Wilson shares ideas to save Latah County money if elected as sheriff
LATAH COUNTY - Citizens of Latah County will decide if they want to elect a new sheriff or continue to back the current one in November.
Democrat Keith Wilson is running against incumbent Wayne Rausch, and Wilson said there are two main issues that he would address if elected. He wants to reduce the sheriff's budget in order to save the taxpayers money, and fix the radio system for emergency responders in rural areas of Latah County.
"I've talked to them all, and they're really concerned about the safety of the citizens because they have no reception out in the area and they're going back to using mostly their cell phones," said Wilson.
Currently, most of the Sheriff's Office training is done outside of Latah County, and this is another thing Wilson would like to change. Wilson said that creating in-house training programs will retain deputies for longer periods of time and create a stronger department. He also supports the idea of using smaller, more efficient vehicles and getting rid of the outdated ones that are not used as often. Wilson lives in Deary and has been a sheriff's deputy for 26 years.
Democrat Keith Wilson is running against incumbent Wayne Rausch, and Wilson said there are two main issues that he would address if elected. He wants to reduce the sheriff's budget in order to save the taxpayers money, and fix the radio system for emergency responders in rural areas of Latah County.
"I've talked to them all, and they're really concerned about the safety of the citizens because they have no reception out in the area and they're going back to using mostly their cell phones," said Wilson.
Currently, most of the Sheriff's Office training is done outside of Latah County, and this is another thing Wilson would like to change. Wilson said that creating in-house training programs will retain deputies for longer periods of time and create a stronger department. He also supports the idea of using smaller, more efficient vehicles and getting rid of the outdated ones that are not used as often. Wilson lives in Deary and has been a sheriff's deputy for 26 years.
In house training = Blind leading the blind. You must send people out to the POST Training Center or the Washington State Justice Training Commission to receive proper certification that will hold up under the scrutiny of the courts. It is okay to have in-house training when you send people out to become trainers themselves (costs money). Improperly trained deputies will eventually equate to a lawsuit (costing more money than the proper training). Wilson wants to get more economical vehicles to replace the outdated ones...Rausch has tried to get a replacement plan implimented with the County Commissioners for years. The BOCC has turned down the plan each time and decided to replace as needed and not utilize the replacement plan. The radio situation Wilson talks about...it is being worked on and has improved drastically. Wilson does not have administrative experience to be a County Sheriff, he was a Cpl with the Sheriff's Office when he retired. A Wilson led Sheriff's Office will result in poorly trained deputies, underfunded training programs, and a wake up call to the man who claims he is "affordable"...Affordable to him is taking the Office back to the 80's. How does he plan on paying for the new vehicles? Reduce the budget? Rausch did that with the BOCC...$160K...$30K of that went to the pay raise the BOCC gave themselves. Wilson is not the right person for the job...do your research people!
Sounds like this man has some excellent ideas and cares about all of the citizens within Latah county. In these tough economic times it is prudent to reduce costs and to make each spent dollar get the most for what it is worth.Â
The idea of in house training is great and maybe he can take the department into a regional training force where other agencies will come here to support the training for law enforcement and emergency management.
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Sounds responsive and responsible to me....