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It’s Time for a
Change
When it comes to the safety,
accountability and responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office and its
employees, I would like to quote President Harry Truman,
“The Buck Stops Here”
As your next SHERIFF, I will not be afraid to do
my job.
I look forward to open public debate with my
opponent about the issues.
I can be reached anytime at: 706-897-4584.
The General Election for Union
County Sheriff is November 4th. Leading up to that
date, I will be highlighting issues about the management practices of our
current Sheriff, Scott Stephens. It’s my belief that Scott Stephens has
allowed the sheriff’s office to fall behind in training, technology,
community service and up-to-date law enforcement techniques. In Union
County, there appears to be a general sense of mistrust of the Sheriff.
Citizens feel that law enforcement in the county is dispensed based on who
you know rather then what you may have done. Scott Stephens seems to like
the title of Sheriff but not the job of Sheriff. Over the last several
years, he has been more and more absent, leaving the day-to-day duties of
the sheriff’s office to other officers who have had little or no
experience running and managing a sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office
seems to spend most of its time covering-up management and law enforcement
mistakes, not including just plain old gross incompetence instead of
protecting our county.
The bottom line; in Scott
Stephens, we have a Sheriff that is no longer up to the task.
Here are the main issues:
Mismanagement of the sheriff’s office budget.
In 2007, Scott Stephens ran over budget $329,233.00.
Out of control overtime.
In 2007, Scott Stephens spent $186,305.00 for overtime for
Deputies which did not include the jail personnel.
Out of control bills.
In 2007, Scott Stephens spent $42,869.00 on cell phone bills going
over budget $27,869.00.
Out of balance pay for employees.
The average pay for a road Deputy is $31,126.04 while the average
pay for a Correctional Office is $22,183.89 a difference of $8,942.15.
Used patrol cars.
Because Scott Stephens buys used unsafe patrol cars for his
officers while he bought himself a new Ford Expedition in 2006, the
sheriff’s office had to spend $69,071.00 for repairs running over budget
$39,071.00.
Black patrol cars with dark illegal tinted windows.
In a newspaper article, Scott Stephens actually said that the
patrol car windows where tinted dark to protect the radar equipment
inside. Wow! I have worked radar for many years and our patrol cars were
not tinted and neither is the Georgia State Patrol cars. Lies and more
lies. Plus, the sheriff’s office spends roughly $2,000.00 per patrol cars
installing emergency lights, flashers and reflectors so the patrol cars
can be seen at night at traffic stops and so on; so what did Scott
Stephens do, he then paints the cars black.
No patrol zone in the county.
When deputies come on duty, they can patrol anywhere they like.
Sometimes they are bunched-up on one side of the county having breakfast
or three units sitting at a minor traffic accident leaving vast parts of
the county unprotected.
Deputies come on duty do not attend any type of organized briefing.
Deputies have no way to share intelligence information from the
prior shift.
The sheriff’s office closes at 5pm.
If you call the sheriff’s office after 5pm or on weekends, no one
will answer the phone. Citizens are forced to call our county 911 system
for non-emergencies.
Little or no training of sheriff’s office personnel.
In 2007, Scott Stephens spent $0 dollars for Correctional Officer
training. He did spend $900.00 for his upper officers to go to Disney in
Florida for training.
Wasted money.
In 2007, Scott Stephens spent $1,723.00 for advertising. What is
he advertising?
Improper procedures.
The sheriff’s office seems to not know the difference between
harassing and investigating. Citizens are sometimes harassed with no
evidence of a crime. Deputies ask to search citizen’s vehicles with no
probable cause and for no reason.
No written policies or procedures.
Believe it or not, the sheriff’s office operates everyday without
any written guidelines or procedure. This is unheard of in modern law
enforcement agencies today.
No crime scene processing or evidence collection.
Scott Stephens does not have any procedure for the processing of
crime scenes or the collection of evidence. If you are able to get an
officer to show-up to a home burglary, you basically just get a report if
you can call it that.
No marine patrols.
Citizens that live around our lake tell me that the it’s full of
drunks on the weekends. The DNR does what it can, but the sheriff’s office
needs its own marine patrol.
Absentee Sheriff.
Scott Stephens does not show-up to community functions or events.
You can never reach him on the phone and he will not return your phone
call.
Finger printing.
If you need to be finger printed for work, you go to the jail and
wait in a lock visitation room inside the jail until someone helps you.
Then you must go inside the main jail to be fingerprinted where every jail
inmate can see you. Why?
Inmate smoking.
Currently, inmates are allowed to smoke at the county jail. That
will stop when I am Sheriff.
No grant money.
The sheriff in 2004, listed federal accreditations as a goal of
his, what happened? Currently, the sheriff’s office has not achieved or
even tried to achieve state or federally accreditations. Tax payers of
Union County are losing out on hundreds of thousands of grant dollars due
to Scott Stephens’s inaction.
No volunteer force.
I know for a fact, Scott Stephens has been approached several
times by qualified retired deputies wanting to volunteer their service to
only be met by unreturned phone calls by Scott Stephens. Why would we not
want FREE law enforcement services? This one fact alone proves how
unprofessional Scott Stephens really is.
No crime watch programs.
Currently, Scott Stephens provides no crime watch programs to the
community even though, crime prevention is one of his responsibilities.
No elderly crime prevention programs.
Our senior citizens are victims to fraud crimes every day, what is
Scott Stephens doing to help them, nothing!
The fact is, this list could
go on and on. To summarize; what is Scott Stephens doing for this county
as Sheriff? NOTHING!
I believe the citizens of
Union County have had enough of this type of mismanagement and are ready
for a new Sheriff.
Vote
Tom Jones for SHERIFF.
Look for TOM JONES on you
November 4 th. ballot.
(For Sheriff)
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