be frustrated because it seems like the hamster in the wheel but that’s the way this world works at this point. Any questions for Dan?

REUSSER: I’m not on this committee I think we can accomplish this another way using the data that is collected as Guardian likely has to show the value or no value in those business models that you might think as the consumer as you initially go in there and get that bag of potato chips at the lower price but in fact what the volume may not what it is supposed to be or the price is not what it’s supposed to be is actually costing the consumer. So, I think there’s another way to get to that by using data.

HUGHES: Thank you for your comment.

O’BRYAN: Deviation, the deviations that you see across the spectrum with different things that you work with and perform testing on what most often is the issue that is causing the problem?

WOODS: The biggest issue that I’m finding across all avenues is mostly pricing accuracy, the sale price of an item that supposed to be the shelf price is not matching to what the register price is people aren’t changing the prices as much as they should or they are not staffed as much and can’t get to them because there’s only one person in the store changing prices as well as stocking and running the registers and I completely understand the frustration that is on the customer side but the consumer, if they do catch it it’s not their job to catch it but they will adjust that price at that point and another thing that does scare me and my side of the business is looking at if we, make it so people don’t go to these places anymore they are going to leave. There are a lot of people that do depend on these when it’s 8 o’clock at night, pharmacies are closed, somebody isn’t going to care about the extra $2.00 to get that medicine. There’s a lot of things out there that is really good about having these and bringing extra employment, bringing business into these towns that we don’t want to try and push these places out either, but I would say to answer your question pricing accuracy is the most that I find that’s finable out there.

O’BRYAN: Some of the fines that I’ve seen are pretty steep at times is that because of how many times they have been cited for violations does that determine what your fees are going to be, or fines are going to be?

WOODS: The fines have a minimum and maximum amount that we can fine. As a group, I have heard everybody’s opinion. We had started fining more when they failed multiple times in a row. I have increased the amount of fines to make them aware and corporates are well aware I’m on every single corporate speed dial; they know me by first name. They will call up and tell me the check will be here tomorrow, and they are really sorry and they move on. I think it’s cheaper for them just to pay the fine than it is to pay extra people with benefits at this time.

HUGHES: Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Woods?

WOOD: Do these fines come to the county? Or do they just go into the general fund? So, there’s no direction that those could be earmarked specifically it just goes into the general fund?

MASCARENAS: It comes in as a revenue to the weights and measures and offsets the cost of that department.

WOOD: So, we are making money on this business? I’m just pointing that out.

WOODS: Since I started in 2001, it has not cost the county a penny for my budgeted department it has been paid by fines every year.

MASCARENAS: I wouldn’t say we are making money on it. I would say the people that are paying in excess amount are also getting a break on their property taxes because the money is being used to offset in all of our communities.

WOOD: Point taken. Communities shop their own property and pay taxes.

MASCARENAS: That’s a good point too. What I would say is this issue I think we’ve talked about so much that the public should be aware, public awareness, consumer awareness should be – every time I’m in line I’m thinking oh man, I’m probably paying more than I’m supposed to be but I don’t have the sales flyer with me to look at it. I will say that every report Dan does is public. This report right here clearly tells what he’s done in the last month these are posted on our websites they are up there in the last year so our website if Essex County consumers want to look and see what’s happening there they certainly have that at their fingertips to go through the monthly report and see what Dan is reporting to this board on a monthly basis. Do we go as far as publicly shaming people and putting big posters on their buildings? Probably not but I think we are certainly making people aware. The information is there if they want to get it.

HUGHES: Any other comments or questions for Mr. Woods this morning?

REUSSER: We appreciate the work that you do.

HUGHES: Board of Elections – Mary McGowan, Roy Holzer.

MCGOWAN: Good morning, everyone. You have our monthly report on your desks. Our business of the month is mostly phase one of the mitigation of the DMV registrations with the Board of Elections and it is State mandated automatic voter registration system. We have just finished phase one, well partially finished we are still working on that. Any questions?

HUGHES: Any questions for Mary or Roy as of this time? I’m not seeing any.

MCGOWAN: I just want to refresh your memory about the petition dates that some of you are out there now circulating petitions. The last day to circulate is April 2^nd but you have until the 6^th to turn them in, you can’t collect anymore signatures after the 6^th and then the independent petitions will start up on April 14^th

We also have a resolution request; this has to do with transferring funds from one fund to another.

