July 20, 2016 at 2:04 p.m.
The hot mess in the Oneida County Sheriff's Department
The hot mess in the Oneida County Sheriff's Department
And that's exactly the case in Oneida County with respect to the county's sheriff's department. There's no clear lines of accountability and oversight, and that leaves a vacuum into which sheriff Grady Hartman and his trusted lieutenants have stepped, eager to be able to act without question or consequence.
The vacuum exists because the county has spread out oversight responsibilities for the department over three different committees and commissions, only two of which have elected officials, and the one without any responsibility to the people turns out to be the one with the most power.
Usually the fragmentation of power assures checks and balances, but this is not the fragmentation of power; it is the fragmentation of oversight responsibility, and it has created a hot mess over at the sheriff's department.
Consider that the county has a law enforcement grievance committee to investigate and approve recommended serious disciplinary actions within the department, but that committee has apparently never met. It certainly hasn't met in the past two years while any number of egregious internal shenanigans have been going on.
There is, of course, the mysterious investigation involving a deputy who has been on leave for close to two years, and which is still going on. There is also the related investigation of an allegation of rape against former deputy Lee Lech.
All this and more, and the grievance committee has been nowhere to be found.
One question still to be answered is whether the sheriff is following the code's requirement to file written reports to the grievance committee when disciplinary action is needed.
But, even if he did, the committee needs to have the authority to oversee internal investigations before those investigations are concluded and before the sheriff files a recommendation for disciplinary action.
That is the biggest flaw in this committee's existence. While a panel that includes elected supervisors surely needs to oversee and investigate and approve a sheriff's recommendations, it also needs to be apprised and engaged as soon as internal investigations are launched to preserve accountability and integrity in that process.
Otherwise, without such authority, a sheriff could conduct unfair investigations. Officers unjustly accused could conceivably be forced to resign for no reason or for trumped up reasons, while, in the opposite scenario, a department could protect a corrupt officer and whitewash serious wrongdoing - none of which would ever get to the grievance committee.
A less-than-honest sheriff might prolong an investigation to the point of absurdity, to avoid the grievance committee.
That's not to say any of that is happening at the Oneida County sheriff's department. But, unless a panel composed of elected officials is engaged from the start, the possibility of corruption becomes a more serious possibility.
A true and just disciplinary process does not start once a sheriff decides he or she wants action and has been given the time to put the power play in place; it starts at the moment a charge is leveled against an employee.
That is the moment an elected official must assume oversight responsibility. That is when elected officials can ensure that an employee is not treated unfairly, or that wrongdoing doesn't go unpunished.
Waiting for the sheriff is like waiting for Godot, though Godot is likely to show up sooner. As they say, justice delayed is often justice denied.
The civil service commission does have authority to investigate sheriff's department personnel, and it is directed to review employee performance every year. It also sets rules and regulations for employee conduct - workplace policy, in other words.
But that, too, is a flawed code construction.
As we have reported, the civil service commission includes no elected officials, and it is elected officials who should have the responsibility to set policy. There is also no requirement that the sheriff notify the commission of any ongoing internal investigations, so that they may trigger their own investigatory authority and get involved.
Yes, the civil service commission can investigate - if it knows there's something that needs investigating. It's not altogether certain that such internal probes would make their way into the annual review of deputy work reports, but, even if they did, an annual review is not sufficient to ensure timely oversight of internal investigations.
That brings us to the public safety committee - the only entity composed entirely of elected officials, and, as such, the committee that should have the most oversight power over the department.
And yet, it is the committee with the least power over sheriff's department policy and the sheriff's handling of internal matters. True, it has control over the department's budget, but that is rendered meaningless if all they ever hear are good things when the sheriff gives his reports to them.
Simply put, they don't have the authority to hear anything but good news. Their lack of authority mocks their designation as the sheriff's department's "committee of jurisdiction." They have no jurisdiction to speak of.
This is perhaps typical in a society in which elected officials are increasingly neutered and political power transferred to unelected elites. But it is not the way society should be run, and it is not the way the sheriff's department should be run.
We can and should do something about the sheriff's department.
The catastrophic results and costs to taxpayers - as in the open records lawsuit the sheriff's department lost trying to hide rape allegations against Lee Lech - speak to the need for reform. The hot mess needs to be cleaned up and cooled down.
In short, the grievance committee needs to be abolished - after all, it has never met - and its powers transferred to the public safety committee. And the investigatory powers now invested in the civil service commission need to at least be shared with the elected officials of the public safety committee.
The public-safety committee, not the civil-service commission, should set the policies for the daily running of the department, as well as the conduct standards for officers, putting policy power where it belongs, in the hands of the elected representatives of the people.
Finally, and most important, the county needs to require notification and a complete report of any internal investigation or disciplinary probe inside the department to the public safety committee, and to endow that committee with oversight responsibilities and power over those investigations.
The integrity of law enforcement is at stake, and so is the trust of the people.
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