NORWICH – After nearly a year of ongoing government deliberations, two out of three problems concerning public safety in Chenango County are on their way to being solved.
Town supervisors serving on the Safety and Rules Committee this week backed a taxpayer-funded, fire code enforcement budget for the first time in seven years. The budget calls for $70,780 in local share. The department’s staffing and other costs had previously been fee-driven.
“After much discussion, it was decided that to keep the staffing required to do our jobs, we had to go on the (county’s) budget,” the department’s accountant Eric Depperman said.
Depperman and Director Marcus Flindt said they anticipated closing out half of the 2,000 open fire and building code permits next year, and raising as much as $100,000 in fees as a result.
The committee also passed a resolution to move four kitchen staffers from the Area Agency on Aging into the Sheriff’s Office budget. The move could end a two-year long struggle to save efficiencies between the two departments. The Agency uses the jail’s cafeteria to prepare seniors’ meals while a separate jail staff does the same for inmates.
No resolution has yet to be found for a lack of ambulance coverage for the county, however. After reviewing the figures in his proposed $78,400 budget, fire Coordinator Matt Beckwith said no other ambulance company had stepped forward since Binghamton-based Superior Ambulance cut services to the county in mid-January. Town of Greene Supervisor Jack T. Cook asked what studies were being done, calling the situation “a crisis” that “needs attention.”
Beckwith said the fire departments in Chenango County and in neighboring counties continue to look for solutions, and have asked state Senator Thomas Libous, Binghamton, for assistance in lifting stringent certification requirements for emergency technicians. In addition, more EMT training classes were held this year, Beckwith said, although the increased number of students has not as of yet resulted in new volunteers.
“We need money to hire a countywide deal,” Cook said. “We have 15, 20, up to 40 minute calls. A person’s dead out there.”
Town of Columbus Supervisor George G. Coates said his town, which is located in the far northeast corner of the county, remains exposed. “We still have a problem,” he said.
McDonough Town Supervisor Homer Smith said it was unfortunate that private ambulance companies were able to successfully lobby the state for more certification requirements. “Local departments can’t meet them now, and then they leave us behind because they can’t make enough money to stay,” he said.
In other Safety and Rules Committee news, the Chenango County Public Defender proposes to hit taxpayers with $33,500 in local share next year, most of which is due to a second trial for Peter M. Wlasiuk.
“We were hit mid-stream with a rather hefty appeal. Without that one case, we are within $418 of where we were last year,” Public Defender Alan Gordon said. “We won’t have the second appeal, but we will have to pay for the second case. I don’t know what to expect.”
“That case is liable to break us,” Committee Chairman Alton B. Doyle, R-Guilford, said.
The Probation Department’s 2008 budget called for slight increases for equipment and day-to-day travel. Director Laureen Clarke said more sex offenders and felons in the area required more field visits.
In his report to the committee, the Sheriff asked for a local law that would keep sex offenders away from areas where children congregate. He said although the state has toughened up on monitoring sex offenders and informing the public, it has not passed any guidelines for local law enforcement to follow through.
“We meet face-to-face with every offender personally, so we know them and they know our rules. We send out mailers and visit neighbors. But, I can’t legally make anyone stay away from an area,” Loughren said.
The Sheriff told the committee that state authorities had called him after he recently escorted a sex offender away from a neighborhood where there were multiple children. “They told me he has the right to be there,” Loughren said.
“I don’t want pedofiles around chidlren. I feel we should have a county law here. Other communities do have it. It would make our job a little easier and protect the families better,” he said.
“It’s the same old story,” said Doyle. “Criminals have more rights than anybody.”
The Sheriff also reported that the jail is full, with 45 of the inmates farmed-in from out of the county. He said he is currently investigating prices for building additional bunks at the jail.