- By Dan Veaner
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Lansing Star: What makes you the best candidate for Sheriff?
Tim Little: I believe I'm the best candidate because, the biggest thing is that not only am I a certified police officer, but I also have seven years under this administration, seven years at the Sheriff's Office. So I'm a certified police officer. I have supervisory experience. I also have management of budget experience through my one term on the Ithaca school board, from 1996-1999.
That was an outstanding learning experience that helped prepare me for a position as such. The first thing I did when I was on the school board was place myself on the finance committee, because I felt that was really my shortcoming. So I spent one year as one of the designated members for that committee, so that I could learn the process of budget development, looking at how the budget ran, as well as taking a look at the overall budget for preparing it for when we do our budget debates.
So that was a very good learning experience which I believe will help me with this job. So being a certified police officer, having a minor in business from Ithaca College, my school board experience, as well as being a member of the Sheriff's Office now -- that puts me ahead. I know the services that we provide. I know the staffing and the staff members, so that learning curve will be a lot less for me than it would be for the Republican Candidate. And being a certified police officer, I've been trained as a law enforcement officer. I think that puts me ahead of the incumbent.
LS: What is the top item that you would like to accomplish if you are elected?
TL: There are a few. The biggest thing is the jail and the boarding out of inmates, and our capacity to house inmates. That is a major issue, not only for the Sheriff's Office, but also for the public, because those are taxpayers' dollars that are funding the boarding out of inmates.
What I believe is the number one priority is working with organizations such as Offender's Aid Restitution, and the Community Justice Center to establish other alternatives for boarding out. Such as maybe establishing a program where if someone is sentenced to the jail for weekends, we have a program that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be housed in the jail. On the weekend they would be giving back to the community. That helps reduce the number of inmates in the jail. So the jail is one that I think is the number one priority in trying to reduce the amount of board-outs that we have.
The other is our road coverage and our road deputies. We'll never have enough deputies, and the County will never be able to pay for us to have enough deputies to cover the 490 or so square miles that the County sits on. That's something that we have to look at as far as how to provide the most efficient and effective safety coverage for the residents of Tompkins County. I believe that can be achieved by having more cooperative and collaborative work with the other law enforcement municipalities within the County so that we are sharing our resources instead of duplicating services. And trying to reduce the response time by having the other law enforcement agencies... if there's a call, say, close to the Village of Dryden, that the Dryden Police Department can help us out and not be confined to their jurisdiction, which is just in the Village of Dryden.
LS: Which agencies are you talking about?
TL: The Village of Dryden has a police department, the Village of Groton has a a police department, the Village of Cayuga Heights, the Village of Trumansburg have police departments. And the Ithaca Police Department.
LS: And the State Police?
TL: State's also out there with us. The thing about the State is, because their jurisdiction is state-wide, there might be a situation or incident outside of our county that might pull the state resources that we have in this county to another county to assist. So it's hard to count them as another resource, when that could be pulled away, and we're left shorter than we were.
And also the Campus Police. That would be Cornell and Ithaca College.
LS: I want to ask you if the Sheriff's Office is adequately funded. But I want to put that in the context of your campaign. I noticed in your literature that you want to increase manpower as opposed to equipment. But manpower is more expensive than equipment.
TL: I would be hard pressed to find a department head that could say that they are adequately funded. So I would have to say no, but I would also have to say that I believe that the Board of Legislators have done a very good job of trying to adequately fund the Sheriff's Office. And I would hope that would continue to happen when I take office.
With that said, what I think has to happen is to take a look at the resources that are allocated and see if there are areas where there can be shifts from one line to another so that we continue to fund at least the same amount, if not to continue to raise it by a deputy every year or so until we get to the point where we are comfortable with the coverage that we have out there.
I don't think we're ever going to be at the ideal, but I'd like to be where we're comfortable with the resources that we're receiving so that we're not causing taxpayers to have to pay more property taxes to help fund the Sheriff's Office. Though I think that might be something that they might be willing to do over another program or service that the County is providing.
LS: I want to get a little specific. You talk about creating a Traffic Division, which I interpret as expanding the size and role of road patrol.
