County residents overwhelmingly support sheriff

by David Grand
August 27, 2008

A random telephone survey conducted this month in the county showed 86.2 percent of those contacted favored having the sheriff as the primary law enforcement agency and with 13.8 percent backing the county commissioners' position to have a county police department.

Some of the sentiments expressed by those supporting the sheriff (who shall remain anonymous to protect their privacy) were:

• "We elected the sheriff and he should be allowed to do his job without interference from the commissioners."
• "I think the commissioners are working their way out of office by the position they've taken."
• "I believe it's a personal vendetta against the sheriff for not bowing to their will"
• "I'm not happy about the commissioners wanting to replace the sheriff."
• "I think the commissioners' choice stinks, and that it should be left up to the people to decide the issue."
• "The commissioners are acting like they own the county, and that what the voters may prefer is, apparently to them, irrelevant and unimportant."
• "The sheriff knows more about protecting the public's safety than the commissioners ever will."
• "It is inconceivable that the commissioners and their staff could not-or would not-give the public a reasonably close estimate of how much a police department will cost taxpayers."

Well, if you haven't guessed it by now, it's not Carroll County I'm writing about, but Allegany County, where nearly an identical rift exists between the sheriff and commissioners over whose best qualified to enforce the laws."

Now, I didn't have the pleasure (or should I say displeasure) of attending the August 7 commissioners' meeting, held for the purpose of deciding how they'd vote on the policing issue. But I did have a front row seat, as I watched a video of it sitting in my couch, with an ample supply of "munchies" to sustain me and a bottle of antacid tablets to calm my stomach, as needed.

It started off on a lighthearted note, with the Chief of Shaft (oops, I meant Staff) showing on a screen a Bald Eagle perched on top a mountain of trash at the landfill. I should've known that was symbolic of the trash talk I'd be hearing.

As the harsh questioning of the sheriff by his three antagonists proceeded, more and more I felt like I had entered a time machine taking me back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition, when those accused of heresy stood in front of those judging them, as they awaited the inevitable guilty verdict.

And it was, in effect, heresy that they were accusing the sheriff of, for (in their minds) his having conspired with Senator Larry Haines to subvert their rightful powers by submitting a bill at the last legislative session requiring that a referendum be held on the policing question.

To his credit, the sheriff kept his composure and Marine-like bearing (of which he once was) and never responded, in turn, to the barbed arrows directed at him, which came close, in my view, to a character assassination.

The meeting ended on the same discordant note as it began. And the only thing that was laughable throughout (other than that eagle atop a trash pile) was the commissioners agreeing to set up a committee down-the-road to study the issue in depth (as if it hadn't already been studied ad infinitum).