Letter submitted by Walter Mackney, candidate for Allegany County Sheriff
Why is Ricky Whitney running for a third term as Sheriff?
Is it because he wants to improve conditions at the Allegany County Jail?
Is it because he wants to reduce the overtime spending and reduce the budget?
Is it because he wants to make Allegany County a better and safer place to live?
According to a letter he sent out to Republican Committee People on February 23, 2018, a copy of which is attached, the only reason he is running for a third term is so he can ascend to the presidency of the New York State Sheriff’s Association!
In the meantime, during his two terms in office, and according to information obtained from the Allegany County Treasurer’s Office, cumulative overtime for the jail employees during the past 7 years totaled over 8 million dollars with administrative overtime during the same time period totaling over 1 million dollars. Add in the part-time employees and the 911 staff and overtime costs are almost 11 million dollars over the past 7 years!
According to an internal source at the Sheriff’s Office, Officers working at the jail have been mandated (forced in) 205 times between January 1st and July 30th of this year. That’s a total of 1640 overtime hours. In 2017 there were a total of 343 mandated shifts adding up to 2744 overtime hours.Maybe some things are more important than ascending to the presidency of the New York State Sheriff’s Association.
Ricky Whitney says that he “stands on his record”. This is his record and standing still is not moving forward. I believe it is because of this same record that my opponent has confirmed to the Cuba Patriot and myself on Tuesday 7/24/18 that he is unwilling to meet me for a debate. I feel this is a great injustice to the taxpayers and residents of our county. The Sheriff’s office represents one of the largest expenditures of county funds in each year’s budget. The current administration’s record is visibly broken. Is it any wonder Mr. Whitney will not appear in public to discuss these numbers? It is clearly time for change!
I urge all Republicans to come to the primary on September 13th and vote for Walter Mackney for Allegany County Sheriff and everyone else to vote in the General Election on November 6th. Follow me on Facebook @mackneyforsheriff.
