At the Jan. 5 village board of trustees meeting, Trustee Fritz Koennecke, liaison to the village court, said the court handled 50 percent more felonies in 2014 than it did during the three previous years, which is having an impact on the workload of the court, the court clerks and the police.
Koennecke acquired the court numbers as part of a routine year-end review and year-ahead assessment for the coming village budget work, but said he had also heard anecdotally from some of the local judges that there has been much more activity going on in the court during the past few years.
“I don’t know if the increased number of cases is because of more crime, better crackdown by police or maybe from us handling more cases for neighboring courts,” Koennecke said. Cazenovia courts also handle some cases brought in by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police, which accounts for increased court traffic as well, he said.
“I don’t know what effect, if any, this has on the community, but the court certainly has gotten busier and it takes more effort [time, personnel and paperwork] for felonies,” he said.
Koennecke’s report to the board led the Cazenovia Republican to inquire to the village court clerk and police chief about the current statistics from their two departments and what the numbers mean.
Cazenovia court
According to court records, while the number of felonies handled by the court has nearly doubled, the number of misdemeanors and violations before the court has decreased, as has the total overall number of infractions.
From August 2012 to December 2014, there were 26 felony cases handled in the Cazenovia court, compared to 15 felony cases between August 2009 and December 2011. In the same period of time, however, the number of misdemeanor cases decreased from 421 to 289, violations fell from 151 to 103 and infractions lessened slightly from 2,026 to 2,015.
The increase in felony cases has had a significant impact on the court because higher-level crimes require much more paperwork, time in court and attention overall from the court officers, said Cazenovia Court Clerk Kerry Bishal.
Felony arrests must be arraigned at the time of the arrest (while those charged with misdemeanors can be issued an appearance ticket) and the local judge gets called in for all felony arraignments, Bishal said. If the suspect is remanded to jail, then the court must arrange a felony hearing within a short amount of time. From there, the district attorney looks at the case and, if it is charged as a felony, then transfers it to the county court; if there is a plea offer to lower the charge to a misdemeanor, it can stay in local court.
“For the judge, the clerk, the police, and everyone involved, [a felony] is more work because if it gets transferred to the county court for a felony hearing, all the paperwork gets transferred there and any bail that may have been posted. If the case stays here, all paperwork stays here,” Bishal said.
“Kerry has done superb work for the village since being hired. Her efficiency has not only allowed the village court to keep up with its current work load, but to resolve a significant backlog of old cases,” said Mayor Kurt Wheeler. “The village board will be carefully reviewing the history of the court’s case load as we make budgeting decisions this spring. As with the highly qualified citizens we have on our boards, the village is lucky to have knowledgeable attorneys like Judge Moore and Associate Judge O’Sullivan serving our community and its justice system.”
Cazenovia police
From the police side of Cazenovia, while the number of felony cases and arrests has increased in recent years, there is “no crime wave” hitting Cazenovia and arrest numbers have been “fairly consistent” during the past three years, said Chief Michael Hayes.
“We are up in some areas but down in others — we can be up in tickets but down in arrests, or up in felonies but down in misdemeanors. We try to tailor enforcement to the areas that need it,” Hayes said.
According to department statistics (which are approximate numbers because the format for reporting numbers was changed in 2011), felony arrests by Cazenovia police increased from three in 2011 to 10 in 2012, eight in 2013 and 10 in 2014. Misdemeanor arrests reduced from 66 in 2011 to 30 in 2014, while local law arrests (such as criminal misconduct or littering) went from six in 2011 to two in 2013 to zero in 2014. Alcohol-related (ABC) violations have shrunk from eight in 2011 to two in 2014.
Last year saw a number of high-profile and somewhat unique crimes surface in Cazenovia, from the portable meth lab found behind the library to the four narcotics arrests in four days in October, the college bomb threat, the East Lake Road murder and the arrest of a man believed to be part of a statewide fraud ring based out of New York City.
But for Hayes, the important number statistically when it comes to Cazenovia crime is not so much the number of cases but the number of arrests and case closures.
“If we had 20 felonies and no arrests, then we have issues, but we’re closing them out with arrests,” Hayes said.
Likewise, he said the fluctuation of felony versus misdemeanor arrest numbers is normal, but if the trend of more felonies and less misdemeanors were to continue, “Then I’d say we have some issues to address,” he said.
What the recent crime statistics reflect is the quality of the police department staff’s training and dedication, and it is a reflection of the community’s involvement, Hayes said.
“We have very dedicated police officers, and because of the hard, diligent work they do and their embrace of the community policing attitude, we’re getting into more stuff,” Hayes said. “As chief I’m very proud to see what these guys accomplish. It’s a proactive approach to community policing.”
Hayes agrees that felony arrests are “way more involved” for his department than misdemeanors are — same as the court — because the higher level of the crime requires more investigative time, more paperwork and more personnel time (for the investigation, paperwork and court appearances together).
“It’s a big increase to our budget,” he said — a budget that must maintain and fund the department necessaries but hopefully also still get training for officers and update equipment.
Wheeler said that when considering the Cazenovia police crime numbers and related budget issues, it is important to note the trends in other local communities.
“From the elimination of the East Syracuse Police Department to the fact that Chittenango and Skaneateles each have only one full-time officer on their force (filling in with part-timers for the rest), nearly every municipality is facing this struggle and I think we are doing better than most,” he said.
Potential effects
So what is the effect of an increase in felony crimes in Cazenovia?
According to all sources: Expense.
The court system is being revamped and made more efficient, which appears to be working well and handling the case load, while the police department is making more arrests based on proactive policing, community trust and a well-trained staff of officers. But what both branches of law enforcement are seeing — in fact, what all state municipalities and their departments are seeing — is a need for more money in the face of rising workloads, improving technologies and increasing costs.
For Wheeler, the current statistics of the village court and police do not reflect any changes or trends that in any way endanger public safety, but instead are part of issues concerning “thoughtful budgeting and careful allocation of scarce resources.”
“Our police and court are just two of the many competing priorities the village will seek to carefully balance as we begin our budget process in late February,” Wheeler said. “Our streets, water and sewer systems and other infrastructure top the list of necessities along with elements that contribute so much to our quality of life such as replacing aging trees and improving our parks. Declining resources from the state and federal government along with increased mandates and regulations have only compounded the challenges to local governments and schools. No one knows the needs of their community better than locally-elected leaders. We are all working together to use our finite resources as effectively as possible.”
The village board will address these issues as it begins discussing its budgetary needs for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which will begin in late February to early March.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
