MALONE — Republican voters will decide between two candidates for county sheriff when they head to the polls on June 28.

The race’s incumbent, Franklin County Sheriff Kevin A. Mulverhill, and challenger Jay D. Cook, currently a special patrol officer with the county sheriff’s office at Chateaugay Central School District, are both retired state police sergeants.

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Mulverhill

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Mulverhill, of Malone, is seeking his fourth term in the county office. He was first elected to the post in 2010, following his retirement from the state police.

He has more than 35 years of law enforcement experience, and believes there is still plenty of work to be done at the sheriff’s office.

“There’s a lot of unfinished business. We are moving towards accreditation at the jail, and that will be completed in the next two years; we will be a full accredited jail.” Mulverhill said. “That means we have gone above and beyond the minimum standard, we have met standards set by the state and federal government, and it is kind of a feather in your cap.”

Mulverhill said this accreditation has been a long-term goal for the county jail.

“Police reform and the HALT Act changed some of the accreditation features,” Mulverhill said. “We are just getting caught up. We are deep into the process and I expect to see it happen at some point in the next year or two.”

Mulverhill said running the county jail is the county sheriff’s primary responsibility.

“Our main focus is the operation of the jail; we take inmates from processing through getting them acclimated to the jail, to sometimes a sentence or a move to a state correctional facility,” Mulverhill said. “It is almost like a small city, there’s food, water, electricity, clothing, covering basic needs, mental health, substance abuse, medical.”

He said the sheriff’s office has worked to implement substance abuse and mental health programs to lower recidivism and help make the community safer.

Mulverhill said he believes the biggest challenge the sheriff’s office currently faces is from legislation.

“The state passes law we have to follow and a lot of those we have very little input on and they put mandates on us that are expensive for the jail,” Mulverhill said. “Some of it involves additional staff, and that puts the burden on the taxpayer.”

Mulverhill voiced support for the county sheriff’s child identification program and having special patrol officers in local schools.

“Chateaugay’s school system approached me and asked about the possibility of having school resource officers. If it wasn’t for the superintendent at Chateaugay I’m not sure any school would have a program, if it weren’t for them willing to stick it out and get everything started,” Mulverhill said. “We researched the program; the county legislators were actually opposed to it but we were able to push it through and get it started.”

The sheriff’s office utilizes both retired law enforcement officials, special patrol officers and active deputies as school resource officers, he said.

Mulverhill said the sheriff’s office works with Brushton-Moira Central School District, Chateaugay Central School District, Salmon River and St. Regis Falls.

“The special patrol officers’ focus is mainly the security of the building and the comings and goings of people in the building, handling small situations that may occur within the school, and any criminal activity would be turned over to the state police,” Mulverhill said. “Whereas a school resource officer are actual police officers who have the ability to effect those arrests and conduct investigations, though it would be in conjunction with the state police.”

Mulverhill said the sheriff’s office is negotiating with the Board of Cooperative Educational Services to provide coverage at the Malone and Saranac Lake campuses.

Mulverhill wants to get back to the multi-agency trainings for school shootings that the sheriff’s office participated in before the pandemic, due to the increase of mass shootings across the country this year.

“Pre-COVID, the schools we are involved with were all proactive in addressing school safety. We met with all the staff, provided programs for them and training. A lot of it was open discussion, what to expect, what their individual roles were,” Mulverhill said. “Before COVID we were able to bring together all the law enforcement agencies, locally, and do trainings, we worked with Border Patrol, Customs, state police, forest rangers, DEC, right down to sheriff’s deputies and village police departments, we all participated. We are getting back to that — we aren’t quite there yet but we are getting back to it.”

A number of different trainings are offered by the state sheriff’s association, village police departments and federal agencies.

“There’s no way you can prepare for everything, there are thousands of scenarios that could happen, there is no way you can prepare for them all, but those trainings really try to put people in the right mindset and kind of get a plan in place before anything like that happens,” Mulverhill said. “Figure out what is it you are going to do, where are you going to go and that kind of thing.”

