One red-hot Sullivan County sheriff’s race

By CHARLIE BUTREBAUGH

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Frank Armstrong and Mike Schiff, candidates for Sullivan County Sheriff, face a difficult question.

How can increasing rates of criminal investigations and arrests in the county be stemmed when sheriff’s department budgets remain static from year to year?

Detectives’ caseloads have increased, according to current Sheriff Daniel Hogue’s 2004 annual report. “There are more serious crimes occurring in Sullivan County and [they] are more time-consuming for investigators,” Hogue wrote.

Both candidates are concerned about deputies leaving the department for higher-paying jobs, and both said they would advocate for higher salaries. The starting salary for a deputy, according to the Sullivan County Budget, is about $28,000. The pay goes up to about $40,000 before a deputy is promoted as a corporal or sergeant.

Both candidates would focus on earning state accreditation for the department and increasing overall professionalism.

Both have said they would work to improve rapport between the sheriff’s department and the press.

However, with 38 deputies under their administration, Armstrong and Schiff would implement markedly different models, based on their different backgrounds, for running the sheriff’s department.

Frank Armstrong, Democratic candidate for Sheriff

In addition to his 27-year police career in the Village of Monticello, Democrat Frank Armstrong was elected mayor of the Village of Jeffersonville and town justice in the Town of Fremont. He served on the Jeffersonville Board of Trustees for almost six years. He concluded his judgeship in Fremont in order to avail himself for the county sheriff’s race.

If elected, Armstrong said he would institute a community-based policing program in the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. Central to this program is a shift in the role of sheriff’s deputies.

In addition to their mandate of protecting residents, deputies would serve as resource officers, or personal contacts for local government officials and other township and village leaders.

Information filtered through the deputies would be used to plan more strategic road patrols and improve overall policing in the county, Armstrong said. This “different kind of policing,” he said, would be attractive to deputies because it would give them a more interactive role in communities. He said the model would also make the most effective use of department personnel.

“The point of the community policing paradigm is prevention and intervention, rather than reaction,” Armstrong said. In order to intervene effectively, Armstrong would expect sheriff’s deputies to build trust with communities. In turn, communities could utilize the sheriff’s department to achieve their own goals concerning quality of life.

“That’s what community policing is about—that interface,” Armstrong said, adding that the model would be a better situation for everyone involved and use fewer resources.

“I came to find out that if you reach out to people in a community, they respond,” he said.

Armstrong said the sheriff’s department must network with other county agencies, particularly on special cases involving, for example, domestic abuse, which require intervention from behavioral services agencies.

Armstrong said he would like to raise the level of professionalism in the department. “I’m sure it can be done if we switch gears and change our paradigm,” he said, adding that a community-based policing program in Sullivan County could serve as a nationwide model.

Armstrong drew a distinction between his opponent’s model for the department and his own, saying the mandate for state police troops is entirely different from the mandate for sheriff’s departments. He said while state police troops are focused on highway law enforcement, sheriff’s departments must remain focused on the “safety and protection” of county residents.

Armstrong said his political experiences have provided him with expertise in planning budgets, managing personnel and writing grants.

Mike Schiff, Republican candidate for Sheriff

Republican Mike Schiff, a state police trooper for 27 years, cites his success in reforming the New York State Police union during the 1990s as proof of his ability to improve salaries, conditions and morale in the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department.

“We changed the bylaws, doubled pay and improved working conditions,” Schiff said. “We’ve made a tremendous difference in the union and in guys’ lives.”

While people often said the above couldn’t be done, Schiff said “leadership and drive” led to his success, and, if elected as sheriff, he would apply his “can-do” attitude to running the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department.

“You’ve got to deal firmly with the Legislature. You’ve got to make sure they’re aware of how severe problems are. You can’t ask a guy to give you honesty and integrity and have high morale when he may not be able to afford sneakers for his kids,” Schiff said.

Schiff would run the sheriff’s department based on the New York State Police model, implementing a regular regimen of heavy-duty training and professional development.

“If we can follow what the state police model is trying to do and use all of the resources available to us, I think we can do a much better job,” Schiff said. He said he would like to include officers from the county’s municipal police departments in Monticello, Liberty and Fallsburg in the training.

“That’s the way of the future, cooperation between all the police, fire and EMS,” Schiff said.

Like his opponent, Schiff believes in community policing and renewing the department’s focus on prevention. However, he does not draw a distinction between the role of the state police and sheriff’s departments.

“All policing is community policing,” Schiff said. “The answer to the problems of the post-9-11 world is interaction with the community.” He said he would work to expand the department’s auxiliary, bring volunteers on board and give them training to broaden the base of police work.

“In a post 9-11 era, you can’t have a couple-hundred eyes out there. You need 10,000, even 20,000,” Schiff said.

Drawing from the state police model, Schiff said the sheriff’s department should function like a chess player. He said: “If I’ve got a problem in a particular hamlet on a Friday night, I’ve got to have a chess piece there on a Friday night. Maybe we can correct that problem after two or three weeks and our pieces will be freed up to move somewhere else. But you have to know where to have these pieces. That’s community policing.”

Schiff said he would also implement a traffic safety plan to reduce the fatalities on the roads in Sullivan County; establish a Sheriff’s Canine Unit to track down criminals, find lost children and sniff out drugs; and work with state agencies to better track and monitor sex offenders.