HUGHES: Judy, do you have this?

MCGOWAN: No.

GARRISON: I don’t.

HUGHES: Any committee members have this?

MCGOWAN: No, they don’t.

HOLZER: The funds that we’re asking for really are in our election budget it’s just for training just to keep in line with the process, just a formality that the county has in place.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, this is really a budget amendment, so they are just moving from training to travel reimbursement is that what we are looking at here?

MCGOWAN: Yes.

MASCARENAS: So, they already have the money, the money is already budgeted just approval from the board to move from one account to the other. They do have the accounts identified from account number 546008 to account number 546006 and the amount that you are asking to be moved is what amount?

HUGHES: Three thousand.

MASCARENAS: Transfer amount is $3,000 thank you.

HOLZER: We apologize you didn’t get the budget amendment request prior to this meeting. We’ll make sure we do better in the future.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING A BUDGET TRANSFER IN THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $3,000.00, FROM TRAINING EXPENSES TO TRAVEL REIMBURSEMENT. Menser, McGill

HUGHES: Comments or concerns on this? Being none, all in favor aye, motion carried.

HOLZER: A couple other brief things for those of you that care. It’s 106 days until our primary June 23^rd, we’re not sure we are having a primary yet but it’s likely we will. Mary and I in our meeting have decided we are only going to have one early polling place this year for the primary it will be at the North Elba Beach House and we are planning on a combination in hopes of an early voting primary in our office with absentee ballots. As you remember we had a very dismal turnout last year for early voting in the primary, this is our way of trying to save some money and attempt to see how it would work for us just processing right on the spot, absentee ballot applications, getting them the ballots and let’s see how that works. So the early voting spot is mandated by New York State so we have no choice but to have it one place we have been pursuing to either get our county exempt from the early voting legislation however, there’s only one county in our area that has been able to do it so I don’t think with the climate that’s out there right now we’re going to have much success but we’ll try to think of other ways to deal with it. Also, in case you’re wondering there’s 239 days until election day so very exciting stuff and that’s all I have unless there is any questions?

HUGHES: None from me. Any questions for Board of Elections?

MENSER: Crown Point is definitely going to have a primary for the highway department so is that going to be affected outside of Crown Point?

HOLZER: Well, we will have to do a primary obviously in your town. I think the ten day early primary will also take effect anytime we have primaries we have to do the ten days, but it’ll probably be like at North Elba and in our office at the Board of Elections.

HUGHES: Thank you. Any other questions for Board of Elections? All set. Thank you both very much. Have a great day. District Attorney, Langey.

DALY: Good morning, everyone. My name is Carly Daly I’m the first assistant district attorney in the office of District Attorney, Michael Langey. I just wanted to apologize Mr. Langey can’t be here this morning, he is tied up in court on a manslaughter case, so his presence was required there this morning. I also want to apologize for not having a written report to provide you, but I did want to give you all some updates with respect to our office. This month we opened 20 felony cases. We also opened 76 misdemeanor and violation cases that’s just in the month of February. We also opened approximately 6 violations of probation which are cases that we consider closed unless there’s a violation then we have to open them up, potentially have hearings for resentencing purposes. We do have a murder trial that we’re prepping. I know that Ms. Evatt provided that in her report her office is defending that case. It is a herculean effort. We’ve identified at this point more than forty essential witnesses for that trial. Michael Langey and I personally will be in the court room prosecuting that case, but I can tell you it’s all hands-on deck to prep for that trial. We also before Friday had another case that we were prosecuting it is an attempted murder that’s a consolidation of four indictments that were started out in Ticonderoga that just on Friday afternoon got moved that’s being defended privately although it may find its way also to the Public Defender’s office as I said, Mr. Langey is dealing with manslaughter compliance case right now that’s with private counsel and we also have an assault first scheduled for trial with the Public Defender’s office so we are all very busy. Thankfully we are fully staffed as far as lawyers go and I just wanted to express my gratitude to all of you and to the County Manager in particular for so much help that we received budgetary wise and personally from the County Manager last year in getting that staffing up to speed. It was really a big loss for our office personally when Judge Sprague became the Judge of course it is a benefit for the county she’s a fantastic Judge but you know, just that change alone with Judge Meyer retiring and Judge Sprague taking the bench she was conflicted out of a lot of cases for quite some time and so as a result in addition to having Supreme Court Judge McGahay now sitting in Essex County in Elizabethtown we have four judges right now just in county court alone and with staffing we have six lawyers so there are a lot of places to be between county court and local court especially when we have a number of trials that are sort of on the docket. We expect to be incredibly busy between now and I think the last trial is scheduled for June so that I believe is everything I wanted to tell you and if anyone has any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

