Letter to the Editor:
As a prior candidate for Sheriff during the primary, I didn’t talk about the other candidates. I enjoyed working with both individuals during my tenure with the Murray County Sheriff’s Office, both as a Deputy and Chief Deputy Sheriff. After the primary, one candidate did meet with me asking for my thoughts and for my support. At the time I told him he could place a sign but that if asked I would allow the other candidate to place one as well. That has changed and while I was content to not speak out on the general election process, because of working with both men, I think some things have been brought up that I should address.
Experience is a large part of being a successful sheriff. So, I encourage people to look at what is entailed in being a successful sheriff. At a minimum a sheriff, or candidate for sheriff, needs to fully understand MN Statute 387, The Duties of Sheriff. Under that Statute it lays out all the duties and responsibilities of the sheriff. In a nut shell it is a job description. So, to have a candidate for sheriff at a public forum state he did not know the MN Statute that governs the duties of the sheriff was a bit surprising. As with any job description it is not all inclusive. The Sheriff’s Office is an elected office managed and controlled by the sheriff. The sheriff’s office is not a “Sheriff’s Department” as some that don’t understand governance call it. Unlike county departments, generally very little interaction between the county board and sheriff should need to take place as the county board is not involved in the management of an elected office. In addition to the duties in MN Statute 387, in today’s public safety environment, a sheriff needs to be well acquainted with the changing technologies used in public safety. The financial costs to a county in electing a new sheriff that has not had any experience in a sheriff’s office working with public safety technology, management of a 911 emergency communications center, understanding all the laws and regulations in civil process law, and running a jail can be very large. While on the small side not having that knowledge, you will potentially spend much more money not understanding what your buying or lose out on grant opportunities. On the other end making mistakes in a 911 center or jail policies, procedures, training, or equipment can result in loss of life. If you have not worked in a sheriff’s office, there is no way that you can have the experience needed to handle these complex issues.
It has saddened me seeing the negative attacks, then having them defended by using religious quotes. Negative attacks are generally made to deflect from the fact that the person making them doesn’t have the qualifications for the job or is hiding things in their past performance. It’s been my experience that people doing that have little respect for people or religion. We all have gotten used to the negativity in our national political campaigns, do we really need it in our county? Elections in local government should be based on the person’s qualifications and experience to do the job.
Having worked in the Office and knowing the staff as I do, I can say from first hand experience that it is not a “house divided” as has been brought up during the election. As in any work environment, you will never have 100 percent of the staff working as a team. Any manager or employer will tell you that. A sheriff’s office works in a military chain of command style. Some staff that have not been in the military or worked in that type of command structure, sometimes have difficulty adjusting. The staff have come out in strong support for Sheriff Telkamp. They are a well trained and dedicated staff and Murray County is fortunate to have them working there. If there was large dysfunction in the Office, the staff turnovers would not be as infrequent as they are. Employment at the Murray County Sheriff’s Office has been stable the last 16 years and it has a large part to do with Sheriff Telkamp’s leadership. I would ask why 98% of the staff have come out in vocal support for the Sheriff’s re-election if there is such a problem? The Sheriff has always been a strong supporter and defender of his staff. With the hours everyone puts in at the Sheriff’s Office, the staff becomes a second family and you tend to want to protect them, sometimes vocally.
Communication and cooperation with the Sheriff’s Office have also been raised. Sheriff Telkamp’s door has always been open to any agency or member of the public that needed to meet with him. Having worked in the Sheriff’s Office, I know the Sheriff’s Office has always worked well with the Police Department’s in Murray County. If a police department requested assistance in any area, whether it be immediate back up or assistance with an investigation they would always get the assistance. However, it is not the Sheriff’s job to go to each police department to advise them about law changes that may affect how they do their charging or other operations. If they are truly managing a police department they should know these things. It’s understood that the local police departments can’t do all the duties needed in law enforcement, without relying on the Sheriff’s Office for assistance. They simply lack the personnel and expertise in areas the Sheriff’s Office can provide. The Sheriff has always tried to help the cities in any way possible. The Sheriff is required by law to investigate crimes when asked to do so by a resident of the county, whether they live in a city with a police department or not. Recent requests from Fulda City residents to the Sheriff for criminal investigations have come because there is a lack of confidence in the local police department and the way some recent cases have been handled.
