Steuben County Manager responds to Sheriff’s lawsuit against County
STEUBEN COUNTY, N.Y. (WETM) – Steuben County Manager Jack Wheeler shared an “important update” about Sheriff Allard’s lawsuit against the County. Sheriff Allard accuses the County of unlawfully forcing him to pay for his own liability insurance and lawsuit protections, worth millions of dollars.
“The county wants you to know what’s happening with the Sheriff. You may have read about it in the news, but you probably don’t know the whole story,” County Manager Wheeler said in a video message posted on Facebook on Friday.
In October, Sheriff Allard sued the County to stop quote “two unprecedented resolutions that stripped me of the legal defense and indemnification against lawsuits that the county legislature unanimously gave me just six years ago and imposed an unlawful requirement on me to purchase millions of dollars of liability insurance.”
In a 10 to 7 vote on September 25th, the County Legislature voted to repeal a law “providing for the defense and indemnification of the Sheriff of the County of Steuben. Sheriff Allard says a “handful of members of county government” are trying to undermine his administration and stop an internal investigation. The Sheriff spoke with WETM News Director Jim Turpin on our Sunday morning show “Talk of the Tiers” which aired February 3rd.
“The county asked me or tried to order me to not investigate a personnel complaint. I said I can’t, I have to by law, and did so. Since that time, there has been this attack on me from certain members of county government that has continued. They passed the two resolutions. One was to take away my indemnification and the other one was to cause me to have to get my own insurance, without ever even looking to the fact that every County has a blanket policy that already covered me. That’s the one they had to repeal. because again, it wasn’t even done lawfully,” Allard said.
The September 25th vote on “A Local Law repealing Local Law No. Four of 2017, Providing for the Defense and Indemnification of the Sheriff of the County of Steuben” passed 10 to 7.
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Steuben County Manager Jack Wheeler started his message by saying all Sheriff’s Deputies have full liability insurance, saying Sheriff Allard had publicly suggested otherwise. Mr. Wheeler also said the Sheriff’s Office is facing 17 lawsuits, from out about a total of 30 lawsuits against 32 different County Departments.
“17 of those are being brought against just one department, the Sheriff’s Office. That’s the most amount of potential or actual lawsuits against any one county department in modern memory,” Wheeler said. He added the County had received “very troubling news” from the County’s insurance carrier, announcing deductibles would increase from $500,000 to $750,000 for each claim.”
“You may also have heard that the County Legislature recently voted to rescind previous permission to pay any legal fees or judgments brought against the Sheriff himself. that is true, but it was only done as a last resort,” Wheeler said in the roughly 3:30 minute video.
“Without consulting with County officials, the Sheriff made several unilateral decisions including agreeing to pay thousands of dollars in a loan agreement without authorization. He’s also violating County policy and best practices in law enforcement by trying to investigate his own departments personnel matters, specifically harassment and discrimination claims. When there’s a credible harassment or discrimination claim in any other county department, the proper procedure is to bring in an outside investigator to look into it. The sheriff insists on investigating himself,” Wheeler added.
“His public statements about the lawsuit falsely claimed the County legislators did not properly go into executive session. By law, legislators can discuss certain confidential items in executive session, and that is all that was done here. As part of his lawsuit, the Sheriff is attempting to compel legislators to reveal confidential discussions that took place in executive sessions. We owe it to our taxpayers to oppose this in court,” Wheeler said.
“The county can pass whatever law they want to pass but it has to be done legally and it has to be done in good faith and serve some sort of policy,” Sheriff Allard said on “Talk of the Tiers.” That’s been our argument all along, is that they did it completely in executive session with no transparency and they hid every debate that occurred. Also, statements were made that were reported to me that would indicate there was a level of coercion involved. There’s no minutes, there’s no record, there’s no transparency whatsoever.”
On January 22nd, a judge allowed the deposition of county legislator Hilda Lando, who represents Corning. The judge said Lando’s testimony is “material and necessary” to establish if anyone “acted in bad faith” during the executive session that happened before the vote. Lando was among the 7 legislators who voted against stripping the Sheriff of his liability protections.
The county is appealing the decision.
“What they’re appealing is our ability to depose that legislator and get the truth out. You know, the truth has a has a funny way of bubbling to the surface. So to me, now, it’s gotten to the point where it’s just sad and pathetic. it really is,” Allard said.
County Manager Wheeler closed is message by saying: “As always, we’re available to answer questions about this or other county business. For now. We want you to know that we continue to work very hard to safeguard you and your tax dollars. And we still remain very willing to work in cooperation with the Sheriff. Thank you.”
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