County Commissioners Vote Against County Sheriffs

A disagreement over equipment and personnel boiled over in a board meeting Friday between county sheriffs and several county commissioners. The sheriffs accused county commissioners of “shortchanging” them to save money.

“You’re putting the lives of the people of this county in jeopardy” said Sheriff Gus DiCesari. County commissioner president Anne Chenn disagreed. Chenn says the county doesn’t have the money hire new police officers or sheriffs. DiCesari wants to hire five new officers.

Commissioners Anita Shenuski and Raymond Layborne, who support the sheriff’s, said in the meeting that the county should spend more money on law enforcement officers than for migrant workers who come to this county to work.

“We never had problems until we let migrant workers come to this county to work. They have been a problem with our law enforcement, schools and our healthcare system”, said Shenuski during a heated argument with Chenn.

Chenn denied that immigrants are the problem. “Those people who come here to work are decent, hardworking people who are working jobs that residents don’t want to do. They add a great deal to the economy and pay their fair share of taxes”, said Chenn.

Chenn said the county ran short of funding this year because of increased costs in for healthcare for employees and higher fuel costs. The budget for this year was $127 million.

DiCesari also needs $580,000 to purchase new eight new police cruisers, to replace eight old vehicles, each with more than 150,000 miles on them. “It is getting too costly to maintain the older vehicles. Chenn told DiCesari that the sheriff’s department would have to make do this year because the county didn’t have the additional money he was requesting.

One suggestion Chenn brought up to DiCesari is that deputies should not drive their cruisers home each day to make each vehicle more available to other officers and preserve mileage.

The commissioners voted 5-2 against the sheriff’s request for additional money for eight new cruisers and five additional deputies.