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Sheriff's candidates diverge on training center, animal control, body cams

Henderson County Politics

LIVE COVERAGE: Sheriff's debate

Opening remarks: Griffin goes first, opens with his standard minibio that he's served the public for 35 years (fire and rescue), the last 26 in law enforcement, too. He would redeploy some of the brass to the streets and have them involved in the communities they cover.   McDonald touts his record of reform andreducing crime, reforming the department after Sheriff Rick Davis resigned amid a scandal. First question: What's the status of the $20 million range. Why not use Edneyville training center. "That's not a done deal," McDonald said of the training center and firing range proposed for Saluda. "Here's what the problem. We're asking our men and women to do more and more and be trained to a high level of efficiency ... They may not respond the way they need to respond." Griffin said he's trained across the U.S. In Alabama, he saw an idea of a "bare bones" training center that mocks a village, with a post office, houses. We can employ different weapon system besides the live fire," he said. "If we do this this right we  can create a village that becomes a multipurpose training center," use for fire and EMS, too. "If we decide we've got to have transparent studies that shows the real effect on the quality of life of ev that might be around or affected by that. ... There are a lot of options we really need to slow down and discuss and choose what's right." Rebuttal: "It's not necessarily a done deal. We've had offers from citizens in the community to help us find an area," McDonald said. The training needs continue. Griffin: "We have to have ongoing training. It's got to be realistic, it's got to be dynamic." SECOND QUESTION: What plans to you have for school safety? McDonald: Started the adopt a school program, where deputies dropped in on schools, ate lunch, checked in. In 2016 deputies made 3,747 random visits. After Parkland, he stepped up the drop-in visits and also paid off-duty officers to increase those. "We're wearing our men and women on their off days to be able to cover these schools," he said. He said he had received confirmation that County Manager Steve Wyatt's recommended budget would put deputies in all schools — without a tax increase. Griffin: It has to be a priority. "There is no bankful of gold anywhere in the world that's worth more than one child is." Deputies in schools was a topic four years ago, he said. He recommends practicing lockdowns, he's for SROs in schools, protecting children and serving as a role model. "We've got to get back to looking at school safety realistically" and harden each school against attacks. McDonald: Safety starts with a mindset. "It doesn't matter how much money yu spend or how many people you put in there if the people don't buy into and use the system consistently." QUESTION 3: Arming teachers. McDonald: No. 1, it's not legal in North Carolina. He's heard from teachers who oppose it and those with conceal-carry permits who are silling to.  "I think there's a place for that. I think we ought to be able to give them that opportunity." Griffin: "It's one thing to carry a gun and it's one thing to have the mindset to use that gun in deadly force." It would have to be a collaborative effort of all parties, for training, vetting. "I do agree that there are those that are capable of doing that." And that was allowed, he would have no problem with them defending classrooms. Question 4 Why doesn't sheriff provide animal enforcement inside cities. "Because it's illegal," McDonald said. A citizen claimed sheriff's deputies were "kidnapping animals." Commissioners were willing to pass an ordinance but the cities passed on the cost of picking up the cost. When he came into office, he asked the cities again. "I think the county and the municipalities would be better off if we did it all." He doesn't have the money, he said. "The bottom line is this has nothing to do with my stance. It really rests on the Board of Commissioners and I support why they took the position that they did." Griffin: He would work out an agreement "to where we could enforce these animal enforcement laws" inside city. The cities add a significant amount of money to the tax base. "They're already contributing a significant amount to the county budget overall." Question: How well does the sheriff's office work with Latino community? McDonald: "My commitment to anybody who lives in this county. what, i don;t ask abut that, my deputies don't ask about that when we do our job." Griffin: "There are industries that would fold without that community. I would actually like to establish a liaison for the Latino community. We have to earn trust in this communities. ... so they can help us  point out the bad actors in their community." Question 7: What's your position on 287g, the program in which local law officers work with ICE. Griffin: He would need to study it more. He wants to catch "bad actors." "I don't want to use it as a tactic that's going to intimidate the Latino community that this county relies so heavily on." McDonald: "Obviously Mr. Griffin doesn't understand. It has nothing do with the roundup this weekdn. That was federal officers taking care of federal laws and federal warants." The sheriff's uses it in the jail to run records of people already arrested to identify immigrants that have a record. After the question about 287g, a program widely mistrusted by immigration activists, the Latino protesters in the back of the room made a little noise, held up signs and walked out. QUESTION: How much have you raised? Neither knows what the exact number is. What's your position on body cameras: McDonald: He does not support it for the sheriff's office. "They take us down a slippery slope without thinking about the ramifications." Body cameras can cause officers to second-guess. The camera can't hear what the officer can hear. Studies show that officers in some cases were a lot less pro-active. "If the state were to mandate it I would have to. If my deputies came to me and asked for it I would do that." He trusts officers without use of body cameras. Griffin: "Transparency for the public, safety for the officers. I have spoken to many officers that used body cams and the vast majority are pro-camera. We've already got cameras in the car. ... I have one case right now where we're going to use body cam footage in a homicide trial. We want to prosecute these domestic violence cases ... It's often difficult to be able to portray to the court such an emotionally charged situation. Many times this footage will allow us to prosecute those very cases. It's basically a fundamental technology that we need to employ here." McDonald: "We were making cases and getting them to hold up in court long before body cameras came along." At times body cams make the officer look like he's done something wrong. The footage can be misleading. The sheriff's forum is wrapping up with little fireworks. Both came across as experienced lawmen, who are not that far apart on the basics. They differ on body cams — McDonald against, Griffin for — and the law enforcement training center. McDonald again touted his reforms; Griffin said he would make sure the command staff and rank and file did not have to put put loyalty above performance. McDonald said in his closing statement that many of those who support Griffin "worked to subvert" reforms the sheriff's office needed to make. Griffin promised "community involvement officers" who would know the people and police effectively. Joint enforcement teams have fallen away, he said. We have to have this partnership for more efficient law enforcement. He promised less turnover and more job security, again pledged to use body cameras.     LIVE COVERAGE. RETURN TO THE LIGHTNING FOR MORE     Read Story »

