Sheriff, village police disagree over program

YATES COUNTY—The Penn Yan police department announced they no longer support the National Child Safety Council, a group the Yates County Sheriff is seeking donations for.

The village police department used to work with the NCSC to get donations from local businesses to support crime prevention and personal education booklets, handouts, and materials used by law enforcement agencies in community education efforts.  Sheriff Ron Spike said both departments used to do this for around 20 years.

Police chief gene Mitchell said that two years ago he said the village police would not participate.  Instead, he suggests local merchants donate to more locally based causes.

Mitchell said the organization’s local representative John Braun said he “made a mistake by sending the sheriff’s department support letter to village businesses.”

Part of the reason why Mitchell said his department does not support the program is that it received zero out of four star rating from Charity Navigator.  NCSC program head H.R. Wilkinson has also had to pay Pennsylvania $150,000 and agreed not to further seek donations in that state in 2007.

“As the chief has indicated in some other states the company has had management solicitation problems.  However, the local program has always produced a quality product with quantity sufficient for distribution,” said Spike.  “If it did not then we would certainly not support it and not use them.”