TL: Yes.
LS: You say that the Criminal Investigation Division is understaffed, and you also mentioned that the jail is understaffed. Theoretically, what would would you shift out of to shift in to?
TL: Let's take the jail, for instance. The reason I think the jail is understaffed is now there is the added responsibility on the correction officers with the board-outs. Because someone has to transport these inmates, not only to the board-out facility at another jail, but they also have to go pick that inmate up, bring that inmate to whatever court has requested them to come. And then if we're overpopulated again they have to take that inmate back to that board-out facility. When you've got ten, fifteen, twenty inmates that are boarded out, that's a lot of transporting that's going on at the same time its trying to maintain the staffing within the jail.
What that does is create a lot of overtime because of the transports. What also happens is that most people work a five day week with two days off. Because of the transporting issue some correction officers are barely getting their two days off, because they're mandated to come in, or mandated to stay overtime to either cover inside the jail or to do transports.
So because of the added responsibility, the jail is understaffed.
LS: What's the typical distance for transports?
TL: It all depends on the board-out facility. My understanding is, and I hope that this is the case -- it would be in my administration -- we're boarding out to facilities as close to home as possible, whether it be Cayuga County, Tioga County, Broome County, Schuyler County -- those are counties that are the closest to us where you are only talking about 30 to 45 minutes. And that's just travel time, it's not in-court time.
As far as the investigators, right now we don't have an investigator that specializes in sex offence and juvenile crimes, and they seem to be on the rise. I read that even though crime is low, the amount of violent crimes has risen, as well as juvenile crime. Right now there are a lot of juveniles that are going through the justice system. We don't have an investigator that is specialized in those areas to focus on those cases.
And the investigators that we have currently have large case loads. So I would be requesting an additional investigator to handle those types of crimes.
LS: That are trained in those areas?
TL: Yes.
With the Traffic Division, again I would look at our staffing and the other services that the Sheriff's Office is currently providing, and evaluate the priorities of those services versus coverage out on the road. Because I think that is our primary function, to make sure that the residents are safe. Make sure that we can answer service calls when they come in.
LS: As I understand it there are three units out at a time.
TL: Yes, that is our minimum requirement. Three deputies per shift, with a sergeant.
LS: Is the sergeant also out on the road?
TL: The sergeant is a supervisor. If there is a serious emergency call and our other three deputies are tied up, our supervisors will answer those calls, but they tend to like deputies to answer the calls. That frees the sergeant to supervise if there's a question the deputy might have on a call, or need assistance, that supervisor needs to be available.
LS: Are you talking about increasing the number of cars that are out at a time?
TL: With the Traffic Division that would be the case, but the Traffic Division would be solely focussed on traffic issues. For several years now, the Sheriff's Office has received a lot of traffic complaints from different areas in the County, different neighborhoods, about speeding, large trucks, things of that sort. It is very difficult to deal with those in the course of your shift when you're covering a big zone.
So the traffic department would be dedicated to dealing with those issues.
LS: So this would be in addition to what road patrol is currently doing?
TL: Right. The zone cars, if you will, would still do traffic in between answering calls, but we would have a division that is totally focussed (on traffic), like our Criminal Investigation Division is totally focussed on investigating crimes.
Everyone has been saying, 'So you're talking about increasing deputies and asking for three or four positions.' That is not the case. What I'm looking at is a collaborative effort with other law enforcement municipalities so they can help us out.
Currently they are confined to their jurisdiction. In past years those agencies' officers have been deputized by the Sheriff's Office so that outside of their jurisdiction they still have police power. The city has a traffic division. We currently have some of our deputies that are part of their SWAT team. Why not do the same type of thing with their traffic division?
Again, we're pulling our resources together, utilizing the resources that they have, the manpower that they have, dedicating a deputy or so from our department. Again, this is all surface. When I get in I will break it down. I will look at it, analyze it, and make a determination on how to best fit it all into what I want it to do. With our skilled staffs joined together you would have a county-wide Traffic Division that would work in the city as well as out in the County.
