Up & Coming Weekly

April 29, 2014

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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APRIL 30 - MAY 6, 2014 UCW 17 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM ELECTION GUIDE SHERIFF OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY With decreasing budgets and increasing personnel costs, what is your plan to ensure that the Sheriff's Office is adequately staff to insure the safety of county residents? To ensure that the Sheriff's Office is adequately staffed to provide the best possible law enforcement service to citizens of Cumberland County, would require a complete review of the organizational structure to ensure that that the right people are in the right places to manage and command the organization. I would also confer with the other Police Chiefs in the county and develop a unified strategy to suppress drug trafficking, violent crime, and burglary reduction. I will also commit to the District Attorney's office to enhance the use of GPS monitoring to post-arrest subjects who are awaiting trial and commit the needed resources to quickly build a crime laboratory in Cumberland County. The Sheriff's Office must work with the latest crime mapping programs and software to locate, observe and even predict crime patterns based on analytical data to efficiently fight crime in our community. The idea of creating a Metropolitan Police Department is one which we have considered a number of times in the past, and which has been discussed again recently. There are many difficulties in attempting to merge various agencies into a metropolitan police department. The talk of having some sort of metro or unified police force is based on the political will of the citizens and I would engage in that conversation when the time is appropriate. At the current time I am in favor of maintaing the current county-wide policing structure but, there is a lot of opportunity to work collaboratively on many law enforcement projects similar to the joint efforts that city and county are currently working together. Many law enforcement professionals would agree that illegal drug use, abuse and trafficking is the root of many crimes in our community and the suspects that are involved in these crimes do not observe any city or county boundaries while committing their crimes. A joint city/county narcotic suppression unit could fight these crimes. The same process could be used to combat violent crimes and aggressive and dangerous drivers. Property crimes and assaults are on the rise in Cumberland County, with limited staff covering a large area, how can you protect personal property? And what can be done to decrease the number of assaults in the community? I feel the implementation of these criminal and traffic task forces, plus building a crime lab and using the latest in technology to monitor pre-trial suspects; and the latest in crime mapping technology is a good start to fight crime and disorder in our community. But, no of this matters without committing to the formation of STRONG community watch groups. The current number of sustained community groups is poor, according to the current Sheriff, there are 9 and 5 are inactive. As Sheriff I will commit to hiring Crime Prevention Specialist and their main function will be to formulate and help sustain community watch groups so that citizens in the unincorporated areas of Cumberland County will have a outreach to each other and the Sheriff's office. This is the start we need to reduce the crime rate in our community. This start begins with voting for Chuck Kimble-The Professional Choice for Cumberland County Sheriff. Charles Kimble With decreasing budgets and increasing personnel costs, what is your plan to ensure that the Sheriff 's Department is adequately staffed to ensure the safety of county residents? I believe there are two major issues that need to be addressed in these times of greater financial restrictions that the Cumberland County Sheriff 's Office is facing; the first issue is the "top heavy" nature of the CCSO where the highest ranking officers are being overpaid and it costs the department the ability to hire more deputies to patrol our streets and the second issue is a greater need for the community's involvement in helping to police itself (within the confines of the law). A perfect example of the CCSO budget hemorrhaging money in personnel costs is the annual salary of Sheriff Butler. Sheriff Butler was paid $161,482.57 last year almost 400% times the median two person household income in Cumberland County. If Sheriff Butler were to find his way to live on the still comfortable salary of $90,786 a year, that would free up enough money to hire two additional deputies; each at a starting salary of $35,348 annually. This is a very basic breakdown of the numbers, Glenn Adams and I understand it does not take into account the additional equipment or vehicle usage associated with those two new deputies. It does shine some light onto the tip of the proverbial iceberg, which is a bloated pay scheme for the other high ranking officers also enjoying considerably high salaries. This includes Ronnie Mitchell, the attorney for the Sheriff 's Department, who makes close to $190,000 annually. The questions that beg asking are who is in the CCSO for the satisfaction and pride that comes with making their community safer? And, who is sitting in the CCSO today for a bloated paycheck while a large portion of those in the community struggle to make ends meet? That is an occurrence of what I would call a misallocation of budgeted funds and it speaks to a larger problem of not necessarily a shrinking budget, but a budget that is not being managed responsibly. An area that has a truly greater impact and that I think is underappreciated is the community and how it can be involved in helping to make the 653 square miles of this county safer. As Sheriff one of my goals would be to implement a program successful in Ohio called the "A Safer Ohio" app. The app can be used by anyone with a smart phone to upload images or reports of suspicious activities or crimes in order to help an overstretched police force apprehend criminals before they commit a crime or after it takes place. It has been noted that these days there are few people who do not have a camera on their mobile phone, so I see no reason to not create the "A Safer Cumberland" app to make our community safer through greater involvement between the CCSO and our citizens at-large. I invite your readers and yourself to research "A Safer Ohio" app to see what it is all about and how it allows for anonymous submitting of reports and images. There has been some talk of creating a metro police department, which is a combination of all law enforcement forces within the county? What are your thoughts on the idea and what are its pros and cons? Frankly I believe that the idea of a metro police department is a reactionary concept based on the ever increasing concerns of crime both in the county as a whole and in municipalities and if the idea has any merit it is solely for the fact that it highlights our current organizations need to better communicate with one another. I do not think a metro police department will solve issues but instead will create an even larger entity that will be further bogged down by bureaucracy and inefficient budget making decisions. As Sheriff I would be aggressive in the pursuit of joint taskforces being created with the different law enforcement agencies to combat specific areas of crime in our county and to ensure the most accurate information is being shared from one department to another. We do not need more red tape we need actual action and instead of watching the political battle over a metro police being created we need the actions available to us already from existing organizations. Property crimes and assaults are on the rise in Cumberland County, with limited staff covering a large area, how can you protect personal property? And what can be done to decrease the number of assaults in the community? I again feel that the community needs to take part in policing itself and this is an area where "A Safer Cumberland" app would play a pivotal role. Also, I support Fayetteville's Chief Medlock in his implementation of sector lieutenants, as the policy has proven that a community knowing their officer(s) helps to foster the two- way dialogue that we so desperately need in this county. Beyond the obvious role that the CCSO would play it is also worth mentioning that active Community Watch Organizations have a major effect on crime reduction, and it would be a goal of mine, as Sheriff, to help communities receive the training and resources available to build up their Community Watch Groups. Cumberland County has one of the highest crime rates in the nation. Where do we go and what's the fix? I caveat anyone from fostering the idea of "the fix"; crime is not a leaky faucet or creaking door, and as such, we have to refrain from feeling as if we are just missing a piece of the puzzle to a complete solution. I know that a well-managed budget, a more efficient CCSO, and a more involved and informed community will play a large part in beginning to fight crime. Taking crime from where it is in this county to where we would like for it to go is going to be a war of attrition. Success in a war on crime, such as this one, will not be measured in days or even weeks, but each day we strive to improve on the day prior is a small victory in a greater campaign. If nothing else, we all have the power to fight crime with our resolve, and if strength comes in numbers, then a community resolute together will in the end win over those smaller elements who wish to do us harm.

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