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In a long, contrite appearance Tuesday before the Glens Falls Common Council, the Warren County Sheriff offered apologies and thanked the mayor for the way she handled a dispute over his hiring of a city officer.

Because the officer had worked for the city for less than three years, Warren County was legally obliged to reimburse the city $8,676 for his training costs.

When Sheriff Jim LaFarr balked, the city sent the county Board of Supervisors a letter, reminding them of the law and demanding payment.

LaFarr met with Mayor Diana Palmer, and at some point in the dispute, threatened to start charging Glens Falls for services performed by his officers in the city.

But he had changed his mind by Tuesday’s meeting, saying the city had a legal right to the reimbursement, and the Sheriff’s Office would not charge it for services.

“What the mayor said in that meeting, it really rang true with me and it shifted my perspective,” LaFarr said.

What Palmer said was Glens Falls residents pay county taxes like every other county resident and shouldn’t have to pay extra for services other county residents receive without charge.

“She’s right. I apologize for even bringing that up, because you shouldn’t be expected to pay more. And you’re not going to pay more,” LaFarr said.

The Chronicle’s story Thursday — “Sheriff LaFarr makes peacekeeping visit to GF after ruckus” — presents the episode as one of mutual offense-giving between the mayor and the sheriff, which is incorrect.

LaFarr first attempted an end run around the city’s elected representatives by going to the city’s assistant chief to ask for a waiver of the reimbursement.

He took offense at the city’s subsequent “demand” for reimbursement, although the city demanded only what it is legally owed. His threat to start billing the city for services was without justification, as he has now admitted.

If anyone should be aware of the sensitivity of this issue it’s LaFarr. When he was first elected sheriff in 2019, he promised Glens Falls and other small departments to halt the widespread use by Warren County Sheriff’s Office of these “lateral transfers.” He would seek instead to hire new officers from the regional training academy, he said.

His goal, he said, was to ease hard feelings among smaller police departments, especially Glens Falls, that were losing numerous officers to the Sheriff’s Office. That remains a worthy goal.

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Public anger over suggested changes to city parking rules has been stoked over the past couple of weeks by persistent mischaracterizations in the Chronicle of the city’s actions.

The July 30 edition includes a Page 3 story headlined “GF resolution would end free parking in 3 lots; paid permits only.”

That headline and the story below it leave out that the three lots are already 90 percent permitted, which means, at any given time, a number of their spaces are already occupied by drivers with permits.

The Aug. 6 Chronicle repeats that the proposed changes would replace free parking at three small city lots with permitted parking only. The story makes only oblique reference to existing permits. It doesn’t report that existing permit holders, some of them downtown business owners and employees, had been complaining about being unable to find a place to park because the lots were being filled by drivers without permits. Those complaints led to the suggested changes.

Mark Frost, Chronicle editor and owner, repeats the omission in his Aug. 6 opinion column (headlined “Diana, why the rush?”), calling the plan a “drastic change” and accusing Mayor Diana Palmer of trying to “ram” it through the council. He concludes by calling city officials “potentates.”

If they’re potentates, they’re very responsive ones, because, after hearing from the public, the Common Council tabled the plan so complaints about it could be addressed.

I walked through the three lots in question at 1 p.m. Thursday and counted cars with permits.

The two handicapped spots in the Exchange Street lot were full. Of the 20 remaining spots, 19 were full and nine of those cars had permits.

The two handicapped spots in the Warren Street lot were empty. Of the 34 remaining spots, 19 were full and seven of those cars had permits.

I must have missed three spots in the City Hall lot, because I counted 22 spots and the city map says 25. But of those 22, the two handicapped spots were empty. Seventeen of the remaining 20 spots were full and six of those cars had permits.

So a significant number of the non-handicapped spaces in the lots (29%) were already being occupied by permit holders. Also, judging from the number of open spaces in these three centrally located little lots, Glens Falls does not currently have a shortage of parking.

The Common Council and Palmer are getting a lot done. The meetings, which I’ve been watching, via video, are packed with important business.

The city is undergoing a transformation, developing fast, and we’re fortunate to have a mayor and council members up to the task of guiding that development.

We also need a skeptical but responsible press following the city’s growth and the council’s deliberations, and with the diminution of The Post-Star’s resources and its circulation, the Chronicle has a larger role to play.

I’ve written before about Frost’s low journalistic standards. The most flagrant recent example was last October, when he published a front-page story repeating sensational tales about stabbings and overdoses in Centennial Circle told by a man named Drew Gerster at a public session of the city’s Day User Task Force Committee.

The stories were false, a fact easily discovered with a little thought and a few phone calls, but the Chronicle reported them without contradiction.

The Chronicle is filled with hometown news — fun, family events, local kid makes good stories, wild animal sightings and so on. But it also occasionally gives a local news story sensational treatment, and it has a responsibility to get those right.

Erik Wemple in his recent puffy front-page story on the Chronicle for the New York Times did not address the paper’s shortcomings, which is too bad, because to him Frost might have listened.

Sheriff was right to apologize to city

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