We Will IMPROVE SERVICE

Public Safety SERVICE should be the bedrock of any sheriff’s office. Just by virtue of the fact that there is an election every four years, the sheriff should be keenly interested in the feedback he receives concerning the service rendered by his employees.  

 

            BETTER TRAINED DEPUTIES

Current and former deputies from the sheriff’s office confide in me that training is presently a haphazard experience there. The past few years have seen deputies in danger of losing certification, either because training records were not adequately kept or the training had not even occurred.  Critical areas of training such as firearms, patrol tactics and defensive tactics have not been consistently presented to employees, and when they have been available, employees have not always been instructed by properly qualified instructors or held accountable for missing training or failing to complete the training satisfactorily.

 

I will immediately institute a regular, mandatory training regimen wherein deputies can consistently demonstrate basic law enforcement competencies.  Mandatory training would require attendance and satisfaction of the requirements of the specific training.  Those who failed the training would need remedial training to get them up to par.

 

The bottom line would be to present a consistently trained deputy every time he or she responds to a call for service.

 

                                                      SHORTER RESPONSE TIMES

Law enforcement in Columbia County is an experience in contrasting motifs. In the cities you have a reasonable law enforcement presence.  In the unincorporated areas of the county, it is “slim pickin’s.” Considering the fact that 65 percent of the law enforcement officers in this county are responsible for patrolling 2 percent of the land mass here and that the sheriff’s office -- representing 35 percent of the total county law enforcement presence -- is responsible for patrolling the remaining 98 percent of the land mass, you begin to understand the predicament facing the sheriff’s office in responding to calls in a timely fashion.  

 

Add to that the understanding that roughly half of the population still lives outside of incorporated cities, but is spread out across 98 percent of the land mass in the county, and you begin to realize how impossible it is for the sheriff’s office EVER to have the same kind of response times you can expect when living within the city.

 

That doesn’t mean we should give up trying, however. Certainly, the current method of addressing the issue is not sitting well with many citizens.  Part of the problem is the failure to address the issue from a regionalized point of view.

 

I will divide the county into several regional response zones, or “districts.”  I will assign at least one deputy to each zone, and make each deputy responsible for calls for service in that zone while the deputy is on duty.  The deputy will be responsible to remain in that zone unless called out for an emergency to another zone.  When there are no deputies available, a call out program will be instituted so that emergencies that occur outside of regular patrol times will get a faster response.  Deputies will be scheduled in on-call status and expected to respond in an emergency. Dispatch will no longer be required to play “dial-a-deputy,” thumbing through their contact lists in order to find one willing and able to respond.  While response times won’t always be as quick as they are in the cities, I believe a regional response to the problem will help reduce the wait we often currently experience.

 

I will repair the relationship between the sheriff’s office and other law enforcement agencies so that the closest officer available will be able to be dispatched to an emergency call -- at least to hold the scene until the assigned deputy can arrive.  I will work with each city police department and the Oregon State Police to find ways where we can help each other fulfill our distinct missions and provide better service to the citizens of Columbia County as a whole.

 

I honestly do not care WHO gets the credit, as long as I can help assure that everything possible has been done to conserve and promote the peace in ALL of Columbia County --  in the cities and in the unincorporated areas.  We all share in the fortunes of the county, and I believe the sheriff has a tremendous responsibility to coordinate and collaborate in order to get the job done.