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Interview: Deputy Sheriff Todd Ethington

Written By Editor on 9/26/13 | 9/26/13

Deputy Todd Ethington, who has served in the County Sheriff's Department for 23 years in a variety of positions, including road patrol and corrections, is currently undertaking his most challenging task yet: running against his boss, Sheriff Tony Desmond, in this fall's election.

Launching his campaign earlier this Spring, Ethington has secured both the Conservative and Independent lines, after contesting for the Republican endorsement and during a recent conversation with myself was positive and confident heading into the final seven weeks of the campaign, telling me that if you "give it your all, it will come back to you."

Ethington. Picture provided by the campaign website
The Issues

Deputy Ethington initiated our issues portion of the conversation by handing me a piece of his campaign literature showing the county's public safety building over halfway flooded during the devastation of Hurricane Irene, using what he called a "powerful image," to support his position that we need to rebuild and relocate such offices out of the flood plain.

He also spoke strongly in support of the concept of innovation, stating he "believes in community policing," and spoke of one particular instance where one citizen's tip led to a major marijuana bust in Charlotteville. This brought us to present-day drug enforcement and his stance that "heroin and prescription use has gone over the top," and that Sheriff Desmond's belief that marijuana is "the biggest.... illegal substance" in the county is inaccurate.

SAFE Act

When the conversation inevitably turned towards the unpopular SAFE Act that was passed earlier this year and championed by Governor Cuomo, Deputy Ethington agreed with certain aspects of the bill - namely the provisions that direct money towards mental health and school resource officers - but that he's "not in favor of a majority of the law."

Although he reminded me that when the Sheriff stands before Judge Bartlett at the Schoharie County Courthouse and takes the oath of office, he "swears to uphold New York state law," and as a law enforcement officer is bound by that.

In conclusion

If any one moment could capture the confidence of Deputy Ethington heading towards election day, it would be when I asked him how he felt about running a third-party campaign and he responded by saying that he loved it and that "when I win I'm gonna take that as a compliment." 
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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fact that Todd Ethington is married to Cassandra Ethington is reason alone for making sure that this man does not become Sheriff of Schoharie County. Cassandra Ethington is perhaps the most destructive Schoharie County employee, aside from Alicia Terry (Director of Planning, Promotion, Development, Tourism, etc.), that the County has ever employed. Mrs. Ethington received her current position as a favor from Earl Van Wormer, Town Supervisor of Esperance. She has NO experience in Human Resources. ZERO. She has a two year degree in culinary arts, can barely compose a proper sentence (even with an assist from spell check), and is quite nasty to boot. On top of running the Personnel Department, she was also gifted the position of Director of the Department of Health. Again, all with nothing more than a two year degree in culinary arts. This woman needs to be removed and forgotten as soon as possible. And, her husband Todd needs to lose this election.

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