VOTE411 Voter Guide

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As your current Summit County Sheriff, I’ve spent my first term enacting a series of reforms aimed at modernizing, diversifying, and professionalizing the Office. I’ve made internal changes to improve conditions for our deputies and staff, like reforming our promotions process to make it fairer and more transparent, providing more mental healthcare resources, and cutting our deputy shortage in half. I’ve made external-facing changes such as expanding our community policing outreach, introducing new programs to educate the public on their rights, launching the Sheriff’s Office mobile app, and expanding our recruitment efforts to reach more women, minorities, and new citizens. And I’ve made command decisions designed to improve public safety, like expanding our School Resource Officer program, forging new relationships with other agencies to help them curb crime in their communities, and increasing the number of annual training hours for our deputies to put us ahead of state standards.

Like agencies nationwide, we’ve faced a recent shortage of deputies. Through innovative recruitment efforts we’ve now cut that shortage in half. My goal is to get us back to full staffing in my next term, which is within reach if we continue our current approach.

I’ll also continue our work to reduce inmate recidivism, especially amongst those with mental health and addiction issues. Providing recovery assistance and helping them find jobs and housing is paramount to preventing their return, and is a significant savings to taxpayers.

And we will continue to focus on reducing violent crime, drug and human trafficking, and gun violence in our communities through our partnerships with local police, and through the task forces that I lead.

We’ve made many physical and operational improvements to the Jail, with some still underway, but there are more programs I hope to introduce. Last year we began providing tablets to our inmates, allowing them to pursue training and education, and conduct e-correspondence and video visitation, putting a halt to contraband coming in through physical mail. This year I’ll fulfill one of my main promises as we open a new facility to help former inmates with mental health and addiction issues get the help they need to recover, and find work and housing. And for those still incarcerated we’ll be introducing the IGNITE program, which has produced very positive results in other counties. It allows inmates to take classes for their GED or diploma, enroll in college courses, earn certifications in food and beverage safety, or get a CDL. The goal of these and other programs we’ve introduced is to reduce recidivism, freeing up Jail space for more serious offenders, and saving the taxpayers money.