Schoharie County Clerk Indy Jaycox is confident no important documents from her office were lost in flooding from Hurricane Irene.
Her opponent in the November election isn't so sure.
Speaking at a press conference Friday, Ms. Jaycox explained how documents were saved after the flooding and responded to charges from Gary Hayes, who's running against her next month, that documents may have been lost.
Mr. Hayes contended he had documents apparently from the County Clerk's office after the flood. Among them was a 1943 deed from the Schoharie Valley Railroad that had the county clerk's stamp on it.
Mr. Hayes said the documents may have been discarded after the flood, but Ms. Jaycox denied the charge.
"It has been rumored that my office authorized or 'allowed' secure documents to be discarded," she said in a prepared statement. "I will simply say that allegation is completely false."
At County Attorney Mike West's request, Sheriff Tony Desmond retrieved the documents from Mr. Hayes.
"He [Mr. Hayes] was alleging they were county documents," Mr. West said. "If that's the case, they should be in the county's possession."
Whether they belonged to the county or not, the documents weren't in the office at the time of the flood, Ms. Jaycox maintained.
"They didn't smell, they weren't muddy," she said.
Also, Ms. Jaycox said, some of the documents produced by Mr. Hayes weren't kept at the clerk's office but were more likely from a town clerk's or attorney's office.
Some of the documents in question, Mr. Hayes said, came from the pile of debris in front of the former Great American in Schoharie.
"They have the county clerk's stamp on them," Mr. Hayes said. "If they weren't from her office, where were they from?"
Just having the clerk's stamp on them doesn't mean they came from the office, Mr. West said. He pointed out that deeds, such as the one for the railroad, would be in the property owner's possession. The County Clerk would have a copy.
Why would Mr. Hayes bring up the document issue?
"Possibly to discredit me," Ms. Jaycox said.
"People will say I'm doing this for political votes, but what's the right thing to do?" Mr. Hayes responded.
As for other documents and important papers, many or most were stored electronically or on microfilm, Ms. Jaycox said.
The weekend after the flood, she and reps from the State Office of Court Administration, State Archives, County Treasurer Bill Cherry and Clerk of the Board Karen Miller met to decide what should be kept for restoration and what could be thrown out.
Though restoring some documents could be expensive, Mr. West said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would reimburse the county for 80 percent of the cost.
Some mortgage books were discarded because they're already saved electronically. They can be printed more easily and cheaply than having a company restore the books, Mr. West said.
Racks of sealed documents were locked up and secure, Ms. Jaycox said, and no sensitive, private information was lost in the flood.
"I'm confident my staff did everything in our ability to do the right thing," Ms. Jaycox said.
Meanwhile, the County Clerk's office is up and running at the Cornell Cooperative Extension building on South Grand Street, Cobleskill,
The Department of Motor Vehicles office, also part of the clerk's office, opened last Monday in the Lancaster Development building on Podpadic Road, Richmondville.