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Sonoma County. The chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, Cinema County is rightfully famed for its agriculture, viticulture, industry and recreation,

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as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your host Rich McGlinchy.

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Hello again, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Sonoma County in the eighties. We're gonna be talking Teoh, a man you should be familiar with by now. He's our Sonoma County sheriff, Dick Michaelson. We had Dick visit us about a year and 1/2 ago, not long after

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he took office. Dick was elected to the Office of Sheriff in October 1986 took office in January 1987 and in about three months later, revisited appearance just the first time in fact, content Thank you back. It's been an interesting year and 1/2 for a little more

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has certainly has. Recently I determined that you are attending the Post Command College. Now. What does that entail? Well, that's a really interesting program. It's actually quite futuristic. Post stands for peace officer standards and training, and it's the governing body that oversees all of law enforcement

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in California State organization run out of Sacramento What they've done. They pull together, Ah, two year program, and they referred to it as the command college because it is, in fact, an actual college. We go down to Southern California for 10 1 week sessions over the

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two year period. We meet a Cal Poly and were instructed by various PhDs from you can imagine from from everywhere. It's interesting to note Rich that there's not one law enforcement executive teaching in this program. They're all outside people. And the first week, of course, they

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exposed us to to the future, and I found that to be fascinating because they're really getting us trying to get us to think ahead and plan for what's coming down the road. So it's been a real challenging experience. Well, let me digress. Just a minute you

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took office in January of 87. And how many people are involved in your department of property? Well, we have full time positions. Almost 520 right? That right? So it's a very large part of county government. Yeah, it certainly is. Okay, back to the poster that peace

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officers battered training. That's all right. Okay. What type of futuristic thoughts have you been exposed to since you started participating in this command college? Well, some of them, as I said, are are fascinating to listen to when we listen to our instructors. But some of them

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are also a little bit scary. Some of the thoughts that conveyed to us I might point out that, um they've made statements that by the year 2000 which isn't that far away, that we would no longer have local law enforcement in the state of California. They're

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predicting that there'll be a state or even a national police force that might be in place at that time. They've talked about things such as memory transfer and bionics. Where in the future and health medicine. If we were Teoh become sick or breaking arm. We literally

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replaced the arm. They've talked about cloning the ability to do that. They said how interesting that would be and what an impact it would have on the criminal justice system. If you could clone a certain type of citizens in the community, one that's law abiding and

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responsible, they said, Obviously, that would impact crying. One of the things that I found to be a little bit scary and that was they said, Uh, in the next very few years, all of law enforcement may have all of its guns taken away from it. And,

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of course, if you were toe pose that question to the rank and file police officer, deputy sheriff working out on the street today, I think that would raise a considerable amount of concern on his or her part. They I I asked the question. If we're going

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to take away the guns, what's going? Teoh replace them? And they indicated they will be things such as lasers or sound guns, and my question to them was, what is the sound gun? And they said it would be a device that you would point at an

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individual, pull a trigger or a button, push a button and it would knock the individual out, and there'd be no injury to the either the suspect or the officer using it. So things of that of that type of very futuristic and whether they're gonna happen or

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not is, uh is anyone's guess. Well, would you say, for instance, just taking one of those not to make a the force of it? But the idea of a national police force is that wouldn't that scare a lot of people in general? I think it would,

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because primarily those of us that are in our local communities like to have the ability for interaction with their local law enforcement officials. I think that could be also that could be accomplished. But the fear would be that there would be, ah, larger organization, overseeing and

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directing what's happening in the local community. So I know certainly with citizens and myself, that fear of losing that control is a very, very important manner. But I think what the reason they're saying, making statements of that type bridges, that they're saying that budgets will will

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mandate that we move in that direction because right now we have a duplication of services and dispatching and records keeping investigations, and it makes a lot more sense to consolidate all of those. Well, one of the things that you have advocated in your campaigning for the

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office and since you've been sheriff is that the Sheriff Department must move into the 19 nineties in the in the year 2000 that we can no longer dispensing law enforcement, I guess be the way to phrase that. But the way we used to so along those

