Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Erie County Legislature has approved a resolution on Thursday calling for a legislative investigation into a hit-and-run incident last year involving the Erie County Sheriff's Chief of Narcotics.
Chief D.J. Granville is accused of hitting several parked vehicles on the city’s West Side nearly a year ago in April, causing damages estimated to have cost the county approximately $60,000 in taxpayer funds. Granville was driving a county-owned pickup truck at the time of the incident.
County lawmakers shared their concern and displeasure with how this incident was not made aware to them sooner, and why the funds to settle claims were approved through the chain of command.
"The information that you have is the same information that I have. I learned about this when I had seen a news report about the drug raid, and this is when this come up. This is the first set myself or the caucus that I lead had any knowledge of this at all," said Erie County Legislature Chair Tim Meyers (D) on Thursday. "I also wanted to state that we do not underestimate the seriousness of these allegations, and we're looking forward to getting some more information into the investigation to find out what happened, who knew what, when they knew it, and go on from there."
Legislator Lindsay Lorigo (R) says the Minority Caucus has been aggravated over the lack of transparency and insight into what has been going on.
"It is important that this investigation happens within the Erie County Legislature," said Lorigo on Thursday. "The chairman does, by charter, have the ability to subpoena, and that's an important one that we're going to need to use. Simply put, this incident doesn't pass the smell check, and it's our job to take a further look into it."
As part of the resolution, lawmakers are requesting a number of individuals to speak before the Legislature and participate in the investigation, including:
- Erie County Sheriff John Garcia
- Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz
- Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick
- Erie County Attorney
- Chief Granville, or a designated representative
- Buffalo Police Commissioner, or a designated representative
- Sheriff's PBA representative
The Legislature is seeking information about the circumstances of the incident, the fallout from what transpired, and the payment processing responsibility as a result of the settlements. This all to ensure public confidence that matters involving public employees and resources are handled with integrity, transparency and accountability.
The resolution also seeks the notification timeline to the County’s Division of Fleet Services, why the vehicle in question was then designated as surplus and sold at auction, the notification timeline and process for claims against the county from impacted vehicle owners, and more.
"This isn't just about the Sheriff's Office. To have these settlement payments go out, which is what we want to investigate, it involves several layers of county of government where alarm bells should have went off," Lorigo said. "The Buffalo Police Department issued a statement to the Sheriff's Office, an accident report, and then it goes to the County Attorney. The County Attorney negotiated a settlement, then it was approved by the County Executive, then it goes to the Comptroller and the check goes out. We have a problem here that we need to address, and that's why this is so much deeper and bigger than at the surface level.
"This is exactly why we need the answers. That's why it's so important. The chairman has the power to subpoena these answers. It's my understanding that the press has put out some FOIL requests that have been ignored. This is why it's really important that the legislature take this to the next step."
Meyers knows this matter isn't simply just going to go away over time.
"This is bigger than me and everybody in this room. But again, what we have now is we have reports. We don't have anything that's in concrete. We know there were payments made, but we don't know who was driving, allegedly somebody was driving. We don't know what they hit, what their makeup was at that time, was somebody impaired? We don't know all that," Meyers said.