FOP Sheriff’s Forum

Tonight as promised I was one of about 150 attendees (plus both local TV stations and other local media) to attend the FOP Sheriff’s Forum at the Elks Club. All seven hopefuls for the position attended and the audience was attentive for the 90 minute program, with a short intermission in the middle.

The format went like this: all seven candidates were allowed a three minute opening statement, then there were five questions where each was alloted two minutes for an answer, and finally a three minute closing statement from each. I took down my notes and at the end I had five pages.

As a blogger, I have a choice in how I wish to present this. If I wanted to take all night I could do a he said/she said laundry list of details on all the questions and opening/closing statements. There are two problems with this approach. One is that I don’t have all night, and the other is that in this format a lot of the candidates end up saying pretty much the same things. Let’s face it – the main job of the sheriff is law enforcement. The reason it’s become such an important election as far as the sheriff’s office goes is because we have a LOT of people who choose not to obey the laws. The candidate who will win this fall is going to be the one who convinces the most voters that he or she is going to bring down the crime threat. I can be a lot more short and sweet by just writing about my impressions on how each candidate will face up to the crime issue. Obviously all seven are in favor of cutting crime. However, they all have a little bit different approach.

I found the choice of questions interesting. In order, the questions dealt with collective bargaining, emergency preparedness in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ideas on fighting violent crime, a wish list of technology they’d like to see and how to pay for it, and finally a question on officer morale and cooperation between the various law enforcement agencies.

So here are the impressions I had of each of the candidates. Since I HATE listings in alphabetical order (like the Maryland primary ballot because I’m last on it) I am going in reverse alphabetical order. By the way, since I don’t want to write it out seven hundred times, WCSD (or “department”) is shorthand for Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department.

To me, Chris South has the most intriguing background. The Viet Nam vet has been away from actual police work since a long stint with the Salisbury Police Department ended in 1987. Currently he works for US Air as a customer service and security coordinator at the Salisbury-OC Airport. And it seemed that he would use the background to make the WCSD maybe a little more user-friendly. Some of the ideas he espoused were more neighborhood patrols, positive interaction with youth, and strengthened communication with other law enforcement organizations. All of these seem to aim at being more service-oriented.

Further, in his answer to the violent crime question, South conceded that one person could not solve the problem; in his words some “brainstorming” was needed. The collaboration aspect also showed in his other answers as well, stating in his collective bargaining answer that “he wanted what the men wanted” and in the Katrina question about pairing up with other law enforcement agencies to shelter his deputies’ families where conditions were most safe. He stated later that morale was his “number one priority.”

I thought the best answer he gave was to the question of technology. He cautioned that the department should prioritize their equipment needs because “grants are not a given.” That was a good, prudent response.

Of all the sheriff officeseekers at the forum table, I think Doris Schonbrunner spoke the least. She succinctly answered her questions and based most of her arguments for earning your vote on her experience and administrative abilities. Stating that she “has prepared for this position my whole career”, she was the only candidate who addressed the issue of the WCSD’s $6 million budget, and also was the only one who cited her educational background. She holds associate and bachelor’s degrees and is working on a master’s degree in public administration. In addition, she’s graduated from the FBI Academy.

She stated that she would publicly endorse the collective bargaining effort underway at the department, while noting that the department now is at parity with the Maryland State Police as far as salaries are concerned, they finally caught up this year.

The main concerns for Schonbrunner were reopening the sheriff substations, community policing, and forming a gang intelligence unit. She wanted to “lead the sheriff’s office to the future.” One intriguing aspect of doing that (which drew a couple snickers from the assembled) was to use Segways as vehicles for community policing. But I suppose it’s no worse than the bicycle cops I see out now, with less effort on their part. It shows a bit of out-of-the-box thinking from the candidate probably most associated with “staying the course” in the WCSD, as did her answer on improving morale through identifying deputies’ areas of interest careerwise and pairing them with more senior officers in a mentorship program.

Another current deputy sheriff, Robin Roberts, had some different thoughts on the state of the department. He cited his experience with the WCSD as a deputy administrator and the person in charge of the child sex offender registry and as the internal affairs investigator.

Again, he wanted to find the funds to reopen the substations and enhance communication with allied agencies, frequently stressing collaboration. One idea he espoused in response to the violent crime question was a quarterly meeting of a “Sheriff’s Advisory Board” comprised of interested citizens.

The other large issue with him was what he termed “specialized interdiction units.” These would be groups of deputies assigned to specialize in various areas of crime. He noted that some of these units exist but they are jointly staffed by the WCSD, Salisbury Police Department, and Maryland State Police. Roberts saw this as a problem, and asserted that these should be placed under WCSD control as they were the highest law enforcement agency in the county.

One statement Roberts made gave me a bit of pause. In his opening statement, he spoke of “diversifying” the agency. Now while certain people may be underrepresented, personally I want the best officers in the WCSD, not a certain quota of each group that has to be met.

