Sheriff’s race sports long, thorny roots

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For longtime residents of Penobscot County, the race for sheriff is a case of deja vu, pitting two-time adversaries Glenn Ross, the Republican incumbent, against Democrat Tim Richardson, who held the office in the early 1980s.

At a recent candidates night the two challenged each other by raising some of the same issues that were raised 18 years ago. There’s a lot of history here. Ross, a one-time Democrat, defeated Richardson in the Democratic primary in 1984. Richardson once fired Ross, who was a patrol sergeant.

Both candidates have lengthy lists of training and educational accomplishments in law enforcement, and in broad terms support many of the same things. They each want to improve conditions at the Penobscot County Jail, a facility built to house 136 inmates but now with a population that peaks at 180. They also want to maintain a strong police force in the county.

As sheriff from 1980 to 1984, one of Richardson’s main contentions is what he describes as the deplorable conditions at the jail and unacceptable personnel turnover in the department.

Richardson points to what he has calculated to be 71 percent turnover in the department over the past two years.

To buttress his case about problems in the jail, in the waning minutes of the candidates forum Tuesday, Richardson produced a letter showing that a consultant has been hired to “regain the professional reputation” of the department. Richardson said that in order to regain the reputation, you had to have lost it first.

Ross, named sheriff after the death of former Sheriff Ed Reynolds last summer, denied Richardson’s main assertions and chided his opponent.

“Some numbers have been thrown out here, but the numbers are not valid and I would urge you to recheck the math there, Tim,” Ross said.

According to Ross and the department’s financial point man, Lt. Keith Hotaling, turnover isn’t uncommon across the state or nationally, especially in the corrections division.

Hotaling said earlier this week that the average full-time corrections employee stays slightly less than five years and part-timers stay for less than a year. That has led to turnover in county corrections that has averaged 33 percent per year over the past 15 years, he said. In the patrol division, turnover has averaged only 9 percent over the past six years.

At Tuesday’s forum at the Greater Bangor Area Central Labor Council in Brewer, Richardson pointed out how during his 15 years operating a towing company, turnover averaged only 8 percent.

But while Richardson was sheriff, a deputy resigned complaining that 55 officers had left the department between 1982 and 1984 at a time when the department’s staff was 45 people. That works out to 40 percent turnover a year.

Along with these personnel issues, supporters of Richardson question whether politics and retribution were involved when patrol Lt. William Lawrence – who ran as chief deputy for sheriff candidate Richard Stitham in the Democratic primaries – was transferred to the court security division where Stitham works. Lawrence’s lieutenant’s job is to be transferred to the jail and the position to be opened for applicants.

Ross denies any involvement in the transfer, citing a letter from Reynolds in June that temporarily transferred Lawrence to the courts out of concern for jail security. Ross said he sought to retain Lawrence’s position and add a second lieutenant’s position to improve oversight at the jail, but was told by the Penobscot County commissioners that the jail position needed to come from existing positions.

For his part, Lawrence has referred any comments to his attorney Warren Silver, who in turn declined to comment.

Questions have been raised about Richardson’s campaign, including references in his campaign literature that he is the only candidate certified by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.

According to an academy official, although the certificate is permanent it lapsed when Richardson left office.

Controversies started early in the campaign.

During the primaries, Richardson urged voters to research the candidates and dig deep into their backgrounds to find out who was most qualified. At a candidates forum in May in Glenburn, Richardson questioned the qualifications of Democratic opponent Sgt. Joe Dauphinee, who Richardson said failed a basic academy test in 1984.

Richardson later claimed that the test information was public information that anyone could get from the director of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. But the academy’s acting director, Alan Hammond, who wasn’t the director at the time Richardson said he made his inquiry, said that test results are not public information. Although the academy can release information about whether someone has completed a course, it can’t release information about tests or anything involving scores, he said.

A short time after Richardson made his plea for voters to do background checks on the candidates, he found himself in the spotlight when documents surfaced showing he had been the subject of a protection order in 2000, issued on behalf of a woman he had had an affair with while he was married.

Forgiven by his wife, Richardson said he hopes to move on and hopes the voters will, too.

In pressing his candidacy, Richardson wants to be known as fiscally responsible. He said that as sheriff he turned a $300,000 deficit into a surplus and balanced all his budgets while implementing innovative programs and improvements that exist today.

He started and managed the contract law enforcement program, whereby small towns can determine what law enforcement needs they have and can afford, then employ trained law enforcement officers supplemented by regular patrol deputies from the Sheriff’s Department. As chief deputy, Richardson said, he started the department’s training course.

“There are no other new programs in existence at the county jail right now,” Richardson asserted. Meanwhile, what programs he helped nurture have been left to waste away, he said.

Ross, who has served in the Sheriff’s Department for 23 years – resigning briefly in 1983 to run against Richardson – said his opponent is wrong. Progress has been made.

In recent years, under the auspices of Reynolds, the department forged stronger ties with other local law enforcement agencies and used fledgling technologies to combat crime, Ross said.

He said jail inmates now have complicated medical and mental health needs. And crime is on the rise, with the number of calls deputies respond to having risen 12 percent from last year.

In response to the changing times, the Sheriff’s Department is making use of technologies, with defibrillators joining computers in cruisers, Ross said, noting that one life already has been saved by a defibrillator.

A fingerprint expert, Ross said the department now has access to a fingerprint identification system that can match an unidentified print with those on record in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, helping to solve crimes.

“Through the use of science we can be more effective in solving crime than we can be by being just the cop on the street,” Ross said.