The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Ball wants to continue service as sheriff
WAMPSVILLE, N.Y. » Having served as undersheriff for seven years and acting sheriff since June, John Ball is looking to become Madison County’s next sheriff.
Ball was sworn in as acting sheriff after former sheriff Allen Riley was appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the New York State Commission on Correction.
Criticized by opponents that despite his resume as undersheriff and a seven year veteran of the United States Navy, he does not have a background as a police officer, Ball said the role of sheriff doesn’t require police experience. “There are several examples in New York state of just those certain type of circumstances. Two that come quickly to mind because I know them personally, one was a former 911 dispatcher
and one was an Army officer. That said, the role of the sheriff is not being a police officer.”
The sheriff ’s role in New York is to oversee the county jail and civil processes, as well as administer a multimillion dollar budget spanning six budget centers, Ball said. As undersheriff, Ball’s main job was to support and enact what the sheriff wanted done, including protocol and policy.
Over his seven years as undersheriff, there have been a number of strides made by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Ball said. The office added 10 new correction officers, six new deputies, two new canine teams, bicycle patrols, marine patrol services on the lake, and worked with local schools to educate students from kindergarten through seniors in place of the missing D. A.R.E. program.
“We have to do more with drugs,” Ball said. “The drug problem is nothing new. It didn’t happen over night and it will not go away over night. We are in a prime area between two metropolitan areas. This is the incubator, the business zone if you will.”
Ball explained that the homicide rate in Syracuse is on the track to break another record. This is attributed to drugs and gangs, as Ball said. “They both control the streets and we will not allow that to happen here.”
The Madison County Sheriff Office has had a balanced budget for all but one of the seven years Ball has been undersheriff and that was the year that 43 meth labs had been busted in the county in 2012; a national record.
“It’s not about telling people how to do their job; we’ve got very good people over there on the police side managing and directing and supervising those operations,” Ball said. “They report to me when they need things or if there are issues I need to be made aware of.”
For future projects, Ball has expressed an interest in getting another accreditation under the belt of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
“We have an incredibly well-trained police force here,” Ball said. “The one thing I want to see to completion is the accreditation of the police side, the road patrol side of our operation.”
Just like the process for accreditation for the jail, the police department must meet more than 200 hundred standards to receive this accreditation.
“What the accreditation does, is that it en- sures that every man and woman that wears the uniform in the county is credentialed, has had a thorough and comprehensive background and psychological evaluation, ensures that they not only meet, but exceed training requirements, that they are outfitted and trained in the equipment they have, and more importantly go home safe every night,” Ball said.
Ball said this was not something just recently chosen to be done out of the blue, but that this has been a four year process in the making.