Guest commentary. Opinions are those of the author below.
The last time the position of Orange County Sheriff was contested was 2002 so it has been 20 years since Sheriff DuBois’ initial successful run. In 2002 the Republican, Independent and Conservative lines that Sheriff DuBois ran on had a combined 78,370 registered voters and DuBoise won with a total of 52,608 votes against his main opponent’s 22,851 who’s votes came mainly from the 56,366 registered Democrats. The other main person in the race on smaller party lines was the incumbent Sheriff Bigger who was defeated by DuBoise in the three primaries mainly because of irregularities in his administration. Sheriff DuBoise has chosen not to run in 2022 so several people are running for the position and while the Democrats have a single candidate the Republican and other parties will have a contested primary with Undersheriff Ken Jones running against Paul Arteta who retired from the Sheriff’s Department last year. A lot has changed in those 20 years but some things have stayed the same.
The biggest change that is not in the favor of whoever wins the Republican line is the voter registration pattern because it has switched in favor of the Democratic party. In 2002 Sheriff DuBoise had a 22,000-vote lead in the three parties’ lines that he ran on. In 2022 if, and that’s a big if, the Republican nominee has the same three lines they will face over a 3,500 deficit against the Democrats voter registration and that deficit is increasing every day. In order for the Republican nominee to win in the general election they will need to have a clean record with no history of the same problems that incumbent Sheriff Bigger faced of mismanagement, nepotism or corruption. Unfortunately, that might not the case.
Ken Jones has been the Undersheriff for the last twenty years and is basically running as the incumbent but like Sheriff Bigger twenty years ago, he has a well-documented history of some of the same types of problems that were the reason that the outsider at that time, Carl DuBoise, won the Republican, Conservative and Independent party lines. The Times Herald-Record has had articles in the past covering some of the lawsuits and other problems that, if Ken Jones is the candidate, his opposition will be able to effectively use against him. Besides the articles that have been published in the past, Ken Jones also has to overcome some “open secrets” that will also be used against him.
In May of 2017 the T H-R published several articles covering the “Amendment Affair.” Under NY law amendments to a handgun license are used any time a change is made to an existing handgun license such as adding or removing a handgun, changing an address or name and other reason changes are being made to an existing license. NY Penal law clearly states that only Judges can issue Amendments to a pistol license. Someone in the County Clerk’s or Sheriff office photoshopped the state form by removing on the state form a signature line that had “Judge ________ County Court” and replaced it with a line that said, “County Clerk” and the issued forms were then signed by the County Clerk at the time and an Investigator with the Sheriff’s Department. No one will believe that the County Clerk would undertake such an obvious violation of NY law and no Sheriff’s Department Investigator would sign such a form without the approval if not at the instance of Undersheriff Ken Jones. 236 handgun license amendments were improperly issued and had to be reissued in order to correct what the administrative Judge stated was to: “,,, mitigate what may be the responsibility of the County Clerk’s personnel or Sheriff’s personnel for knowing violation of law.” One other problem that the article did not mention was that anyone who had the improperly issued licenses and any gun dealer transferring a handgun to someone with one of the improperly issued amendments could have also been exposed to criminal violations. Ken Jones did not discuss the change with the Judges for the obvious reason that they would not have approved such an illegal act but what reason did Undersheriff Ken Jones give for creating and issuing the illegal amendment forms?
From the May T H-R article: “Undersheriff Ken Jones said the two county agencies began approving amendments on their own simply to relieve a massive backlog in requests, which he said typically take judges four to six weeks to sign.” The myth that “it’s the Judges” was debunked in a follow up T H-R article written after they reviewed amendments dates and said that the Judges were normally taking a few days or a week to review and sign the amendments. Ken Jones’s expiation was an odd justification especially at a time when the Sheriff’s Department was making people applying for a new handgun license wait months to just to get fingerprinted and then the Sheriff’s Department took additional months just to investigate the application, something that many counties do in a few days or weeks. Why does it take so long to get fingerprinted in Orange County?
Because Ken Jones wants it to take that long. A quick internet search reveals many county Sheriff’s Departments don’t even take fingerprints for pistol license applications. Right next door to Orange County is Sullivan County and they have used a private company to take fingerprints for decades as does Erie, Stueben, Onondaga, Delaware, and Cortland Counties among others. Ken Jones has claimed that this is illegal but it is strange that nothing in NY law requires that only the Sheriff’s Department take the fingerprints and all of these other counties don’t have a problem. These companies provide secure fingerprinting services not only for Pistol License applications but also for TSA Precheck, Transportation Worker Identification Credentials and Hazmat endorsements, and fingerprinting for other jobs and licenses among other services. Limiting the number of people who can be fingerprinted is also a way to slow down the number of people applying for a handgun license because once someone is fingerprinted they can turn in their pistol license application and Ken Jones does not want to supply the personal required or streamline the process so that the required investigation can be done in a timely manner. NY state law contains the follow: “… the licensing officer shall act upon any application for a license pursuant to this section within six months of the date of presentment of such an application to the appropriate authority. Such delay may only be for good cause and with respect to the applicant. In acting upon an application, the licensing officer shall either deny the application for reasons specifically and concisely stated in writing or grant the application and issue the license applied for.” Once an application is turned in the clock starts on the six-month limit. The Sheriff’s Department is currently exceeding the limit just in their investigation and have exceeded the limit on a regular basis in the past but they have never sent out any letters. Currently some people are waiting up to a year and a half to get their handgun license from start to finish.