LS: Wouldn't, say, people in the Village of Dryden say, 'If we have this arrangement basically we're paying for the fact that Lansing doesn't have a police department?'
TL: No. Because we're talking town. The Town of Dryden doesn't have a police department. The Village of Dryden has a police department. Who deals with the Town of Dryden? The Town of Dryden is one of the biggest townships in New York State. I can understand that argument.
But if you are in the Town of Dryden, the Town of Dryden's police force is the Sheriff's Office. The Town of Lansing's police force is the Sheriff's Office. Even Trumansburg -- the Village of Trumansburg has a police department, but they don't have a Town of Ulysses force. So County dollars would be funded for all the townships, not just an isolated area.
City versus county would be the big one.
LS: That is the big one, because most tax dollars are in the city and they already have their own police force.
TL: Right, but what is the ultimate goal of a police force? To protect and serve. But you don't just protect and serve your people. You protect and serve all. If the city needs help we're not going to say, 'We're not going to help you because you have your own police force.' We're going to work together, regardless of the situation.
Even if the administrations don't want to work together we understand as police officers that if there's a call and there's someone in trouble, we're all going to come. And we should not wait for that to happen -- we should be working together all the time. The more we can work together, the more numbers we can show, to me that's being proactive instead of being reactive.
In police business you don't want to react. You want to be proactive.
LS: So you're talking about the same kind of model that the fire departments use?
TL: Mutual aid. Yes. The same type of model should be utilized. It shouldn't be our department versus their department because we're too small to be able to do that. We should be working together on all aspects of law enforcement.
LS: You've probably answered the next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. The number of calls was up 3% last year. Given that is the current staffing adequate?
TL: If you look at the call volume versus the number of deputies that we have at any given time, the answer is no. The biggest call volume time is the afternoon/evening shift, which is three to eleven at night. That's when you have people home from work.
Let's say there is criminal mischief that happens at home, but you're at work... when are you going to call? When you get home at five or six o'clock at night. At that time three deputies is not adequate. You might not get the same call volume at night. But at the same time, if you do get a call about, say, three hundred college students at a party. Two or three deputies aren't going to control that situation.
So again, do you want to be reactive or do you want to be proactive? Proactive to me is that even if there are no parties on a Sunday night you still want to have enough patrols, just in case there is one. Because you don't want to be in a situation where you're out-manned, which we are all the time.
The more we can help that, the better off we're going to be.
LS: We talked about the jail, but we didn't talk about expanding the jail. Do you think the jail needs to be expanded, or do you think the State is asking for too much capacity? Or something in between?
TL: That's a great question, and I first want to say that if the State wants or requires the County to build a certain number of bed-facility that they want, then they need to back that up with State funding to help with that. You can not say that you need to do this, or you need to build a bigger jail unless you build it this size, and put all the burden on the taxpayers of that county because of (the State's) wish.
I don't think that that's right. It's definitely not fair. So they should back up what they're saying. They shouldn't just put it all on our shoulders.
But that said, I know we have outgrown the space at the jail at the Sheriff's office.
LS: We have variances to board more, don't we?
TL: Not any more. If we do have variances, it's not at the same level as he had in the past when there were no board-outs because we had a variance that we could house 103 inmates.
So we have outgrown our space, and we could use a bigger space. And the jail is not that old. I can understand not wanting to put more money into expanding the jail, but if we need to look at the infrastructure of the jail, that could be the reason the jail would have a renovation project attached to it. The heating system and the ventilation system, these things that are reoccurring issues in the jail as far as the infrastructure, that may be the reason why we may have to expand the jail.
But I would also have to say that if the County is willing to build a 70, 75, 80, 85 bed facility they've got my support, because it's bigger than what we have currently. We can expand the space we have now.
LS: You mean in addition to what we have now?
TL: In addition to what we have now, or if they decided they don't want to go with the 136 bed facility that the State wants, we're going to go with an 80 bed facility...
I would be all in favor of that. It is the decision for the Legislature. As Sheriff I would provide them with the necessary information they need to make a good, sound judgment on that. It's been studied, talked about, debated, and a decision's been rendered. Now we have to move forward. Let's not rehash that now. Let's move forward with the decision that's been made and try to make it better. And that's what my administration will do.
