FULTON – After a lengthy discussion regarding the ability to clean up some streets and blocks at the Fulton Common Council meeting on October 3, the city’s police chief, Michael Curtis, held a town hall to answer questions the public may have.
The October 5 meeting addressed a handful of issues, mainly why the police and other agencies are not able to remove people from some of the flop houses on streets like Rochester Street and Park Street.
From a legal standpoint, evictions are not in the city police’s jurisdiction, as it is the Oswego County Sheriff’s Department responsibility “from start to finish,” according to Curtis. That is the same across all of New York State. Curtis did mention, however, that eviction paperwork can be filed in both local and county courts.
“The police department has no jurisdiction regarding evictions,” Curtis said. “[Evictions] can be filed here in local court or it can be filed in county court. The difference is, if you file here in local court, it is about $25. In county court it is [about] $300.”
While there may be residents that are considered to be nuisances to their neighbors, that is not an immediate cause for eviction. Even then, there is no guarantee that the county judge will rule in favor of the sheriff’s department and remove the people.
“We have had multiple discussions with the courts on why they won’t sign any and all documents, and [they] say, ‘No I won’t do it. It is against the law. I’ve been told by the state directly, no I can’t sign it,’” Curtis said.
Curtis added that three years ago he and the codes department sat down with the county to learn the exact wording and style needed to file charges; however, the court cannot give guidance, only a rough idea on paperwork from the clerk.
“[Judge David Hawthorne] can’t give guidance, he can’t give instruction. He is a judge so he has got to show impartiality,” Curtis said.
One alternative to eviction is the nuisance abatement law. Currently, the city is utilizing it to remove people from 323 Rochester Street, but it is taking longer than anticipated.
“We filed nuisance abatement paperwork with the city attorney a few months ago, and it’s working its way through the court,” Curtis said. “It is taking a lot longer than I expected to, than I wanted to … But we are very close. Our court date is this month.”
The law, however, has been tested constitutionally and this process, albeit lengthy, is how it needs to be done, according to Curtis. The consequences for nuisances may vary, so the city needs to see the result in full with the first attempt before investing more resources into the expensive process.
“My recommendation to the council was, we were going to do 323 [Rochester Street], see how that works out,” Curtis said. “If we don’t get a good result, say the county court judge says, ‘I agree this is a nuisance, they are in violation of all these things, and you need to give them six months, or you need to sit down and talk to them, or here’s a $50 fine,’ whatever the judge decides. But if the result isn’t good, you don’t want to sink any more money into [it] … It is going to be expensive so you make sure you don’t jump on all these cases and start filing [them] until you know how it is going to work out.”
At the town hall, Curtis also discussed the staffing and budgeting issues the police department is experiencing.
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