For a county of less than 200,000 people, Ulster certainly generates a lot of news. Much of it your Editorial Team can see coming, but on a regular basis, a unicorn of a story comes along, proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction.

Last Thursday, County Executive Jen Metzger was the conduit for this latest tale from the deus ex machina file. Via press release, she dropped a bomb: A surveillance camera was found in a bush at UCAT headquarters, pointed at a bus garage door. The camera was quickly – she put her name and phone number on it – identified as belonging to none other than County Comptroller March Gallagher. Metzger, with the support of the county legislature chair and majority and minority leaders, scolded Gallagher. “Employees have a right to do their jobs without being secretly recorded,” Metzger stated, “and any surveillance conducted without their knowledge or consent is unacceptable.”

Later that afternoon, Gallagher shot back with her own press release, which immediately reminded us of every cop show we’ve ever seen. You know, the ones where Briscoe and Green or Cagney and Lacey or Starsky and Hutch make a collar and all of a sudden the feds show up and say, “Thanks a lot for ruining our six-month undercover investigation, you clods. He was our informant.” Gallagher didn’t deny placing the camera, but she said it was there as part of an investigation into “multiple credible allegations” of “the falsification of time records by management” at UCAT. She also said the powers granted unto her as comptroller allowed her to do this as part of “the scope of our independent investigative and audit authority.”

Wow. No one saw this coming, including us. It’s too soon to write the definitive editorial on this, but we’ll briefly list our questions and insights.

Metzger said no one in her administration or the legislature was contacted about this. Should Gallagher have reached out, or was she afraid talk of the investigation would leak? The fewer people who know a secret, the easier it is to keep.

Does Gallagher in fact have the power to do what she did? Sheriff Juan Figueroa told media that there was “no criminality” in her setting up the camera as it was part of an investigation, but those words were carefully chosen. “No criminality” means there’s nothing in the penal code forbidding it. It does not mean she was right to do it, or that those surveilled don’t have grounds to sue Gallagher in civil court.

What’s the political angle? We know Metzger and Gallagher have a history of conducting their disputes in public. We intuit that both Figueroa and DA Manny Nneji are closer to Metzger than Gallagher. Was that why Gallagher apparently didn’t tell either the sheriff or the district attorney what she was doing? Could it be that Metzger saw “UCATgate” or “cameragate” as a way to make Gallagher look incompetent (or worse) and perhaps fend off another attempt on Gallagher’s part to challenge her again for the Democratic nod for county executive?

Speaking of gates, we got strong Watergate vibes, as in the comedic incompetence of the burglars caught in the National Democratic Committee’s HQ in the Watergate Hotel. Could the camera have been better concealed? Should Gallagher have left her name off it? We recommend the comptroller not quit her day job to seek work with the CIA and perhaps leave future investigations of this kind to the professionals.

Why did Metzger choose to go public about it? One might think that if the county exec knew about it, she would have seen the value of the investigation and not put Gallagher on blast. Was there a rush to judgment by Metzger and her allies in the legislature?

Does this mean the investigation is dead? Can’t say – that depends on how much and what kind of evidence was gathered. Based on how the camera was discovered, by someone mowing the lawn, we suspect it wasn’t in place all that long. Time theft is not uncommon anywhere, Ulster being no exception. Just ask former KPD lieutenant Tim Matthews, who was caught in 2010 falsifying time sheets, among other things. But if anyone is actually doing something crooked, they certainly know now they’re being watched.

The incident comes at a time when people’s sensitivity to surveillance is at an all-time high. It’s become apparent that wherever we go, there’s the potential for us to be tracked by a Flock camera or other automated license plate readers. It’s also apparent that our tracking data can be misused, especially if we had a bad breakup with a cop. Many across America are furious about this. We’re with them. We’re also in awe of how prescient of our emerging surveillance state George Orwell was in his novel “1984.” He was just off by a few decades.

Like everybody else, we’re waiting for more answers, but in the meantime, we’re digging for them ourselves, so check back often. And keep your eyes peeled for the next unicorn.