Henderson County Politics

WHKP to air sheriff's debate

WHKP 1450 AM and 107.7 FM will air the two-hour sheriff's debate live from Blue Ridge Community College on Tuesday  beginning at 7 p.m. The station will also stream the debate on whkp.com. Incumbent Sheriff Charlie McDonald and challenger Lowell Griffin meet in the May 8 Republican primary.   Read Story »

Saluda Politics

BIG CROWD PROTESTS SHOOTING RANGE

A crowd of nearly 200 people gathered at the Grove Street Courthouse on Saturday, protesting a shooting range in Saluda and expressing anger that county officials barred them from a meeting inside where county officials described construction plans to the closest neighbors.Deputies posted outside said they were told that the county identified property owners within a half mile and sent them letters. Those were allowed in. Others, including the news media, were barred from attending.County Manager Steve Wyatt said Friday afternoon that officals and engineers planning the shooting range and law enforcement training center would brief the news media later.At 10 a.m. residents of the Macedonia Road area and other Saluda residents had filled the parking lot and congregated at the front of the courthouse. Later, the crowd stood on the courthouse steps and listened to speakers excoriate the idea of a shooting range and express frustration that the county had closed the information meeting. Most people outside the courthouse said they felt entitled to be in the meeting. Pamela Sacco’s grandfather bought 100 acres on Macedonia Road 100 years ago, she said, and she has been visiting the land since she was a little girl and now lives on it. “When they shoot the bullets they’re going to go over their property and land on me,” said Pamela Sacco, who was denied entrance. “I learned to walk there. It’s in my soul. To me it’s like building something in DuPont Forest. It’s beautiful and pristine and the birds, the geese come into our lake.” Chandler Ward lives close to the property but did not get an invitation to Saturday’s information “I think mine’s close enough to qualify,” he said. “I’m a builder and developer. Ain’t nobody going to buy property to build three or four houses” next to a firing range. Along with his cousin, County Commission candidate Don Ward, he was later admitted inside. “This is a political move by the commissioners to help Charlie win the election,” Don Ward said. “That’s the only thing it helps.” “How many resource officers could we put in the schools for $6 million,” Steve Rhodes asked, provoking one of the loudest cheers. “The issue on the front burner right now is children’s safety. How many school shootings are we going to witness and this clown wants to put $6 million on a training facility. When we already have one that could be utilized. Bullet-proof doors. Metal detectors, something, $6 million to protect our children, not for some guy that’s going to go shootin’ out in the woods.” Four candidates for office showed up, capitalizing on a crowd of likely voters. "That $6 million would have helped my school," said Norm Bossert. "I'm not only retired principle and candidate for state Senate as well, and it bothers me almost more than anything that this is their idea of transparency in government. The doors should be open to everybody. I think it's immoral and unjust to lock people out of a room where your voices have a right to be heard — a room that you paid for." "Personally I don't think it's going to work for the sheriff," Bossert said. "These people are p---ed off. To me if the people didn't care, I'd say OK. They care, this is their neighborhood, where their homes are, where their kids play. I would bet that there are just as many Republicans here as Democrats. This is not a partisan issue. ... Don't we have sunshine laws here in North Carolina. Apparently, they're not as much use today." Sam Edney, a candidate for the state House, called the shooting range an example of “government overreach” that has become common in Raleigh. “How many times have they tried to locate this range?” Edney said. “Four,” people in the crowd said. “Well, you’re doing what Americans do. Your voices are going to be heard and that’s appropriate. I can tell you when I get sworn in my door will always be open.” The Kury family from Spartanburg even showed up "because we spend all of our time and all of our extra dollars there," Mary Kury said. She and her husband, an arborist, and their five children, ages 4-10, visit Saluda as often as they can. "We're always on the river, we're always hiking in the gamelands. The detriment to the natural resources is astonishing. Oftentimes when we stay, we stay in a cottage right up Macedonia Road." "He's quit being a public servant and he's went to being a politician," Rhodes said. "And this right here proves it because he's shutting out the public's opinion. There's a facility right now that's not even being used to its capacity. Why are they pushing for this?" Camp Wayfarer owner Nancy Wilson noted that the Saluda location is the fourth try at siting the training center. "Does that not begin to tell the county commissioners something's out of whack?" At noon, the property owners allowed in still had not emerged and all but two political candidates — Bossert and Edney — and about seven and landowners and the press waited outside a locked door. Everyone else had gone home.       Read Story »

