January 27, 2017 at 3:43 p.m.
In Oneida County, all hands on deck
In Oneida County, all hands on deck
As reported by The River News over the past several weeks, the 91-page complaint harbors allegations of everything from racketeering to forgery to religious persecution, and then some. It has all the plot elements of a sizzling legal thriller: weapons, horses, fugitive flight, and even harassment and stalking.
To be sure, we haven't a clue whether any of it is true. Such serious allegations deserve reporting, of course, particularly in light of the recent history in Oneida County, but we will also report on the defendants' defense against those claims when those defenses are filed.
At this point, suffice it to say that if even a quarter of the charges is true, it would be catastrophic for the county and for county taxpayers.
Beyond the merits of the lawsuit itself, more important at this stage is the fact that the case exists at all. Such lawsuits are not exactly rare, but they are not everyday occurrences, either.
Add in other lawsuits, official violations, and other serious allegations in Oneida County, criminal and otherwise, and what you get is a preponderance of evidence that county government is out of control, and a distinct feeling that the current elected board of supervisors is incompetent and incapable of regaining control, or have no desire to do so.
It's time for those officials to regain control, emphatically and once and for all, and they should be booted from office if they do not or cannot.
That the very agency charged with public safety, the sheriff's department, is continually implicated in these lawsuits and allegations is disconcerting and another very red flag that something inside county government has gone seriously awry and isn't being fixed.
In the last year alone, for instance, in addition to the filing of the Harding case, the county lost a $50,000 lawsuit trying to keep the records of an alleged rape by a county deputy sealed.
To be fair, in the rape case and in the Harding case, the core events occurred under the watch of the previous sheriff, not current sheriff Grady Hartman. That said, the Harding lawsuit alleges misconduct by Hartman also, and his conduct and statements came under serious scrutiny in the rape case as well.
Then, too, last September two female former corrections officers at the Oneida County jail filed a federal lawsuit claiming sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The county has contested the lawsuit; the case is pending.
One of those officers was fired for abusing sick leave policy and lying about it; she claims it was retaliation for the complaints.
More recently, the former head of the county's drug unit has been charged with criminal misconduct in public office related to missing departmental monies. Her attorney has said the department is manufacturing a pre-determined result and that the charges will be refuted.
And there is some indication that more litigation could come Oneida County's way. The agenda for the Jan. 17 Oneida County Board of Supervisors lists a closed session to confer "with legal counsel concerning strategy to be adopted by the governmental body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved."
The matter involves child support legal procedures concerning stipulations and orders.
In addition, the county's labor relations and employee services committee has been found guilty of violating the open-meetings law, resulting in the district attorney ordering all county supervisors to undergo open-records and open-meetings training.
Though the outcome of any particular lawsuit or complaint could be significant, a broader point about the litigation and complaints as a whole is likely more significant. Like water streaming from a leaking vessel, or blood gushing from a torn artery, they attest to a seriously injured governmental body that could be incapable of recovering on its own.
Simply put, the fact that there are so many lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, so many violations and threats of violations in the county speaks of a failed county leadership and work force in which accusations and counter-accusations are the priorities of many workers' days.
Morale simply cannot be very good in such a toxic atmosphere, in a workplace in which distrust runs so deep, and with a county board completely oblivious that anything much is wrong. Such a poisonous and leaderless environment cannot possibly make for a cost-efficient government working in the public interest.
It is past time for the elected leadership of the county to act. They must immediately rewrite policies, put in place workable mechanisms to ensure accountability and transparency, and they must clean house with key personnel, starting with the corporation counsel, Brian Desmond, whose advice seems to be at the heart of many of the problems.
These days the Oneida County courthouse is a giant titanic of government steaming ahead to its certain sinking. County supervisors are busy shuffling the deck chairs on their doomed vessel, stopping only occasionally to ask Desmond's advice about the best way to drown.
It apparently hasn't occurred to them that they need not drown, that the lifeboats of bold action and transparency and accountability are at their disposal, if they can only find them.
In such times, county taxpayers need to be especially vigilant and vocal. They need to demand immediate change. They need to help the county's elected leadership find those lifeboats. Or they need to bring new leadership on board.
In Oneida County, it's all hands on deck.
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