MONTICELLO, NY — Emotions ran high at the October 19 Sullivan County legislative meeting, the last full legislative meeting before election day, November 7, when all nine legislators will be up for reelection. 

During the meeting’s public comment section, many individuals spoke of their disappointment with the Republican ruling body of the legislature, specifically referencing how the death of a 16-month-old child in Sullivan County has been handled to date. Others who spoke, including Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff, took the time to thank the legislature for its good governance. 

Much of the public comment period was consumed by volunteers from the group New York Citizens Audit, who shared unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in the 2020 and 2022 New York State elections and asked the county to demand a full audit of the election.

OCFS report on child’s death 

The meeting began with deputy county attorney Thomas Cawley, advising county employees and officials not to discuss the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) child fatality report that was posted on the state website on September 26. The report details the circumstances surrounding Akasha Luvert’s death. Akasha, a 16-month-old child died, on May 2 of a fentanyl overdose according to investigations. Both her parents were charged in connection with her death. (See related article, page 3.)

Cawley expressed concern that the report would be discussed before a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) had officially been issued. Procedurally, the report is not to be made public until after a PIP. 

Cawley said, “Unfortunately somehow, some way, I’m not going to cast aspersions, because I can’t possibly know… a copy of this confidential report was supplied to one of our local bloggers.” 

Legislator Nadia Rajsz challenged Cawley and his advice, clarifying that the document is public information, since it was posted by the state on the OCFS website on September 26. 

The county attorney’s office and the district attorney’s office have publicly disagreed about the circumstances leading up to Akasha’s death. 

“The reason I brought it up is because of this report. As you read it, I’m not pontificating again, or politicizing, that there were several times that [Department of Family Services] DFS approached our county attorney and it fell on deaf ears. Our county attorney was the gatekeeper and did not pursue this,” Rajsz said. “Had he pursued this, maybe we would have had a different outcome. I don’t know. In his press release, he said DFS never approached him or gave him information. Which was false. Because if everybody reads this report, it clearly states the dates that they conferred.”

“That’s an interpretation of language in the report. ‘Went on deaf ears’ I believe, that isn’t in the report,” Cawley said. “And the fact is that never happened. McGuire explained that there was nothing to go forward on.”

Public comments raised more questions about the circumstances surrounding Akasha’s death and the lack of visibility regarding the action that’s been taken by the county to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

One woman said, “The public has never heard about any subsequent efforts on the part of the Department of Family Services or the county attorney’s office to improve our systems to safeguard children at risk in Sullivan County.”

A public commenter, who described himself as a parent and children’s self-defense coach said, “Although difficult, I’ll keep my tone low and my anger suppressed, but I will say lying infuriates me. I read the child fatality report… page 14 states that… they consulted with their legal department… the report states they were denied… why weren’t those children saved at that first report?”

In-depth analysis of the OCFS report here.

More about the care center

Dissatisfaction with the legislature’s majority continued with Lou Setren, a frequent public commenter, who brought up dissatisfaction with the Care Center at Sunset. The care center has come under fire when it switched from public to private management. 

Just last week, the legislature hosted an emergency meeting to discuss paying two fines of $10,000 and $22,000 issued to the care center by the New York State Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services respectively. 

As to the care center’s lack of improvement, Setren said “[Legislator] Mr. Conklin stated, ‘I believe the private sector can do it better,’ but the evidence is quite the contrary. The rating at the care center has plummeted to one star since you agreed to bring in a consulting agency.” 

Public commenter Martha Scoppa expressed her hope that change would come post-election day and that she would be able to “forget about emergency meetings, special meetings and executive sessions” come January 2024. 

Praise for the legislative majority

Alternatively, public commentator Paul Walsh referenced a recent report issued by Sullivan County Communications Director Dan Hust that outlined Sullivan County’s improvements since 2019 in a recent financial report. 

“It looks like from 2019 forward you folks have been doing an excellent job. And I think you guys should be given a lot of credit for it,” Walsh said. 

Chris Lesser also spoke, thanking legislator Michael Brooks for all that he does. 

Sheriff Mike Schiff expressed his thanks to the legislators for “their support of public safety” and “for being there at every turn.”

The sheriff specifically mentioned funding medical equipment for schools for the safety of Sullivan County children. 

Audit requested for 2022 election

Four different volunteer members of New York Citizens Audit spoke during the public comment section, claiming that they’ve found evidence of election law violation through analyzing records obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. They called for the Sullivan County Legislature to sign on to their request for an end-to-end audit of the 2022 election.

The organization’s volunteers claimed that they’ve identified 5.1 million registrations “with what appears to be flawed data making them invalid and in violation of election laws.” When asked by legislator Nadia Rajsz how many of those were in Sullivan County, the volunteer responded, “I don’t have the exact numbers for Sullivan County.”

When pressed, another volunteer said, “We don’t just carry the data around because we have to sign NDAs to not expose anyone’s personal information. So that is why we have to do that more on an individual basis.”

The group was in the news on September 21, when the New York Attorney General’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter to the group that accused them of impersonating state election officials and accusing people at their homes of committing voter fraud.

In an April letter from the New York State Board of Elections addressed to county board commissioners, directors and staff, co-director Kristen Zebrowski Stavisky wrote, “It should be noted that no one has seen the actual data used to create the false claims,” and that the claims are “unequivocally false.”

The legislature took no action in the request to sign on to the end-to-end audit.