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New York Court Burns Down
As investigators worked their way through the wreckage in downtown Castile, New York, village and town continued to re-establish themselves.
Town and village offices were set to re-open in the Bank of Castile location across the street. A truckload of court equipment also arrived at the fire hall, which will host local sessions for the time being.
“It’s going very well,” said Town Supervisor Stephen Tarbell, speaking on behalf of himself and Mayor Keith Granger. “All our daily functions will be out of there starting tomorrow. All our same phone numbers and everything will be intact and transferred over there. Our next available court date is Oct. 15 on a Monday night.”
The town and village have remained in a state of emergency since the blaze that destroyed their respective offices brought things to a standstill. The designation has allowed both municipalities to receive assistance quickly.
It’s unknown exactly how long it will remain in effect.
Firefighters were able to remove some additional records from the ruins of the building on Wednesday. The municipalities still have their day-to-day records, which were already being processed.
“A lot of our old records, it’s sad to say, are going to be lost,” Tarbell said. “Most of our records over the last 20 years we have on backup, and we’re going to be in good shape.”
A moving truck also arrived, carrying supplies to help re-establish the town and village courts.
Andrew Isenberg, executive assistant for Judge Paula Feroleto of the 8th judicial district, had traveled to Buffalo and Chautauqua County to round up desks and filing cabinets, said Wyoming County District Attorney Donald O’Geen.
The district’s information technology personnel were also on-staff to transfer the town and village’s electronic court records, which were stored on a computer server off-site.
“We were just told they were lucky enough to retrieve this year’s court files,” O’Geen said. “We assumed all of them were gone, so what my staff and I had done, was we made staff files of all the court cases we knew were currently open. I brought them down here this morning, so they could start to function as soon as possible.”
In the meantime, felony arraignments will be handled in Warsaw, he said. Other arraignments will be conducted in surrounding municipalities.
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