HUGHES: Really great report. Any questions for the DA’s office this morning? You guys are incredibly busy, thank you for taking just a few moments out of your day. I wish you good luck with everything and keep up the good work. Thank you. Moving on to Emergency Services, Mr. Josh Favro.

FAVRO: Are there any questions on our monthly report?

HUGHES: Josh has included his monthly report. Any questions for him on what has been provided? There does not appear to be yet.

FAVRO: I do have a couple resolutions here. The first one is a resolution recognizing National Public Safety Telecommunications week as April 12 -18, 2026.

HUGHES: Eighteenth or fourteenth?

FAVRO: Eighteenth.

HUGHES: That’s okay we’ll change that to the 18^th no worries.

RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING NATIONAL PUBLIC SAFETY TELECOMMUNICATIONS WEEK AS APRIL 12 -18, 2026. Pierce, Menser

HUGHES: All in favor, opposed – carried. Thank you.

FAVRO: And I do have one resolution from the floor.

HUGHES: Please, go ahead.

FAVRO: Resolution congratulating Essex County EMS Flight cars for being awarded the Mission Lifeline Gold Achievement Award from American Heart Association. This is recognizing them for excelling ALS care for heart attack and stroke patients.

RESOLUTION CONGRATULATING ESSEX COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES FOR BEING AWARDED THE EMS 2026 GOLD MISSION LIFELINE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION. O’Bryan, Menser

HUGHES: All in favor, opposed – carried. Thank you.

FAVRO: That’s all I have.

HUGHES: Anything else for Josh Favro?

MASCARENAS: I just want to thank Josh and his crew. A number of us yesterday were on communications regarding ice jams that were happening in Jay. Mr. Stanley, McNally, Mr. Brassard, Mr. Dougan if I forget anybody what I will say is that Josh came into my office a couple weeks ago and was already looking at the weather two weeks out and realized that this was probably going to be an issue and had plans in place to deal with it luckily for us, the ice jam kind of broke up on its own far from out of the woods you never know what spring is going to bring in Essex County and traditionally ice jams has been the nature of flooding that we’ve experienced throughout history but I just want to thank them for really being all over it and what we don’t often see is that department is a 24/7 operation in the amount of work that happens and the sleepless nights he gets when he shows up in my office after coming from a fire or those types of things that he has been out on all night so I just want to thank him and let everybody know that he’s doing a really nice job and I appreciate the extra effort.

Clerk’s note – Mr. Follos arrived at 10:15 a.m.

HUGHES: Thanks for the team effort. I also hear that the new dispatch furniture is in and it’s terrific.

FAVRO: Yeah, that project went really well last week and once we get it buttoned up, I’d love to have everybody come and take a look at it.

HUGHES: Yup, we’ll be doing that. Wonderful, thank you.

O’BRYAN: Josh, I just noticed the EV fire here in North Hudson I heard about I think last week but EV fires are extremely difficult and I just want to say that we’re getting ready down in Ticonderoga because we have the state’s along with a private company want to put in a source system in Ticonderoga a source system, 15 megawatt source system and these will be large EV batteries so we are getting ready to have a meeting and I will give you a call and have you sit in on that because it’s going to be important because their people will be there to talk, we already talked to them before and I brought up the issue of you know, how do we extinguish this if we ever had a fire? So, I just wanted to bring that up, keep that on your radar and then I’ll let you know what dates so your office can come down.

FAVRO: Sounds good.

HUGHES: Thank you.

THURSTON: I just wanted to let you know St. Armand has also been approached by Carson Power they are interested in putting in a battery storage facility in St. Armand as well so I can keep you informed.