Stating that the WCSD needs to be “proactive rather than reactive”, Ken Pusey is a 25 year veteran of that department. To that end, Pusey seemed to be the one who wanted to clean up the department the most, alluding to flaws in how manpower is handled. First off, as part of a restructuring he promised he would as quickly as possible place five more deputies on the road. He then stated that there would be a special operations unit for high-crime areas, and pledged to run a “cost-effective” office.

Pusey also faulted the current administration for a promotional system that was not fair and unbiased, and in what I saw as a swipe to his fellow WCSD aspirants running for the sheriff’s badge, vowed to reevaluate the personnel at the WCSD.

However, the statement that troubled me the most was his answer to the question about technology and paying for it. He wanted what most of the others wanted: in-car cameras, mobile computers, and the like, but said that grants to pay for these items “don’t cost the taxpayers a thing.” I have a news flash for Mr. Pusey: unless you are getting a grant from a private corporation, state and federal grants DO cost us taxpayers. It’s just not money directly spent from the county. In fact, it’s probably more costly because of the extra bureaucratic hands that the funds go through.

Another candidate with a sort of unusual path to the sheriff’s election is Wayne Lowe. He certainly has the law enforcement chops for the job with 23 years in the Maryland State Police, but he’s coming from the other side of the coin with his current position working for the state attorney’s office. So a lot of his focus is on the end result of police involvement.

Moreso than any other candidate, he stressed working on the documentation and paperwork end of the average deputy’s tasks. With his experience under the state’s attorney, Lowe also favored a greater role for crime prevention, especially when it came to young children and alerting them to the dangers of gang involvement. Also for that task he sought an increased street presence, with more frequent patrolling.

As to the financial end of the enhanced duties of the WCSD, Lowe spoke of securing “hundreds of thousands” of dollars worth of grants as part of his job. Some of this money would go to the purchase of in-car computers, which he cited as a valuable tool for getting convictions. Of course, that’s the ultimate goal of law enforcement, to properly enforce the laws and punish miscreants who break them. Lowe sees good documentation as a key to the solution.

If votes were cast simply for passion for the task at hand, Mike Lewis would win the race hands down. He brought more reaction from the attendees than anyone else, particularly with lines like this:

Referring to crime, “Wicomico County now is not the Wicomico County I knew in the ’80’s and ’90’s.”

Paraphrasing his feelings on school officers, he didn’t like the thought of deputies in school because he felt things started at home.

On the question of preparedness: we have “no need to reinvent the wheel”, we could learn from the experience of New Orleans and adopt plans they put in place after the Katrina disaster.

His term on the task of the WCSD: “Stop babysitting criminals.” Confront the criminals on the streets and “take the streets of Wicomico County back.”

On getting new technology, he related to the crowd that one person who awards grants told him that if Lewis wins the Sheriff’s race, the grant giver “will make sure” that Wicomico County deputies have an in-car camera in each car. Lewis added that in-car cameras benefit officers and prosecutors, and reduce liability.

Maybe his most brash line, on improving morale: “The first thing I can do to improve morale would be to get elected Sheriff…because deputies want to be police officers.”

Obviously Lewis would bring a passion to the job. The question is whether the gung-ho style that excites the public is going to fit within the administrative side of the job, and whether an outsider will be able to remold the WCSD into a mindset maybe more appropriate for the MSP’s drug unit.

The final candidate at the forum was Kirk Daugherty. After seeing him walking the Allen parade, I’m certain of his health, but what will he bring to the job? After a long stint in both the WCSD and the Maryland State Police, he’s now the president of the Maryland Troopers Association.

In his opening statement, Daugherty vowed to “honor the past (and) protect the future of Wicomico County.” He also promised to serve the special needs of seniors so they wouldn’t be “prisoners in their own home.”

Citing that 5% of the population are the ones who cause the problems, Daugherty vowed to get them off the street. He said also that he found it frustrating when parents came to him and asked him what to do about with a borderline troubled child, so we needed some sort of mandated program for at-risk kids.

To Daugherty, improved technology would help deputies who were “overwhelmed with paper” because it would aid in gathering evidence. He was in favor of securing what he called “CSI” technology and combining it with mobile data terminals to make the deputies’ recordkeeping tasks less time-consuming.

One thing I saw as a bit of an odd answer as far as the morale question went was Daugherty citing the things he’d accomplished in the past, such as putting together a sick leave bank. But he also asserted that he’d have an “open door policy” if he were elected.

Of course, it wasn’t just Sheriff candidates there, as a lot of fellow voteseekers came to see and be seen. So I did get in a little postforum schmoozing and the results of that will be seen in the next few days as I add a few new links to monoblogue. Since the fields are now basically set, I can start to get to know better the issues at play in each race and work to inform the readers of monoblogue so they can make the best voting decisions possible.

I hope this summary beats the snot out of the maybe 30 second feature I’m sure the local nightly newscasts had.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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