The Sheriff’s Department’s handgun safety class is another area where Ken Jones will have a problem explaining his actions. In 2014 Ken had several meetings with a local outdoor, hunting and fishing organization explaining that he wanted the Sheriff’s Department to start giving the handgun safety class required by the Judges for all pistol license applicants and he also would take over control of who would be on the list of approved instructors that had been controlled by the County Clerk’s office. Everyone on the list would also have to follow a list of rules and could only use a PowerPoint that the Sheriff’s Department provided. In T H-R articles Ken Jones stated that he would work with local organizations and instructors to create the PowerPoint and all instructors would be Certified NRA Instructors even though they were not allowed to give the NRA Handgun class to meet the requirement of the Judges. The fact is no organization has ever voted to approve the Sheriff’s Department’s class or procedures or cooperated with them to produce the class material. In fact, instructors’ suggestions correcting obvious errors in the PowerPoint have been rejected. The first PowerPoint Ken Jones provided contained many errors and had other problems. One of the basic gun safety rules was not even copied correctly and the PowerPoint contained many copyrighted pictures. The copyrighted material must have caused some problems because a new version was given to the instructors and it was stressed that the new version contained no copyrighted material.
It is an open secret that the main reason Ken Jones started the Safety Class and took over the instructor list is that he wanted to create a job for his girlfriend. In the January 2014 monthly meeting of the Public Safety Committee Ken Jones stated “He anticipates the need to create a per – diem assistant range instructor position and hopes to bring that request to the committee next month. He envisions that the position would be filled by a female with a gun training background. The Undersheriff believes this to could be a good revenue producer for the county.” Jones was also asked if the person was a “certified instructor.” “Undersheriff Jones replied that all of the qualifications are listed on the back of the sheet.” thus avoiding answering the question and Ken Jones also stated: “They currently have a few people in mind for the new position that meet the requirements and are long standing woman and second amendment rights advocates.” The problem was that his girlfriend was the only person being considered and she had only recently gotten her handgun license and had never been any type of gun instructor and was not an NRA Instructor. The job description that his girlfriend would be hired under required the “completion of a National Rifle Association Safety Officer Training course.” Ignoring the fact that the NRA does not have a course by that title, Ken Jones had stated many times that all of the instructors would be Certified NRA Instructors and that would mean that the instructors would have taken and passed the NRA Handgun Instructor class so his girlfriend would have to take and pass the class before she was hired. So how was that arranged?
It is my understanding that Ken Jones arranged for an outside third party to hire an NRA Training Counselor from New Jersey to give the class on Orange County Property to members of the SWAT team and Jones’ girlfriend. Everyone passed the class except for the girlfriend who instead of being an NRA Certified Instructor was only given an NRA Certified Assistant Instructor rating. (Assistant Instructors are not allowed to give an NRA class, order NRA material or sign Certificates.) Having failed to be issued the normal ‘Certified Instructor’ rating that Ken Jones had stated all Instructors would have, the girlfriend should not have been hired but Ken Jones hired her anyway and a few months later she retook the class with another instructor in Sullivan County and passed. (I can attest to the fact that she was given the “Assistant Instructor” title because she called me to find out what she needed to do to become a “Certified Handgun Instructor.” I am also a Training Counselor and certify instructors.) Left unanswered are other question that are sure to come up in the general election such as who paid for the girlfriend’s first and second class, did Ken Jones get permission from anyone to hire her because she was not a “Certified Instructor” and did he get permission to hire her in a position that requires that she report to him. Another question is if it is a common occurrence for the Sheriff’s Department to arrange for and allow prospective employees to take a class on County Property arranged by the Sheriff’s Department that would allow the person to qualify for future employment with the Department?
I have more that I would like to say but I have run out of time before decisions might be being made. I didn’t cover my lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department because Ken Jones said I “was not a team player” so he would not put me on the Approved list of Instructors even though I have the largest gun related website in NY, I have been giving classes for decades, I have done work for the NRA Training Department and I am the only NRA Training Counselor in Orange County but the Judge required that they put me on the list. I didn’t cover the attempts that they have made to remove me from the list including the last one telling me I would be removed from the list if I did not remove from my website information about my lawsuit. I can also say that Ken Jones will not get the support of anyone that I know in the 2nd Amendment community because they know how he has treated the people applying for pistol permits. Many of those people might not vote for a candidate in another party but they will not pull the lever for Ken Jones.
If you have any questions please feel free to call me.
Thanks,
George Rogero
OCShooters.com
845-781-0839 cell
NRA Training Counselor & Certified Instructor
NRA Chief Range Safety Officer
NRA # 21460872
NRA Recruiter # XP025959
NY DEC INSTRUCTOR, Gun 05233319
USA ARCHERY LEVEL 1 INSTRUCTOR
OCSD #16-07250