Mulverhill said he supports the agency’s drug takeback program and said the sheriff’s office takes part in Operation Lifesaver, a program for disabled children of adults with Alzheimer’s or dementia who might wander away.

Mulverhill said the sheriff’s office has approximately 60 corrections officers. In addition to the civil office, secretarial staff, cooking staff and medical staff, the sheriff’s office has about 85 employees.

Mulverhill said the number of inmates at the Franklin County jail fluctuates.

“When I first became sheriff we had over 140 inmates,” he said. “We were housing out inmates almost every day. Over the years different programs came about that helped us reduce that number — the home monitoring program and I guess the biggest change was bail reform. Prior to bail reform our daily census population was probably between 70 and 80 inmates. Right now we are operating between 60 and 70. We are almost back to where we were; during COVID there was time when we were down to about 40 inmates.”

Mulverhill thinks bail reform takes away control from local judges.

“Local magistrates need more control over arraignment and bail, they are restricted now on how well they can protect the community,” Mulverhill said. “They don’t have the ability to put sometimes dangerous people in jail, where they can receive mental health and substance abuse services they would be entitled to and get at the county jail. We need to allow a broader area of crimes that judges can post bail, and allow them leniency on their ability to post or ask for bail.”

Prior to his time with the state police, Mulverhill said he worked with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for four years starting in 1983, including at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, Sing Sing Correctional in Ossining, and Ogdensburg Correctional Facility in St. Lawrence County.

“I was also part of the staff that opened Franklin Correctional,” Mulverhill said.

Mulverhill said he started with the state police in September 1987, working with the agency for 23 years.

“I retired to run for sheriff,” Mulverhill said. “It was a different career path. It was an opportunity to impact the local community, more than what I was involved with previously, a new challenge, and I thought with my experience I thought I would do a good job. Being a manager with the state police was an incredible advantage, just with policy, holding people accountable, dealing with people and employees on an everyday basis. It was a great experience.”

Mulverhill serves on the board of directors for the North Country Crime Analysis Center, is the co-chair of the Zone 9 Counter Terrorism Task Force, and is the co-chair of the Franklin County Prevention Task Force.

He is also a member of the Suicide Prevention Task Force, the Franklin County Traffic Safety Board, Franklin County Multidisciplinary Committee and the Franklin County Intimate Partner Violence Task Force.

Mulverhill is an active member of the state sheriffs’ association.

“If I get another term as county sheriff I will be the president of the state association,” Mulverhill said.

His wife Shelley is a teacher with Malone Central School District. They have seven children and three grandchildren.

Mulverhill graduated from Franklin Academy in 1982.

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Cook

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In addition to his time with the Chateaugay Central School District, Cook has years of law enforcement experience.

“When I was getting ready to retire four years ago, I didn’t want to just retire. I wanted to continue in law enforcement,” he said. “I thought what better way to continue in law enforcement than serve my county as the county sheriff. That’s where I started my career in law enforcement. When I got out of the service in 1989, my first job was at the old jail as a deputy inside the jail. I liked it, got along great with everybody down there, was very appreciative of the job and I always wanted to be a state trooper so I was working towards that.”

He retired as a state police sergeant after 24 years with the state agency, and during his state police career, he worked for 18 years as a firearms instructor, led the troop’s traffic incident management team for nine years, and was a road patrol trooper for six years.

“I wanted to run for sheriff four years ago but the current sheriff decided he was running again, so out of respect for him I waited and I immediately got the job at Chateaugay School as the SPO through the sheriff’s office,” Cook said. “I was content with that and was waiting and here we are, I still want to run.”

Cook said despite not having a road patrol, the county sheriff’s office has multiple responsibilities in the county.

“The civil office is one of the major roles, they serve all civil papers and deal with all civil proceedings throughout the county,” Cook said. “Another role is the sex offender register. We have a deputy that travels around the whole county to check addresses and check on registered sex offenders. And of course there is running the county jail. There are also special details, parades, and they assist other agencies when called upon.”