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lines, what's the challenge that the sheriff's department must prepare for? Did you see it as we move in to the 19? Well, the 19 nineties promise to be a time when there is going to be significant transition taking, taking place and lots of change. And as

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I look to the future, I certainly feel that just given the geographic setting of Cinema County and what's happening with our growth here as far as the population, that's a major factor that's going to affect everything that's happening today and tomorrow and into the future. There's

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Arkan is becoming far more urbanized. There's a lot of commercial growth that's that's going on and a tremendous amount of recreational development as well So all of those factors are are gonna force us to change if, rather than I think rather being forced into a position

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of change. What we need to do is is planned. And if we have good planning in place, we should be able to meet the demands and the needs of our citizens citizenry. Well, let me digress again for just a moment. The idea off. As you have

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more population, larger county, you need more people than sheriff's office. But I want to ask you this question specifically does. Is there a real cost effectiveness? Been putting two more patrolmen here? Two more there, two more there Or are there other measures that we should be

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using to treat critical back? Well, that's a very good question. I think that there are many of the things weaken Dio. The big part of I think of any stable community are the are the citizens themselves, and I can tell you from experience rich that I

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have worked in as a law enforcement officer in four other counties in our state, and I've never seen the support for law enforcement, stronger support than I seen here in Sonoma County so I think that it's really the citizens that make the difference. And if they're

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they're standing behind um, their elected officials and the people that serve them in government. I think we have, ah, bright future ahead of us. So that's very, very important. And then, coupled with that, of course, is the need is I'm engine authority for the the elected

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officials and the department heads to plan and to direct energy and resource is into areas where they can make the greatest impact. Uh, describe the facilities that are currently up the sheriff's department, but we have many. Sometimes I think people might think that the sheriff's department

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is located at the Hall of Justice, and that's kind of the extent of it. We have much more than that. Not only do we have our main office located there at the Main County Administration center, we also have a substation in Granville, which is very active.

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We have another substation located out in Sonoma Valley. We have our helicopter search and rescue unit, which is headquartered out of the airport. We have a like cinema unit now, which is really up and coming because of the tremendous demands again. The recreation demands that have

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been placed upon all the problems that generate from lots of people going Teoh that area. And then, of course, probably the biggest responsibility for me. Not probably, but certainly the biggest responsibility is the operation of our corrections facilities. And we have a on a new old

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main jail and hopefully a new, uh, main jail. It'll come online next year, and then we have another very large facility referred to as the North County detention facility that used to be called the order for used to be known as the Honor Farm. At that

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time, I think there was about 60 to 80 people out there. As of this morning, there's someone in the neighborhood of about 450 people, and not only do we have minimum security, but we have medium and maximum security inmates located there. It's quite a job. It's

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a big job. Okay, described the responsibilities of the sheriff well again. The sheriff's role is not just strictly law enforcement, although that is a big part of it, because if you look at the population in our county, the largest percentage of people live in the incorporated

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area, and that's a that's pretty significant amount. It's almost 100 and 50,000 But on top of the law enforcement needs, we have many, many others. For example, there's, uh, the civil end of it. We have a civil bureau that has responsibility for serving various civil papers

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and processes doing evictions. It's a very important part of the department, and I might add a very busy end of it as well. I have already mentioned the jails, the jails air our great, uh, big area That takes a great deal of time in one that

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we, you know, it's a 24 hour day operation. I think that's important to mention, too, that our business is 24 hours a day. It's not just the 8 to 5 Monday through Friday at seven days a week. Additionally, we have a crime analysis and prevention bureau,

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and we're real proud of the work that's been done in that particular area because we have 17 ongoing crime prevention programs that we have available to citizens throughout the unincorporated area of Sonoma County. Everything from neighborhood watch the business watched the hug, a tree program and

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the list goes on and on and on. Additionally, by law, I have the responsibility to maintain court security for all our judges. Which means that every superior Munich court Court Commissioner eyes entitled to security in his or her courtroom and that you might think, Well, why

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doesn't require Ah, uniformed armed Deputy Sheriff, I can tell you, there are many things that go on in the courtroom. Very sensitive trials on occasion that certainly warrant that. And by law, we must We must provide that. Also, In addition, I mentioned the search and rescue

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unit. We have a wonderful group of volunteers that work with the department employees assigned to the helicopter that provide all kinds of search and rescue services. I'm sure you've read about it in the newspaper. Often where our helicopter unit has been responsible for saving countless lives.

