From left: Michael Sullivan, Patrick Swanson, Judy Reynolds, Marcia Merrins, Jason Schmidt, Sally Jarosynski (Corey Maher / Photo Editor).
CAMRY DEAN
Staff Writer
Next Tuesday, Americans will race to the polls to fulfill their civil duty and cast their vote for the next president of the United States.
While there, Chautauqua County residents will not only be asked to vote for who they believe should run our country for the next four years, but to also vote for local candidates for family court judge and district attorney.
To prepare residents for the decision, the League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County have been sponsoring community forums with local candidates, where members of the community can attend and ask questions about pressing issues at both a regional and national level.
Last Thursday, a forum was held at the Fredonia Opera House with family court judge candidates Michael Sullivan (R) and Sally Jarosynski (D), as well as candidates for District Attorney Jason Schmidt (R) and Patrick Swanson (D).
“Voting is an essential step in the process of democracy,” said co-moderator and member of the League, Judy Reynolds. “In exercising our choice for elective office, we affirm our faith in the democratic process.”
Marcia Merrins, co-moderator, member of the LWV Chautauqua County and director on the national level, opened the forum with a general question about what is the most pressing issue facing the county and steps to take in order to solve it.
All four candidates agreed: the biggest problem is the opium epidemic and drug addiction.
Candidate Michael Sullivan, who started the discussion, spoke about the issues and programs set in place to help.
Sullivan talked about the Chautauqua Country Treatment Court in Jamestown and his involvement in both its creation and success since 2000. Treatment courts are resolution courts that take a mental health approach to help addicted offenders.
“We’ve had successful graduates who go on to lead successful lives and just as in important, maybe even more, we’ve had at least a dozen children born to parents in our treatment court who were born free of any kind of substance abuse after their mothers had previously given birth to children addicted,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan explained that these successes are limited due to the small amount of cases they’re allowed to take into the court, but on Sept. 1 of this year, they launched a study to determine the resources to expand and continue.
Sullivan believes that working closely with families that have a history of addiction can prevent the extension of these issues from generation to generation.
“I’ve been doing this long enough now where I’m seeing the third generation of families in cases, and we want to be able to stop that,” Sullivan said. “From a family court perspective, the mechanism we have is to fix the families that are in front of us.”
Sullivan’s opponent, Sally Jaroszynski, agreed but stated that the family court doesn’t have the proper infrastructure to support families who come in with one or more crises such as addiction, mental health issues and treatment, domestic violence and poverty.
“If our families are successful, then our communities are going to be successful and our counties [are] going to be successful,” Jaroszynski said. “But right now, we don’t have the structure in family court to help all of those individuals. If we don’t have the structure to support [these programs], it’s not going to work. My goal would be to make sure we have that infrastructure.”
Jaroszynski continued in terms of prevention to talk about youth and juvenile detention centers.
“There has to be something for our children when they come out of a juvenile program that offers more for them; job and job training incentive and education incentive instead of sending them right back into the situation from before that got them to where they were. That’s where our system is lacking right now.”
Jason Schmidt, former felony prosecutor and criminal defense attorney and candidate for district attorney, wants to focus on the never-ending felony cycle and the traffic of drugs throughout the county.
“The [changes I want to make] are targeting the drug-dealers and suppliers that are destroying our neighborhoods and also recognizing, though, that we’ve got a generation of addicts, and we don’t want to turn them into a generation of convicted felons,” Schmidt said. “I want to go hard on the dealers but I also want to recognize the reality of drug addiction.”
Schmidt recognizes that addicts often need rehabilitation rather than a criminal record and is proposing deferred and non-prosecution programs.
“We filter people into the criminal justice system and they come out as convicted felons and that’s problematic,” said Schmidt. “Can you imagine how difficult it is to become a productive member of society when you’re a convicted felon? It’s nearly impossible and [the system] has set people up for failure. They will just cycle back into the system. That’s why one of the big proposals I have is to change our system and re-evaluate our drug treatment core contracts.”
Patrick Swanson, acting district attorney of Chautauqua County, has been endorsed by five different police agencies in the county and hopes to take advantage of the relationships to help combat the drug issue.
“I began working on a program with the chief of police in Jamestown,” Swanson said. “We’re doing a drug market and addiction study right now, working on directing our efforts along with the efforts of mental health and substance abuse providers to combat the problem that we’re seeing.”
“We need to reach out to other agencies of government and work with them to combat the problem we have with use,” he said.
While family court judges are often limited to their involvement, district attorneys can actively involve themselves in education processes and Swanson hopes to utilize his position to raise awareness and educate younger demographics about addiction.
“If you look at the issues that surround our opium problems, we have 75 to 80 percent of people who end up using heroin began by using some sort of prescription medication that they were either abusing because they were prescribed it or by getting it [from an outside source],” Swanson said. “Getting into schools and teaching these kids that, even though you can buy them in a store or by prescription, they’re a problem. It starts with education.”
As the forum came to a close, moderator Marcia Merrins reminded the auditorium and anyone who may have been watching to make sure you use your voice on Nov. 8.
“One of the most popular beliefs is that voting doesn’t matter, that special interest groups and big business have all the power, that the individual has no control over either government or politics,” Merrins said. “You may not know it, but this election is about you.”