Rep. Tenney visits Watertown to talk north country police challenges

Jan. 24—WATERTOWN — Rep. Claudia L. Tenney visited Watertown on Wednesday to host a roundtable discussion with local law enforcement officials.

North country representatives from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, state police, state Department of Environmental Conservation Police, Fort Drum police, Watertown police and other departments were in attendance.

"It was really, really informative to have them here to talk about what they see or what the issues (are) and to answer our questions that we had," Tenney, R-Cleveland, said.

Watertown Mayor Sarah V. Compo Pierce, Assemblymen Scott A. Gray and Kenneth D. Blakenbush, and a representative from Sen. Mark C. Walczyk's office joined Tenney in a press conference after the roundtable.

"We really have to change the narrative for public safety and for law enforcement," Gray said. "There's some things that we have to be doing better at the state to support our law enforcement."

Two topics brought up to the elected officials were the Driver's License Access and Privacy Act, also known as the Green Light Law, and interoperability of departments.

According to a fact sheet from the Department of Homeland Security, the green light law makes it so the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot share information with DHS. The sheet says this prevents DHS "from fully vetting New York residents."

New York residents are also no longer eligible to apply for or renew enrollments in certain Trusted Traveler Programs such as Global Entry, according to program website.

"CBP has not lost all access to New York state criminal history repositories, but it has lost access to driver's license and vehicle registration data. Without access to the New York DMV data, CBP will be limited in its ability to see Driving while intoxicated charges or other convictions categorized as traffic-related offenses, including misdemeanors, which do not show in such criminal history repositories, but which may disqualify an individual from being eligible for TTP," the fact sheet reads.

Tenney said this is not interoperable.

"It's the opposite of interoperability," Tenney said.

She said, though, that departments are working more with each other.

"I think that has been a benefit to public safety," she said.

Tenney said that the Border Patrol officers felt there were resources that they didn't have due to what she called "issues at the southern border," including agents from the north being placed there.

She also said law enforcement officials expressed stress over lack of staff.

"Getting back to respect and retaining good police officers, getting away from the defund/demoralize the police movement which has hurt them in their ranks and getting more people willing to serve I think was among the big issues that they raised today," Tenney said.

She said she thinks officers are working hard to get into the communities to get people interested in joining law enforcement agencies.

Gray believes that to help with manpower the state needs to increase the amount of money that state workers are making. New York state retirees can only make $35,000 from a job after they retire.

Gray said they also have to change the civil service laws to allow them to work more hours if they want.

Tenney said she will put the ideas that were heard from law enforcement "into action, into protecting them, and into protecting our communities ideally."