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Another important areas central dispatch. We we have all do all of the central dispatching for the county of Sonoma. We coordinate all of the fire districts dispatching, and we handle all of the ambulance responses throughout the county. Uh, so that's somewhat brief. Kind of overview of

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what we know. That a good part time job. Yeah, it's more than that way. Got a lot more questions with come back and talk more about the sheriff department, the county, the size of county, all the things that affect your actions. In the next several years,

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those of law enforcement ladies and gentlemen showed up Dick Michaelson and I will return right after this important message. What is this place anyway? I don't know. Let me dio. Uh huh. These Teoh I got a woman may end us Might be a mistress to everybody.

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I'm Pat Benatar, one singer. I'm not an expert on AIDS. How you don't have to be another funny recently company to answer all this fear that surrounds is really not gonna help. What will make a difference is research and understanding. The bottom line is that AIDS

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is preventable. So please get hold of the fax. Cause if you don't know what's going on, it's time to get an education. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the eighties. I hope you're enjoying a program because we're talking with Sheriff Tick Michaelson. Dick,

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as you know, was elected to office in 1986. He's been in office for almost a couple of years now and found that our county is facing lots of problems and he's dealing with them very well. I think you're a moment ago we were talking about several

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things in the chef department. We were talking about the online officers as opposed to the correction field. Now, how you told us there's some 500 persons involved your department Now how many involved in the corrections area and how many in the actual on site rich as

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I mentioned, We have 520 total personnel that includes sworn Don, sworn and, of course, our support services staff. I think this will be somewhat of a startling statistic to the audience viewing today, and that's that we have almost, or we will have almost 300 employees working

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within the corrections unit by the end of this year s. So what? I'm what I'm The point I'm trying to make is 300 out of a workforce of 520 are working inside, taking care of the crooks versus a little over 200 that are working out on

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the street protected, bringing more Ian and protecting our least attempting in the best possible way to protect our homes and businesses. The balance seems a little bit unfair that we would have more working in corrections and let's say, working in the swarm positions. But you can

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see where the activity and the demands are are at today. Well, philosophically, this gives us an automatic lead into a fact that many people feel it. The continuing copper incarceration of more and more people is not the answer, although certainly some people must be incarcerated for

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safety. The rest of us, the the idea of crime prevention that you mentioned earlier You have crime prevention unit, and I think that that's been very successful, and many people feel that maybe that is the way of the future. You certainly crime prevention is going to

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play a major role in, and it's only through that citizen involvement. We collectively with the department, all law enforcement departments. Are we gonna be able to really keep a handle on crime in our communities? Um, so there's there's lots of challenges there and ones that again

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we have to continue to work out. The other thing I would like to mention is that as the sheriff, one of The things that we need to address is the need for sentencing alternatives. We find that given the high increase in our population, based, we do

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find more. More people are being arrested on a daily average, compared to, let's say, the previous year. Last year, over 18,000 people were arrested in Cinema Kennedy. That's a startling figure. And of course, our daily jail population runs right now about 750 people in custody, and

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we are literally have our backs in the corner at this point in time. Now, with the new jail coming online, that should take some of that pressure away. But with continued growth, we're never going to have enough beds to meet the demands of all the the

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suspects that are arrested that come into our immediate charge. So we have to look to other areas rich, and some of the things that I think are pretty innovative and and really are workable are areas such as are the work furlough program. Sheriff's parole. We're looking

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at electronic monitoring the ankle bracelet go that goes on a certain type of individual that we feel will be able to be released back in the community and yet still be held accountable. So areas like that, we really have to move in these areas. That definitely

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could be reviewed, undoubtedly, because this is the only way we're ever going to reduce this population incarcerated saturation. The cost to Rich. I would like to mention the cost to the taxpayers for an inmate in our county jail for one years, $22,000. That's but shaky too.

