NORWICH – The county’s new Public Safety Facility is “working like a machine,” Sheriff Thomas J. Loughren told lawmakers Monday at the start of his office’s annual report to town supervisors.

“We’ve been servicing Chenango County since 1978 and I intend to keep it that way,” the Sheriff said.

While the transition to the new building last year was both challenging and rewarding – and called for running both facilities at once for a period of time – the Sheriff said the transition was successfully completed.

“We had massive hiring, massive training, moving dispatchers and handling crime and the worst flood in history all at once,” he said. “Thanks to the tremendous effort of our employees – both old and new – we are ready to for the next regional disaster.”

Loughren reviewed the technology from cell phone and credit card traces to forensics and sophisticated DNA testing that detectives were able to call upon in order to solve cases. “That’s the society that we live in today and I’m proud of our capabilities,” he said. “It’s Big Brother. Kind of scary, but it works.”