MANSFIELD – Leading up to the 2016 election on Nov. 8, Richland Source sat down with Richland County Sheriff Steve Sheldon, the Republican incumbent for the position.
Sheldon is running against Democrat challenger Matt Mayer.
QUESTION: Tell us about your career in law enforcement leading up to becoming sheriff.
ANSWER: I grew up in Mansfield and graduated from Senior High. As soon as I graduated I went to the tech college out here in the law enforcement program. I also went to the police academy that following year. So I went to the police academy when I was 19 years old, which is pretty young. So I’ve been doing this for 40 years.
In 1978, right after I graduated from college, I got a job at the Crestline Police Department. I was at Crestline from 1978 to 1980. Then I went to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office. Crestline was a small community and not a lot of activity, and I wanted to move up.
I was at the sheriff’s office from 1980 to 1983 and during my three years at the sheriff’s office solved lots of crime and had a lot of good things happen. I made sergeant, and I also became a canine officer. In 1983, Mansfield Police Department had openings and I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the sheriff’s office, but I’d originally started out on Mansfield’s auxiliary and I thought there would be more opportunity for training and advancement at that time. I went to the Mansfield Police Department in 1983 and stayed there until 2004 when the only reason I retired was to run for sheriff.
When I was with the city I was a canine officer, then I was a sergeant and lieutenant, then I was a captain. I was the administrative captain at the city handling budgets, the annual report, some grants, I did a lot of things there.
In 2003, when the late James Stierhoff stepped down because his wife was ill, I decided I wanted to run for sheriff. In 2004 I ran for sheriff and got elected in November 2004, and took office in January 2005.
We hit the ground running because right off the bat there was the ice storm of 2005. We had the old jail then, we had the county building closed down because the power was off for six days. We had to move all the prisoners out of the county jail and into three different prison systems. I thought it was a prime opportunity for us to go in and clean the entire jail while they were gone. For 18 days straight I worked 16 hours a day, and I thought, what did I get myself into?
After that, we just thought of ways to make things better. So for 12 years I’ve been trying to do the best job I can for the citizens of this county. It’s not about me, it’s about the citizens, and what can we do better to serve the citizens. That’s always been my thought process; it’s not about me, it’s about them.
Q: Are there any significant accomplishments from your 12 years as sheriff that you’re particularly proud of?
A: When I came in, there was an overload of 5,000 warrants and there was a lot of backlog. The jail was in deplorable condition, it was built in 1968 so it leaked, sewage water would drip down through the floor, so one of the projects we tackled was to build a new jail, and we built it with no new tax dollars.
The new jail is up and running and it’s fine. Last year we were 100 percent compliant with the state in our jail, and that’s never happened in Richland County, mostly because of overcrowding. We’re really proud of the jail.
I started the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force with the U.S. Marshals, and that’s a great source. We started in 2008 or 2009 and they’ve arrested over 4,000 people from as far away as California, and they’ve been really high-profile cases. I have an officer assigned to the task force, they do a great job and we’re real happy to be part of that.
We’ve got our new officers a new radio system, the old one was deplorable so we’re now on the MARCS radio system.
We’ve also started Project Starfish, a Christian organization that takes people who have addictions and try to help them with their addiction. We can’t arrest everybody and lock them up. The drug problem is horrific, and Starfish is one piece of that puzzle to help our citizens.
We’re in the process of going through accreditation; we’re going through every policy and standard operating procedure that this office has to make sure we’re compliant.
We did lose a lot of revenue at the end of 2008, the economy went to crap so we had to lay off officers, it was a horrible time. We’re on the way to recovering from that eight years later. It’s been that long that we’ve had to deal with things. That said, we’ve put DARE back in schools. We’re dealing with people with mental health issues, so I’ve tried to send every one of my deputies and corrections staff to Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training, put on by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) for mental health to get all of our officers CIT trained.
We also started Project Lifesaver in conjunction with the Lions Club. Anybody that has autism or Alzheimer’s or dementia is eligible for this, we put a low-jack bracelet on a person and it finds them if they get lost. We’ve located several people in this county.
Sometimes people ask how you justify doing this. The Lions Club pays for the equipment. For us it’s just a little bit of time. If you have something like this, you can eliminate the need for calling in 20 or 30 search deputies on overtime. It’s fiscally responsible too, that’s not why we do it though. It can and has saved lives.
Another thing we’re doing is we have PowerDMS Policy Management Software, a new system where all of our officers can get trained on every standard operating procedure. We now have new in-car computers, new handguns, new bulletproof vests for the officers, and we’re in the process of getting body cameras hopefully in the next couple months.
We’ve accomplished a lot of major things. One of the things I’ve done to save money is, when I came into office the county had their own kitchen with county employees. We subcontracted that and over the years we’ve saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’ve also subcontracted the medical services.
When I first came in, we went to a bar-coding system in the crime lab so we would know where property was. We also combined IT services with the auditor; Pat Dropsey and myself merged IT services and Pat takes care of our IT needs which saves the sheriff’s office money. When you merge something it’s usually a good thing.
When we had a fiscal problem at the office, we were in a perfect rotation with brand-new cars. But when the economic crisis hit that went out the window, and our budget was really slashed. I found two different locations where we could buy used police cars, and that’s what we’ve done for several years is buy used police cars and get them equipped. That saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last couple years, though we’re at the point now that we need some new cars. That’s one of the projects I want to work on should I get re-elected.
Q: How do you feel things have changed from when you first took office until now?
A: There have been a lot of changes, especially with electronic equipment. We have in-car computers now. We went to the MARCS radio system, with the GPS systems you have available and drones, technology is the biggest thing I’ve seen change. When I started law enforcement in the 1970s, we didn’t have computers. So I think technology has really advanced and in some ways I think it’s made our job a lot better. But in some ways I think it’s taken the human element out of the job.
Q: Why have you decided to run for re-election?
A: There’s a lot of projects that we’ve started that I want to see finished, especially the accreditation process. Getting our officers involved in the communities, with DARE and neighborhood watches – I think we’re seeing a trend where we need to be involved in the community even more than ever. I’ve always thought we should be involved, but in this day and age, you need to know your community and your community needs to know you.
Another thing I did with donated money, I completed the Community Safety Book for the Richland County Sheriff’s Office. That book is meant to help the citizens, it talks about sex offenders and how to get information on them, or how to get your CCW, or how to deal with opiate abuse. There are four pages of county phone numbers, and on the back of the book all the fire department and police department numbers.
I did that to try to help the community help themselves, so they can get safety tips — whatever I can do try to help the citizens so they can be educated.