LS: How do you stand on Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI)?
TL: Being that I work at the courthouse right now, I see how ATI operates. And I do believe that there are some very good alternatives to incarceration. We all have to understand that Alternatives To Incarceration is not for everyone. But we're also talking only about individuals who have committed nonviolent crimes. I think people should be given the opportunity to make good on whatever violation that had occurred by participating in whatever program that ATI offers through the justice system.
So I believe in ATI. I believe that there's some good that comes out of ATI. I've seen people go through felony drug court, no violations, and it has changed their life. And this was all done without any jail time.
LS: That brings up the hot-potato point about ATI. When I hear people talk about it, the number one criticism is that we're spending a lot of money on a program that's not accountable. But you're right in there, so you at least have anecdotal experience of how it's working.
TL: Yes. I don't think anybody that is involved with ATI can say that it's 100% effective. It's not for everybody. But it has done some good for a lot of people. And there are others who have gone through and it just didn't work out for them. And they were sentenced by the judge. But ATI gave them an opportunity to at least try. If it didn't work out...
LS: The traditional system was there as the net...
TL: Yes, exactly. But there are some individuals that have come through, gone through ATI, graduated from that program, and were successful. And they are able to come back and tell their story to other participants that are in ATI.
The only thing that I would have to say about ATI is that I am a person, and I will be an administrator that is going to 100% look out for the safety of the men and women who work at the Sheriff's Office. If there's an individual that fights with a police officer, hurts a police officer, I cannot be a supporter of them going into the ATI program.
LS: What else do you think our readers would want to know about your campaign?
TL: I want people to understand my seriousness about this campaign. I've heard people suggest that I'm the third party candidate, or my goal is to take votes from one so that the other one wins. I have to say that I've worked too hard all summer long to get myself on the ballot.
And because of the effort that I put in, I did a lot of knocking on doors, I received the majority of signatures on my petitions.
LS: You mean more than the other two candidates?
TL: As an independent I had to get over 1400 signatures. Brian did, too, because he's on the independent ballot. But the Republican and Democrat only needed 500 signatures. And the Democrat and Republican have established parties, where they have individuals that are well versed in this area. They go out every time, and these same faithful Democrats and Republicans sign petitions for their parties, where I had to actually talk to a lot of people and convince them to sign my petition just to help me get on the ballot.
All that work just to be a third party candidate or to be a spoiler? No.
I'm in this campaign to win, and I am a very serious candidate. When I announce my Undersheriff I hope people will really understand how serious I am about my candidacy and how much I want to be part of the administrative team at the Sheriff's Office as the Sheriff, to help not only the staff, but the residents of this county to feel as safe as possible. That's why I'm running.
(Note: After this interview Little announced that Cayuga Heights Police Department Chief Ken Lansing would be his Undersheriff running mate on the ballot.)
There's a lot of talk about budgeting. But budgeting is only one aspect of management. Communication. Being a good listener, because you're providing a service to people. So you need to listen to the information those people are providing, so you can provide the best service. With communication, that's where you rally other law enforcement agencies in the county to support each other. You've got to be a good, effective communicator to do that.
Being an advocate for the residents of Tompkins County, for the staff that works at the Sheriff's Office. The more you can allow your staff to have ownership in the department. To be a part of the decision making process, because they're the ones that are out there. They're providing the services. Who knows best but the individuals providing and doing it? So the feedback they give you, you should be an advocate to the legislative body so you can get the resources that you need to provide the staff with whatever they need to do the best job.
I think those are other aspects of management that are not being discussed. I wonder if they're not discussed because there's no skill in those areas, where I'm bringing that skill along with management, along with certified police officer status.
I guess the nice thing about my candidacy is that I'm a real deputy. Though my position now is at the courthouse, I spent several years on the road in all the different townships, so I have a very good sound basis and knowledge of the function, as well as the areas where we need more manpower or equipment. Areas where we need more, and where we could do more. That's why I'm excited about the opportunity. Because I believe that we could do some good things.
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