A push to increase Niagara County Sheriff’s presence in North Tonawanda’s remote 9th district got a push back recently by the city’s police chief.

North Tonawanda Legislator Russ Rizzo, elected last year to represent the district on the border with Wheatfield, said recruiting a sheriff’s car to patrol the city’s north end was among the campaign promises he made to residents in that area last year.

At his request Niagara County Sheriff Jim Voutour obliged. Since the third week of January, once per shift, a car has been assigned to patrol a route between Witmer Road and Niagara Falls Boulevard.

However, concerns raised by North Tonawanda Police Chief Randy Szukala have led to Rizzo’s arrangement being scuttled less than a week.

The legislator said he isn’t sure exactly what soured the deal.

In the beginning, the sheriff’s department contacted Szukala, got his blessing and laid out their intent in a memo:

“Their role is to provide an additional visible deterrence for that area and to provide backup for NTPD if needed or requested. However, flagrant violations of law should not be ignored and action can be taken,” wrote Chief Deputy Steven Preisch on Jan. 26.

But in the week since that began, Szukala said it is apparent the layout of the new route was “ridiculous” — turning what he called a sensible patrol arrangement already in place between the two law enforcement agencies into one that benefits a politician at residents’ expense.

“It’s turned from a good patrol strategy to a Russ Rizzo parade route — so he has publicity and shows what he’s doing,” Szukala said. “It seems foolish for the people who expect police protection to lose this car while they’re parading.”

Prior to Rizzo’s involvement, Szukala said sheriff’s deputies assigned to patrol Wheatfield would, as a courtesy, cross into city territory if they were in the neighborhood. Szukala says under Rizzo’s plan sheriff’s deputies were forced to leave Wheatfield and follow a convoluted zig-zag route through Rizzo’s district once per shift whether it was convenient or not, which is why he requested the arrangement to end.

The chief stressed that sheriff’s deputies are still patrolling the neighborhood, only in a more logical way.

“It’s back to the same way it used to be. If they happen to be by the city line they’ll drive through,” Szukala said. “They thought they’d give it a try just to appease the politician but that didn’t go so well.”

The change appears to have resulted in some other unintended consequences as well. The North Tonawanda police union will be sitting down with Mayor Rob Ortt next week to discuss the possibility — a remote one, according to the mayor — of adding two additional officers to the force to cover the area Rizzo sought the sheriff’s department’s help to patrol.

Ortt is now organizing a meeting with Szukala, Rizzo, Legislator Paul Wojtaszek, R-North Tonawanda, and North Tonawanda police union president Tom Krantz to discuss each party’s concerns.

Ortt said he is meeting to hear the union’s side of a pitch for the new officers, but said he thinks the arrangement with the sheriff’s department was a win for taxpayers while not infringing on traditional NT police turf.

He also indicated there’s little chance he’ll hire additional officers given the financial circumstances facing the city — primarily a $500,000 deficit in the water/sewer fund.

“Unfortunately I was very surprised when there were issues,” Ortt said of Rizzo’s patrol arrangement. “We’re not cutting policemen ... we’re providing extra patrols from the county that our residents already pay for. The benefit is for the citizens. We’re getting more protection for the same cost.”

Ortt said he believes the NT police department does an excellent job but also said he has trouble “seeing the negative” for either the local force or for taxpayers if Rizzo’s plan were in place.

Ortt said the union believes the move highlights a need for the additional officers, but stressed existing jobs are not in jeopardy regarding the city’s current 48-person roster.

“Maybe we’ll all come to a mutual understanding,” Ortt said.

Niagara County Sheriff Jim Voutour said his department was stuck between trying to accommodate the requests of a Niagara County legislator and a fellow law enforcement agency. Ultimately, the sheriff said scuttling Rizzo’s plan was out of deference to NT police brass.

“It was just out of courtesy to Randy. When it started I think Randy agreed, but when he saw (Rizzo’s plan) I don’t know if he thought (the route) was to big, but he asked us to back down and we did,” he said. “It’s kind of delicate. Russ asked us to do it, we’re an accountable agency ... we immediately checked with Chief Szukala he said ‘yeah I have no problem with it.’ (We said) ‘We’re not going to take your calls, we’re just going to provide some extra visibility.’ To be honest, I don’t know what happened after that and I don’t really want to get into the middle of it.”

He stressed the two agencies have a good history of cooperation and credited the North Tonawanda force for their competence and expertise.

“NT has a very good police department and we’re not trying to take any of their work from them, but you have a legislator who reached out and said ‘would you mind dropping a car (in) every once and a while?’ If a city asks us for assistance we help to the best of our ability. We’d do it for anybody.”

Rizzo, it seems, is still awaiting an explanation.

“I really don’t know the reasoning but I think that my talking to the sheriff and the route through the northern part of the city has been pushed aside,” he said. “And the union is talking about hiring two new policemen and saying ‘we’ll do it.’”

Rizzo also said that a recent show of force by NT police in the neighborhood was intended to underscore the union’s case for hiring additional officers.

“For some reason, they wrote 71 tickets Tuesday night. ... My personal opinion would be that they wrote these tickets to get the mayor to change his mind and hire two new guys.”

Szukala flatly denied Rizzo’s assertion, saying the number of tickets written Tuesday absolutely has no connection to swaying the mayor on anything.

Of the number of tickets issued throughout the city Tuesday he said:

“Yea I gave the guys an instruction that you’ve been slacking a little bit, it’s time to go out and work.”

Contact reporter Neale Gulleyat 693-1000, ext. 114.