The Sheriff has spent a good deal of money subsidizing the police departments, so they could survive. At the Sheriff’s direction, anytime there was grant funding available to the Sheriff’s Office for things like the ARMER radio rollout, he required that when I was working on the grants to include funding for the City Police Departments. There was no requirement for him to do that, but he felt it necessary to help with all public safety. When we installed an ARMER radio tower in Fulda, the Sheriff had the $100,000 plus cost of that project absorbed by the county budget, even though it was done to improve radio traffic in Fulda, primarily for the Police Department use, and was not needed by the County. Some years back the Sheriff’s Office covered months of medical leave for a Fulda police officer for a very minimal cost, even though it should have been managed by the Fulda Police Chief hiring personnel to cover a planned leave. In fact, if you look at the 2018 Fulda Police Department budget of $239,443 dollars, it is for basically two patrol officers’ salaries, insurance, and the equipment needed for two officers. There is really no budget to manage since they are covering fixed personnel costs and hold very little discretionary spending. There is no staff for the police chief to really manage. They each work one week on and one week off, so they only interact for about an hour once a week when they have a shift change. Their budget does not allocate for dispatch services, records management and computer aided dispatch, dispatch staff, or on-going technology improvements in those areas. All areas a police chief and city should have to budget for. When the mobile data was rolled out, much of the equipment was provided to the police department at no cost. Since the system was rolled out they have had to buy new computers since the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have any in inventory to provide them. Today the State of Minnesota requires all traffic citations and court charging must be done electronically. A city police department should have to budget for all those costs including the software and hardware to make that possible. The Sheriff’s Office budget and tax payers throughout the county subsidize those services for the city police departments and the cities are not billed by the sheriff for those services, even though the Sheriff’s Office is under no legal requirement to provide the service. Most certainly not for free to the city police departments. All they pay today is a licensing fee per computer on the system charged by the vendor of the software. As budgets continue to tighten in the County, perhaps that may change. There may be a time soon the county tax payers and commissioners representing Ellsborough, Skandia, Lake Sarah, Shetek, Dovray, Murray, Mason, Lowville, Cameron, Chanarambie, Leeds, Lime Lake, Des Moines River, Belfast, Iona, Fenton, and Moulton townships are no longer comfortable paying for those services for two cites. As a city resident I appreciate the other county tax payers footing the bill for our city, but at our city level, I believe we could also find a better way to spend almost a quarter million dollars. It is a discussion that should be investigated, rather than waiting until it’s something that the city is financially forced into making. I believe that Chief Kenny sees that the days of Fulda being able to maintain a police department are limited due to the simple costs and technology changes and is looking for another job to go to. Anyone that understands the current direction of public safety and governmental budgeting would quickly agree that spending almost a quarter million dollars for a two patrol officers is not an effective use of tax payer money.
In working at the Sheriff’s Office, I also saw some things that Sheriff Telkamp would not talk about in the election. Sheriff Telkamp likes to give his staff more credit than he takes for the successes for the Sheriff’s Office. Like the way he supported the Sheriff’s Office being part of the MN Internet Crimes Against Children Task force because he saw the need to do anything we could to try and protect children online. I watched him working 60-80 hours a week helping on drug crime investigations, not getting paid any overtime, just because he knew it needed to get done. I saw the Sheriff early in his administration use his own personal resources for drug crime investigation work when funding and other resources where not available, but the work needed to be done. When asked about it he just told me that we needed to get the drugs off the street and out of our schools and it was more important than the money. This was long before we had the Buffalo Ridge Drug Task Force. Sheriff Telkamp seeing the need, worked hard to help create the Buffalo Ridge Drug Task Force providing funds and staff. And today that Task Force is one of the top task forces in the State of MN and is under the leadership of Lt. Chis Lewis from the Murray County Sheriff’s Office. Much was made about Chief Kenney being the new Board Chair of the BRDTF but that position rotates and does really no more than call meetings to order. The work is done by Lt. Lewis and the investigators assigned to the task force. I don’t recall any Police Chiefs taking time away from their families, on days off, to be covered up with a blanket running surveillance equipment in the back of an SUV like Sheriff Telkamp did, because there was an opportunity to arrest someone selling drugs. In fact, I don’t know of many others that would have done the work the Sheriff did in those early years combatting drug crimes. I’m proud that Sheriff Telkamp has allowed Lt. Lewis to act as the BRDTF commander, as well as assigning another deputy to the task force as an investigator. I enjoyed working with the task force when they had computers that needed forensic exams and the people in SW MN can be very proud of the BRDTF work.
My hope is after this election that the negativity can be set aside and that everyone can get back to working towards the safety and security of the Murray County residents. So, in the end, while it pains me to write this because I enjoyed working with Chief Kenney and the Fulda Police Department, him not having the experience or educational background and the negative way he has handled the campaigning, has brought out some things that would make me unable to support his candidacy. Working as the sheriff requires more commitment than working 26 weeks out of the year. It’s a 24/7, 365 day a year job and I need to go with the person best qualified to execute the Office of Sheriff. By any measurement that is Sheriff Telkamp and he will have my family’s support for re-election.
Randy Donahue
Murray County Chief Deputy Sheriff (RET)
