Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 17

The people in the Sheriff's Office, for the most part, were good people. They were doing the best they could under the given circumstances.

I knew there was a problem with two people in key positions. They were both nice guys. But they also were operating in a mentality that was partially okay in the 1950's and 1960's, but was not okay now.

The world of law enforcement had changed through the years, too many of the deputies and these two leaders had not.

Sheriff's Offices, as I have said before, are much different than a Police Department. I 'knew' that but in practice the much is MUCH!

The Sheriff is elected and directly responsible to the citizens. A Police Chief has several layers between him and the public – not to say a Chief's job is easier, the two are just different and require a different approach to the citizenry.

That is true of most of the County positions that were in Wasco County at the time. The County Clerk, County Treasurer, County Assessor, County Surveyor (who also was County Road Master – but by order of the County Commissioners) County Judge (and Commissioners – similar to a city council) and County Sheriff were all elected officials.

They were directly responsible to the citizens, period.

The first thing I noticed and appreciated was the closeness of the County officials to the citizens of the county. They were more willing to respond to the needs of the citizens and help them do what they needed to do.

The Planning Director was appointed by the Commissioners and answered directly to the County Judge. While we would see City Planners just say no to projects, the attitude of the County planner was to try and see if they could help them do the project, legally.

The County Road department had the basic responsibility to citizens outside the city as the city street departments had inside. There are over 900 miles of roads in the county, about 70 miles inside the City of The Dalles. The other incorporate cities had one maybe two miles of streets.

Wasco County is 2,996 square miles. The Dalles is 7+ square miles. At the time, half the population lived within the City of The Dalles with about half of the rest of the population within just a few miles. The rest of the population was anywhere from 10 to 100 miles away.

We had four small cities that did not have a Police Department, so we performed the duties in those communities, as well as the several miles in between and all around. Antelope (Rajneeshpuram) and the City of Rajneesh had their own Peace Department. But the only ones happy about that were the Rajneesh, the rest of the citizens called us.

For the most part those areas were being service adequately, we needed to do a better job, but I had other areas, within the Office, where I needed to focus most of my energy.

My Chief Deputy, again a great guy, should never have been appointed to the position. His mind set was to be just one of the boys and his management training and style was non-existent. He would have been okay as a deputy, but not in that position.

My Corrections Chief was probably okay when they appointed him, but he, too, was not up to modern techniques and rules of conduct. He also considered the Jail 'his' domain and resented any perceived interference.

I had a dilemma; I had determined when I ran that I would give everyone a chance in their positions. I knew that many of these people had been in service to the county for several years, they had not been held to a more professional standard and their training had been virtually non-existence after the basics.

There was a 'personality' about the Office that made it acceptable to be lackadaisical about their duties and no real accountability. There was no goal or direction, it was just go day by day, operate by the seat of your pants and that was okay.

This is the way it had been run for 'ever' and no one thought to really change it. Things were being done and said that had no place in a modern Law Enforcement agency - especially in the litigiousness in today's world.

The County had suffered some serious financial difficulties in the recent past and every Office had to cut back their expenses. The Sheriff's Office was no different.

One of the places that were cut back was training, but it had never really been a priority. The training budget, for about 35 employees, was $1000. It would take me several years to bring that up to a more acceptable level.

However, In Oregon there is a lot of training where the cost to the agency is getting the deputy there (and of course losing the services of the deputy for that time.) Everything else was furnished, without cost to the agency.

We had the Police Academy operated by The Board on Police Standards. The academy paid for the staff, instructors, housing and feeding of all students. It was funded by a specified portion of the fines, levied by the courts, against violators.

These classes were important. Most dealt with the boots on the ground type training but there was a lot of management training available.

In addition to the academy there were classes held in different communities throughout Oregon to enable classroom training to be less expensive to the communities since they were just a day or two in length and, again, the financial burden on the agency was just the time spent by the employee. Since the employee was either within his jurisdiction or close, they could respond to calls if necessary.

Wasco County had little involvement with these classes.

In evaluating where I thought the best bang for the buck in getting the Office on a more professional track I came to the conclusion I had to train the supervisors and managers first.

It worked for some, it was resented by some, and for some it was ineffective. The second group fought me and the third just couldn't do what was expected of them.

But I began the process of upgrading the Office; in retrospect, I would have given those that either couldn't do the job or those who fought me far less time than I did. It would have made it better for everyone.