FAVRO: I appreciate that.

HUGHES: Anything else for Josh? Awesome, have a great day. Sheriff Reynolds, good morning.

SHERIFF REYNOLDS: I don’t have anything for you but if you want to take a look at my report and have any questions I can answer them.

PIERCE: I’ve got one, just for clarification, you’ve got housed in residents are those Federal inmates or county? What’s the housed in?

SHERIFF REYNOLDS: Both, they can be Federal, Franklin County as an issue holding females sometimes we get them from there.

PIERCE: Thank you, I was just curious.

HUGHES: Great question. Thank you. Anything else for the Sheriff this morning on his report? All set, thank you sir. Coroner’s Office did provide a report for you all to read and review. There’s no action on that report, just an update on that. Much appreciated thank you to Jay Heald for providing that. Moving on to Probation, Heather Sheehan.

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

HUGHES: Any questions for Heather and Probation on their monthly report?

PIERCE: I do have one, from my previous position as Judge there was always concern with community service, particularly supervision and the issue of that, is it still an ongoing issue or have there been improvements in that over the years?

SHEEHAN: I think we’ve made significant improvements in that but I’m happy to talk to you at a different time regarding that in some of your specific instances.

PIERCE: There are places in town that are willing to do it, but I also heard complaints about it as well, there’s limited things you can get them to do supervision level, volume and how to make that better.

SHEEHAN: So yearly our community service coordinator will reach out to every town supervisor and see what you have available for different work sites, and we keep an ongoing list of that. We are always willing to take on more as well as us going out and looking to see what is available. We try to keep everybody locally within their town if we can sometimes that works sometimes it doesn’t based on their crime there’s certain places that don’t want to take those people for community service as well so sometimes they do have to go outside of their town they were sentenced for crime service but we have increased our community service work sites quite a bit.

PIERCE: Thank you.

HUGHES: Great, thank you. Anything else for Heather or Probation this morning. All set; thanks, have a good month. Moving on to the Public Defender’s office Emily Evatt.

EVATT: Good morning, everyone. I think my report is on your desks if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. I’m also happy to speak to what Ms. Daly talked about regarding the business of our office this spring, going into the summer. The District Attorney’s office is fully staffed, which is wonderful for them, we are not fully staffed so we are very much under the gun of the pressure of handling a murder trial will less than the appropriate amount of staff and covered all of our courts outside of that. We have multiple parole violation hearings going, town courts are still busy so we’re feeling the pressure of not being fully staffed going into the spring and summer.

HUGHES: And the amount of paperwork, I remember when I visited the amount of actual data that you have to go through is just voluminous with a capital V.

EVATT: Yes, the discovery just for the murder trial alone can take multiple people’s time, hours a day because we have a duty to our client to review all of it just as they have a duty to disclose it we have to make sure we see every single piece of evidence and that takes uncountable amount of time.

HUGHES: Thank you for updating the committee on that issue.

MCNALLY: Yes, I’m not on the committee. I understand you are short-staffed. Are we getting, do you have people in the pipeline?

EVATT: We have received no applications.

MCNALLY: What’s happening because I’m hearing grumblings from the local courts that they are not getting in touch with you on weekends or your office on the weekends?

EVATT: On the weekends?

MCNALLY: Yes.

EVATT: There wouldn’t be contact with my office on the weekend.

MCNALLY: Or nights? I’m not sure but we do need to find some employees.

EVATT: Yes, we 100% need to find some employees. We are on call during the week so they are able to reach us we get all of those calls on the weekends it is staffed by the Assigned Counsel program not my office but I have myself, have taken multiple weeks of on call over the past month to handle overflow from the murder so we are definitely staffing the evenings.

MCNALLY: So, because you have a large case going on now is this something that we’re going to be continually short on attorneys or is just because of the case we have going on now?

EVATT: The trend is we’ve had a murder every year since I’ve been Public Defender so our case load has increased I expect it to go every year until we fill the vacant spot that we have and maybe potentially increase the attorneys we have we will be under staffed, over case load recommendations by the state then people will have to wait for their arraignments until we can find somebody to fill them.

MCNALLY: Do you know the reason we are not getting applications? Is it because of our pay scale or is it just lack of attorneys in the area?

