TERRE HAUTE —
The Vigo County Council room was packed as audience members spilled into the hall Thursday evening, all to hear four candidates offer themselves up for the position of sheriff.
With the primary election just five days away, the League of Women Voters of Vigo County and the Tribune-Star hosted a Sheriff Candidate Forum inside the Vigo County Annex, with questions asked in turn to Democrats Vigo County Sheriff Deputy Chief Greg Ewing, Vigo County Sheriff Deputy Lt. Tim Gossett, former assistant chief of the Terre Haute Police Department and current officer Jeff Trotter, and Republican Denzil Lewis, a member of the Terre Haute City Police Department and Vigo County Drug Task Force.
Tribune-Star editor and forum moderator Max Jones initiated the hour-and-a-half program by invoking a sense of civility and decorum he described as absent in the current political atmosphere. “It is not easy being an elected official these days. It is not easy being a candidate for public office,” he said, leading the audience in applause for the service offered.
The challenge of balancing public safety against crippling budget cuts was the evening’s theme as the candidates differed widely in their proposed approaches.
In his opening remarks, Ewing pledged to work with legislators on bills which would require registered sex offenders be monitored with GPS units after their release from incarceration. Vigo County currently has about 206 registered sex offenders, he said, referring to them as “sickos” from whom the public needs protection. Sex offenders, he said, are statistically “average” people with jobs and incomes and can be expected to offset the cost through mandated fees.
When the idea was brought up for further discussion in the forum, the other three candidates unanimously described the idea as impossible in practice.
Lewis, Trotter and Gossett quoted figures they said were provided by fellow candidate Karen Cross stating that the cost of starting up 200 GPS units would be about $1.2 million. Once released from prison, the individuals are typically unemployed, they said, meaning the county would bear the cost. Constitutionally, the measure is questionable considering the sex offenders’ time served, they added. Given the state of the county’s budget and the need for fiscal cuts, the program would be undoable, they said one after another, as Lewis pointed out multiple times that the county’s current sex offender registry is not in compliance, an issue which must be addressed before a GPS system could be implemented.
On the question of community outreach programs and group membership, the candidates also split dramatically. Ewing and Gossett described a sheriff’s participation in community organizations as very important, while Lewis and Trotter deemed it almost detrimental.
“I have an agency to run and right now I see an agency in crisis,” Lewis said, reiterating his theme of fiscal and operational mismanagement within the current administration. Lewis said he plans to work the roads and jail alongside his deputies, cutting costs and increasing coverage, something which will consume all of his time. “I won’t be on any boards. If you ask, don’t get your feelings hurt, but I’ll say no.”
Trotter offered similar comments, describing the role of the sheriff as that of a leader. Working deputies need to be part of a “community police force,” involved on the ground level, he said, adding that he wants to develop more department-related mentoring programs for recovering drug addicts.
The issue of expense-management seemed to lurk behind every topic and Trotter referred to the jail as “a money pit.”
Reducing prescription drug costs and weighing the $150,000 jail physician contract against a hospital bidding system were among his suggestions, as well as applying for federal grant money as many of the inmates are on government welfare programs already. The current administration, he said, has averaged a $400,000-per-year deficit annually for eight years, he said.
Likewise, Lewis said the $300,000 the jail went over-budget on inmate medical expenses last year has to be stopped, and agreed with Gossett that small changes can add up to big savings in the long-run by re-examining prescription drug programs and physician usage.
While Ewing agreed the budget has to be protected, he pointed out that some expenses are unforeseen. Referring to fuel price spikes in the past, when the cost of gasoline jumped above $4 per gallon, Ewing said some expenses are unavoidable. The jail has also held inmates arrested on felony charges who required triple-bypass surgery. Failing to provide adequate medical care to inmates, he said, can and has led to lost lawsuits.
When asked their goals for their first 100 days in office, Trotter listed a complete restructuring of the department as his priority. The goal, he said, is to put as many deputies on the road as possible, reaching the rural areas currently underserved. Reducing jail spending is also a must.
Gossett echoed the comments on a need for department-wide restructuring which, he said, won’t be popular as officers currently serving administrative roles are put out on the roads. Hearkening back to his own career with the department, Gossett said he remembers working the 3 to 11 p.m. shift as painful in some respects as he didn’t get to see his kids as much, but in the end, more officers are needed on the roads.
Lewis said getting the department’s sex offender registry back into compliance is a must, as well as managing the jail overcrowding. Currently, between 30 and 40 inmates are released each Friday to make room for new arrests, something he hopes to cure with community corrections-style programs. “We have to get that under control,” he said, adding that he, too, wants to restructure the department to put more officers on the roads.
Ewing agreed that something needs done about the overcrowding. “The jail would be my first focus,” he said. But on the topic of potentially unpopular departmental restructuring, Ewing said he plans to take more of a consensus approach to the task, bringing members of the team into the discussion as opposed to issuing what he described as a fist-pounding method.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
News
Related Photos
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Meet the people; Vigo County Sheriff's candidates took part in a forum Thursday evening. The forum, sponsored by the Tribune-Star and the League of Women Voters, hosted Denzil Lewis, Jeff Trotter, Tim Gossett and Greg Ewing.
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Discussion
Vigo sheriff candidates spar in forum
All four contenders offer up differing platforms
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