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Well, scary. What about an overview of the county? Today? We have eight cities, and we have, ah, 1570. No, we have 1,010,000 square acres. I don't know what about this well apart whole thing again. It's It's Ah, it's an interesting county because as you go about

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to the various parts of it, you'll find that there's certainly here. They're different lifestyles in place, different attitudes. And that's one of the things. Of course, that I find most challenging things that are happening out of the Russian River area are perhaps quite a bit different

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from let's say, what's happening out in Sonoma Valley. But the county is, as we said, today's is on a tremendous increase in population we do have a incorporated cities. The total population of the county is approaching 360,000 about 150,000 leaving the unincorporated area. We have 20

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on incorporated communities. And that's exciting, too, because we have areas such as Windsor in Bodega Bay, that air right now looking toward incorporation. And as the sheriff of our county, I I'm really interested in that because I see that there's an area in which perhaps my

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department can actually grow. If we're able to provide contract. Law enforcement services with those communities in those two areas incorporated would take road off your show. Well, it would. But I think what they're finding, for example, you're incarcerated facility would being population. It's certainly what it

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certainly would. But and as I mentioned, one of the things like, for example, with the area in Windsor, I'm really proud that we've had a very close working relationship with their municipal advisory committee that's been in place for the last few years. We hope to be

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the provider of law enforcement services in that area, and, um, the difference being is it will be a deputy sheriff working for the City of Windsor, but they'll be wearing a Windsor Police Department uniform. But the batch will say, Deputy Sheriff, what do you think it's

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causing the drastic changes that are taking place in the county? Well, first and foremost is population. That's that certainly is causing the greatest impact. Urban expansion the county is is changing quite rapidly from thinking on egg rule type setting. Thio, more of an urban center askew

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also have seen. There's tremendous commercial development that's going on throughout the county, and that is having a great impact on its the direction that we're headed also recreational development that I mentioned earlier and the types of crimes that are occurring here. We have different types of

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crimes that are taking place from, Let's say, just a few years ago. What type of urban expansion is taking place in the county that, you see, is the law enforcement Well, cities are expanding, their growing growing by at a tremendous rate. It's interesting to note that

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the unincorporated communities, sometimes we think of them as being cities, but they have doubled in population in the last few years. I don't know the exact figure, but I know it's gone from summer in the neighborhood of 28,000 populations, almost 55,000 populations. So that density increasing

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is, is having a significant effect of again upon where, where we're able to deliver law enforcement services in a very quick and responsive fashion. So again, I think you've got the issue of suburban versus rural environments, and that's that's the drastic change. And as you know

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there, many people in our county in this beautiful county of ours that don't want to see that role environment change it all. They want to keep it the way it was many years ago, and there's a lot to be said about that. Well, commercial development impacts

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law enforcement, but definitely how does it do that well again, business industrial parks that are coming online? It tends to have a definite increase on crime occurring because it becomes a target of crime. Unfortunately, it's not because of the business, is it just because of the

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centers that are developed and individuals and the criminal element target them for for attack? Um, I might add that greater, greater commercial development occurring in small businesses and even the geothermal area brings in all kinds of new types of people, and along with some of the

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nice people, there are a few not so nice people that create big problems for all of us in law enforcement is that that's certainly true. You didn't law enforcement also affected by the recreational development in the Canada. You want to describe that I'd like to talk

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about that. Lake Sonoma is perhaps the one that's I received the most attention of late because it's been in the press quite a bit over this. Next year we will have somewhere between 1.5 to maybe two million visitors that will come to like Sonoma. So it

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is becoming, I think, the prime recreational area in our county. There's almost 18,000 acres up there. And of course, you know many improvements air going in place, all kinds of campsites and other activities. A beautiful boat marina there. Uh, of course, all the other things that

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the lake provides as faras boating, skiing and fishing, camping, hiking, writing all of that when we get that many people on. Of course not all those people are from Sonoma County. Those air from counties all around, uh, that also has an impact upon our attempt to

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deliver good law enforcement service to the county. Other areas such as the Sanoma Coast, uh, we have 66 miles of coastline, and there's no way today to really protect that coastline And what what I mean by protecting it. I mean, it's very difficult for us to

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watch for those individuals, for example, that are involved in narcotics trafficking and importing drugs into our county. The Russian River area has 74 miles of river and again a growing number of residents up there, which is cause for an increase in services. And even in when

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we look at inland recreation, we find that the park system is growing by leaps and bounds. We have great parks. They're they're just wonderful. But it's the expansion. Along with the expansion causes causes even greater strains on other services and government are the types of crime

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changing its over county. Today they are not only here, but they're also changing throughout this state and nationwide. In fact, at the Post Command College, one of the things it was very clearly pointed out to me and the other individuals attending is that we had people

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almost immediately begin the process. We should begin the process to start training our personnel, uh, to try to identify new types of crimes. And I'm talking about specifically computer crime is an example. If we don't have people in personnel in my department that's trained to investigate

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that type of an offense criminal offense, believe me that the criminal is going to run right over the top of us and is gonna leave us in a cloud of dust. So we find that, you know, the computer end is fascinating. There's new types of commercial

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and industrial crime taking place. There's also many new mandates that ever being placed upon us by the state of California, for example, domestic violence. Every time the state passes new legislation and hands down new laws, unfortunately they don't include along with that. Ah, a few dollars

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to go along with the the need for investigation services. So we we have to pick up the brunt. Eso domestic violence is a big one, and we're just gonna have to do our very best. But we find is our services are personnel are being spread thinner

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and thinner all the time. Well, is that said earlier. We have 1579 square miles of county, 1,010,000 acres. That's a major, major piece of ground for a department to cover, and you cover all the unincorporated area, so I can readily sympathize with the job people must.

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Do you people get support from the from the public in general, As you mentioned earlier, the county public here is very supportive of law enforcement. Now, what kind of support do you need to meet the needs of the citizenry? That's a great question. Well, obviously, increased

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training is is an important part of that. We have to move in that direction because without training ongoing training, you can't maintain that professionalism within the organization itself. So I see that as a That's a tremendous commitment that not only must come from within the department,

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but almost must must come from support from the Board of Supervisors in the county administrative officer because, you know, training costs dollars, uh, other areas where support is needed, of course, is is with each budget year, where and the increase in services, we have to have

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more personnel right now, our average response time to a 911 call is approaching 12 minutes. That's on a yearly basis, and that's in my estimation, is just not good. We have to lower that figure down to at least cut it in half on. So that has

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has great concern for me. We need additional space, not just talking about the jail, but within our own office. Today you can see that we have. We're terribly overcrowded with many other parts of county government, and so we need to look at some planning process that

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need to be put in place to make sure that we have adequate space in which to provide a good work environment and other issues. I might add. One of the one of the more important issues facing this county and which we hope to have online within

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a year will be our new central morgue. That's been an issue and issue identified by the grand jury for many years and hopefully will be online within 12 to maybe his latest 18 months. And we're just about out of time and hopefully or jail will be

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open in the spring, so we'll take some of the little God willing facility. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for having me today, ladies and gentlemen. We've been talking to get Michaelson, the Sonoma County sheriff. We've been talking about law enforcement, Sonoma County. Dick

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has done a splendid job thus far. And he is looking to the future and using all the modern methods he could get his hands on to see that our law enforcement agencies are up to date. My name is Richman, 15. The programs to no candidate. He's

00:28:29.990 - 00:28:37.760

I'll be back with you next week with another member of the county government, family or related agency until then. Good night. Good luck and good help each and every one of you.