EVATT: I think it’s probably both Ms. Daly did speak to an increase in their office salary ours did increase but not to the extent that theirs did so it’s hard to tell exactly what it is but we have not received any applicants from new attorneys who we would pay less and not have received any applicants from senior attorney who we would have to pay more it’s both lack of interest and a little bit of funding.

MCNALLY: The Assigned Counsel gets very expensive.

EVATT: The Assigned Counsel program is paid for by the state, it doesn’t cost the taxpayers any money well, it cost less -

MASCARENAS: Yes, the public defender’s office is largely funded and the conflict defender’s office is fully funded by the State of New York the Assigned Counsel program is a little bit different in terms of criminal we get half of the increase back of the hourly rate the rest of it is on us. The Family Court we pay the full amount in terms of the Assigned Counsel so the overall Assigned Counsel program I’m going to tell you, and I can get you the exact number, off the top of my head somewhere around a million dollars a year that’s on the level in terms of county costs. What you sometimes too see here with salary scale structures is you’ll see some of our attorneys play musical chairs across departments and some of that is based upon what the current dynamic of the office they are in looks like an opportunity to grow in the neighboring office next door so when you see people aging out of jobs you know you can move up, there’s slots that kind of available so if you were to look at the attorneys and I can send this to all of you conflict defender, public defender vs. DA’s you’ll see they are similar in terms of first slot, second slot those types of things but you might take somebody that’s in the fifth slot in one department and say, geesh that department is low right now I can move to that slot there and then have the ability to climb the ladder a little bit more you’ll see that kind of happen from time to time. Attorneys, there are not a lot of them, they really aren’t bringing on somebody new is highly unusual. The DA did have some luck in getting some folks, but they were a year and a half with no one with just a few so you’re down one right now right?

EVATT: Just one but as I disclosed to you Mr. Mascarenas, I will be going on maternity in June so we will be down two which will be nearly impossible.

MASCARENAS: Which is a lot. Now we do have the Assigned Counsel program to fall back on if they can’t take cases that’s not ideal but it is another option if they find their caseloads are prohibited or those types of things those can always be pushed to Leah some of you know her, some of you do not that can assign cases during time frames and that might be what we have to do.

EVATT: For a little bit.

MASCARENAS: Yes, and we don’t want people on that. I think our eighteen panel has four active people maybe that are relatively aggressive in taking cases, there’s not a lot.

REUSSER: Assigned Counsel is that exclusively weekend coverage or do they do evenings?

EVATT: Weekends. Every weekend, Saturday and Sunday.

MASCARENAS: For arraignments so we’re talking about two different things counsel at first arraignment verses assigned counsel. Assigned counsel takes cases that are conflicted out, processes every case goes to the Public Defender.

EVATT: If they hear a case on the weekend we receive that case on Monday.

HUGHES: Any other questions?

O’BRYAN: I just know having been around Judge Pierce with these folks you can’t understand what they go through sometimes I know it’s a hardship on folks when you’re down one. Courts like Ticonderoga last weeks case load in court the Judge was down to see me, was 100 cases in that report. We carry that and that is not unnormal for Ticonderoga is it?

EVATT: No sir.

O’BRYAN: It’s a very busy place so anything we can do to help you we need to secure and figure out a way to help them because it does, it backs everything up and gets even worse.

EVATT: Thank you Judge.

HUGHES: Thank you for your perspective. I have a question. Can you explain other for me on this report?

EVATT: Yes, other so it’s Felony, misdemeanor and other, other includes violations, DWAI’s just disorderly conducts we also represent people picked up on parole violations, so they are entitled to an attorney and hearings that pursue that or come after that so it’s just kind of miscellaneous.

HUGHES: Yeah, I got it wanted a better understanding thank you so much. Anything else for the

public defender’s office this morning? Thank you very much. Have a great day, Emily.

Conflict defender, Miriam Hadden was here but it looked like she had to sneak out but she does have a report here, so we appreciate her report and hope everything is okay in her world. Is there anything else to come before this committee this morning? We ran over time, I apologize. Okay, if there’s nothing else for this committee we are adjourned and we’ll start economic development in five minutes.

As there was no further discussion to come before this public safety committee it was adjourned at 10:14 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors