In the weeks since cruising to victory in the race for Chautauqua County district attorney, Jason Schmidt appears to be making good on a central theme to his campaign: broadening the lines of communication between the office and police.

Since defeating incumbent District Attorney Patrick Swanson by more than 10,000 votes, the Fredonia attorney said he has either already made contact or is in the process of meeting with members of each police agency in the county. The goal, he said in an interview this week, is to both speak directly to officers and listen to concerns when it comes to prosecuting cases.

“What I want to do is share my objective for the office and listen to them and listen to their concerns and discuss ways to improve things going forward,” Schmidt said.

During a series of debates leading up to the election, Schmidt said he planned to open better lines of communication between departments and the DA’s office. The county has several police agencies, including Dunkirk and Jamestown police departments, Fredonia village police, Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police.

“Clearly, the concerns have become apparent,” he said of meeting with officers. “Many said they didn’t have a good line with the DA’s office regarding the disposition of their arrests, so I want to address that.”

Communication came up often during the campaign, which at times became heated between Swanson and Schmidt in what was a rematch of the 2016 election. Since his election night victory, Schmidt said he has reached out to Swanson to go over a “list of questions” he has prior to taking over the first of the year while also meeting with the county Human Resources and Finance departments to get a grasp on where the DA’s office stands on its staffing and budget.

“As for staffing, I’m not concerned in terms of numbers,” he said in regard to attorneys in the office. “I have always accepted those resources, so I’m not concerned with staffing. I haven’t seen that people are wanting to leave.”

Schmidt said he’s also in the process of closing down his private law practice.

Taking the helm as district attorney won’t mean walking into uncharted territory; he worked in the office from 2003-09, mostly under former District Attorney David Foley.

Instead, Schmidt will be walking into an office Jan. 1, 2021, likely facing a backlog of criminal cases that have been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most court functions across the state were put on hold last spring. Some of those restrictions were eased, allowing grand juries to hear a handful of cases in Chautauqua County that returned several indictments. But a surge of new cases of COVID-19 has meant no trials — including a few homicide cases — will take place until next year.

Schmidt said he had hoped that the current grand jury that has been empaneled could be extended past Jan. 4, when the jury’s term expires. Because that’s not possible, cases from 2020 that have not yet gone before a grand jury will be “put on hold for the foreseeable future.”

“With the current caseload, I think it presents a unique challenge,” he said, noting the desire to — once in office — begin offering pleas to move some of the cases along and to ease the burden on the office.

Noting that the bulk of charges are coming from the county’s two cities, Jamestown and Dunkirk, Schmidt said he hopes to place prosecutors in both courthouses on a full-time basis. Doing so, he said, will allow officers to seek input from the DA’s office and allow attorneys to deal with cases sooner.

During the campaign, Schmidt made it a point that the felony prosecution rate had fallen too low and that too many charges were being dropped, some even at arraignment. Swanson, in rebuttal, said his office has had to drop some felony charges due to a lack of evidence.

Schmidt hopes having staff in each city will allow officers to seek advice on filing charges.

“If we could have a prosecutor there … they would handle the cases and listen to the needs by being in close proximity,” he said. “That could eliminate some of the communication issues that have been building to a head.”

Asked of his wide margin of victory, Schmidt said he’s more focused on dealing with the backlog of cases and providing justice for victims of crimes. “Ultimately, what this is all about is the commitment that I ran on, a victim’s first platform,” he said.