The sheriff’s office also has special patrol officers like Cook at schools throughout the county.

“We are deputized through the sheriff’s office, we carry a firearm and we are assigned to a school,” Cook said. “There are two of us at Chateaugay School, two at Brushton-Moira and two at St. Regis Falls. And I understand they just assigned a full-time deputy, a current deputy, at Salmon River.”

With the recent spike in mass shootings in the U.S., Cook believes training can help local schools prepare for this threat.

“I would highly urge the administration of every school to get every staff member more involved with training, and preparedness, and also preventative measures,” Cook said. “There is training available through the New York State Sheriffs’ Association that is great.

Cook said he believes he will bring a common-sense approach to the sheriff’s position.

“I just feel like I am a common-sense leader and I like working with my people rather than feeling they work for me, that is my comfort zone,” Cook said. “I feel like I can make a difference, just by leading how I have always led. My last nine years with the state police I ran a detail called the Traffic Incident Management Unit. I had eight troopers assigned to me. It dealt mostly with work zone safety initiatives, they were assigned all over the troop, and we did special details, we were always assigned to Ironman Lake Placid, any major detail around the troop that dealt with traffic.”

Cook said he feels one of the biggest issues the county sheriff’s office currently faces is attracting qualified employees.

“I think one of the biggest issues is not being able to attract people to work there and the turnover of people once they do work there,” Cook said. “They struggle to keep people there once they are hired and I would just like to work with everyone down there and find out why. I’m sure a big part of it is financial, because I don’t believe they get paid enough. It is not a fun job working the jail, I’ve done it. To attract good candidates and hold them there for a career is not an easy thing to do. You have to find out why it is the way it is.”

Cook’s goal, if elected, is to work with the county legislators to try and come up with some type of solution.

“So we can attract, hire and keep people there,” Cook said.

He said this is his first time running for public office.

“My approach has been to get out and talk to as many people as I can, personally,” Cook said. “Answer any questions they have, the best that I can. I’m just being myself. I tell people I have a common-sense style of leadership and I think that is what we need, I think it works, I think my style of leadership works, working with people, that’s my approach.”

Cook said he believes it is important that the county sheriff is out in the community “communicating with other police agencies, communicating with community leaders, listening to their concerns, and trying our best to address them.”

“I feel like our county should be proud of our sheriff’s office, and it should be there in a supportive role to all the other police in the county and communities in the county,” he said. “I would like to work with the legislators to help make that happen.”

Additionally, Cook said he would like to see an increased presence on county waterways, ATV trails and snowmobile trails.

“I think by simply having a presence in those areas, we will save lives,” Cook said. “DEC does their best but they are spread thin as well, and they just can’t get out enough. That’s where I feel I would really like to try to show a presence, it is certainly not to go out and hammer people, it’s to go out and talk to people, educate them and keep them safe. We want people in our county having fun and spending money. You don’t want to chase them away, but you also want to do it safely.”

Cook said he was part of the response to the 9/11 attacks, part of a Hurricane Katrina relief team in 2005, and was part of the manhunt for Richard W. Matt and David P. Sweat in 2015, after the pair escaped from Clinton County Correctional Facility in Dannemora.

Then-Sgt. Cook shot and captured Sweat in Constable on June 28, 2015.

Cook was the recipient of the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association’s Emerson J. Dillon Award, trooper of the year in 2015, and the National Association of Police Organization’s Top Cop award in 2016.

He also received a state police superintendent’s commendation in 2016.

Before this time with the state police, Cook spent four years as a state corrections officer.

Cook said he was mostly posted at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, but also served at Sing Sing Correctional in Ossining, and had a short stint at Gouverneur Correctional Facility in St. Lawrence County.

Graduating from Chateaugay Central School in 1986, Cook then earned an associate degree in criminal justice from North Country Community College in 1990, after being in the U.S. Air Force from 1986 to 1989.

Cook was also a member of the Vermont Air National Guard from 1989 to 1992.

Cook and his family reside near the Burke-Chateaugay town line.