By JIMMY LAWTON

St. Lawrence County Legislator Joseph Lightfoot R-Oswegatchie says claims that Republicans are weak on crime are ridiculous.

Last week St. Lawrence County Democratic Committee Chairman issued a statement criticizing the Republican party for not approving raises for St. Lawrence County’s Assistant District Attorneys last week. The release was headlined “Republicans Soft on Crime.”

“The drug problem and drug trafficking in SLC has become overwhelming and endangers our children every day,” Bellardini said in a release issued Tuesday. “Last night in our attempt to bring these salary increases to the DA's office, the Republicans played politics stating that we were out of procedure and comparing other departments with the DA's office. These are small time excuses and small time politics at a time our police agencies and DA’s office needs our support the most.”

Lightfoot, a former state police investigator with 27 years of law enforcement experience, said Bellardini’s comments are a sign that the party is in a weak position.

“Between Scott Sutherland and myself, we have over 60 years' experience in law enforcement. For him to say we are soft on crime is absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “We’re not soft on crime. We’d like to be able to participate on decisions but the majority isn’t allowing that,” Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot said Jonathon Putney, D-Waddington, who chairs the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators, cut off Potsdam Republican Daniel Parker when he tried to ask questions of the St. Lawrence District Attorney Mary Rain at last week’s meeting.

“He wanted to ask questions regarding the salary increase and he was cut off at the knees by chair Putney,” he said. “Any of the Democrats that want to talk as long as they want, but you are going to cut off a Republican and not allow someone to ask legitimate questions? That’s a lot of bologna,” he said.

Lightfoot said he expects Democrats will “ram” the proposal through despite the fact that it “hinder negotiations” with the county’s other employees.

He said the proposal brought forward by St. Lawrence County Legislator Fred Morrill last week undermined the county’s hiring process and has already impacted negotiations with the public defender’s union. He said the St. Lawrence County public defender, Steven Ballan, and the attorneys he represents will be waiting to see what happens with the ADA salaries before moving forward on the contract.

“You didn’t need a crystal ball to know what was going to happen. It is already affecting negotiations and it hasn’t been passed yet,” he said. “That’s why we have a process and that process was not followed.”

Lightfoot said the resolution did not have support from the county’s human resources department and was not even shown to St. Lawrence County Administrator Karen St. Hilaire prior to the meeting.

He said county legislator Alex McKinnon actually resigned from the negotiations committee because of proposal, which Lightfoot said would be a mess for negotiations.

Lightfoot also accused county Democrats of making deals behind closed doors.

“The Democrats had this all discussed and planned out before the meeting. They obviously have no regard for the process,” he said. “It’s more of the same.”