North Carolina Politics

Former BRCC president seeking NC Senate seat on coast

David Sink, who served as president of Blue Ridge Community College for 20 years, is running for the state Senate in Brunswick County on the coast south of Wilmington.   Read Story »

Henderson County Politics

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Political salvation at undisclosed location

The third time might be the charm for Sheriff Charlie McDonald, who has a site for a shooting range and tactical training center after more than two years of looking. It’s rare for the Board of Commissioners to insert a major policy or capital decision into its regular agenda with no advance notice. That’s what happened April 2. When commissioners emerged from a closed session, the law enforcement training center had popped up on an overhead projector. It was the first time in a year that commissioners had broached the subject during a board meeting and the sheriff himself had dropped the subject, at least publicly.McDonald’s first effort to site a tactical training center, in August 2015, triggered a huge uprising in the Green River community. When residents packed the county commission meeting room, commissioners summarily killed that idea. Trying to do the sheriff a favor in return, the commissioners endorsed County Manager Steve Wyatt’s recommendation to use free land at Blue Ridge Community College. That idea sparked even more widespread opposition. For starters, the BRCC site quadrupled the original cost, free land or not. Moving a firing range indoors, abating lead pollution, soundproofing walls so students next door could concentrate on math equations and English essays were expensive add-ons that escalated the cost to a jaw-dropping $20 million. If good ideas have a thousand fathers, bad ones become an orphan. The training center was looking like McDonald’s boondoggle and soon even he was running from it. By March of 2017, Commissioner Bill Lapsley had declared his opposition to a $20 million training center. By the time county officials cut the ribbon on the new Innovative High School last summer, it was clear that BRCC was out, though no one would say so publicly.The training center laid in a shallow grave until last month, when Commissioner Grady Hawkins neatly sketched an escape plan for McDonald, a few short weeks before his Republican primary contest with Lowell Griffin, the Polk County sheriff’s captain McDonald sacked in November 2014. McDonald the Reformer has worked hard to cultivate support among lots of constituencies and he does not look too vulnerable in this election. The pop pop pop of a firing range next to a high school in a time of heightened anxiety over school shootings may have been the sheriff’s biggest liability. Bad optics.At a joint news conference on school security three weeks ago, McDonald — flanked by commissioners and School Board members nodding their assent — vowed to deploy armed guards at all 23 public schools. Right on cue, Hawkins stepped forward to declare that now is the time for a cheaper but still excellent training center that among other things would drill deputies in school security and active shooter confrontation.So, somewhere, in an undisclosed wilderness location that Wyatt describes as “extremely remote,” a training center is what we shall have. The instinct for electoral survival and the gun violence crisis met, got married and birthed an extrication maneuver for the sheriff and the county commissioners. Ain’t politics grand?       Read Story »

Henderson County Politics

Training center divides District 4 candidates

Sheriff Charlie McDonald’s effort to build a firing range and law enforcement training center has become an issue in his own campaign and in a county commission race. Don Ward, the two-term commissioner running against Rebecca McCall for the open District 4 seat, came out against a law enforcement training center, including the lower-cost version in Saluda the Board of Commissioners endorsed last week.“I am in opposition to any current proposal for a new training center in Henderson County at this time, at any cost,” Ward said. “It is unnecessary as adequate facilities in both county and state are already available. Training is always imperative; however, law enforcement has access to the North Carolina Justice Center locally as well as access to other state training facilities.”Like Lowell Griffin, McDonald’s opponent in the May 8 Republican primary, Ward favors spending the money on school security. “As a commissioner, I could not justify a $6 million plus tax expense on currently unnecessary training facilities,” Ward said. “There are more immediate needs to insure safety and security in our schools that must be met.” Ward's opponent in the May 8 primary, Rebecca McCall, said she supports a training center, although she did not endorse the Macedonia Road site necessarily. “I do support that we need to build a facility," she said. "It’s been proven that the Justice Academy is not adequate with type of training law enforcement to provide the scenario or different types of training they need to be aware of. I never did support the $20 million version of that. "I really have nothing to say about the location because I have not been involved with the location of that or anything. I have read some of the information on Facebook and one thing I haven’t seen noted in the concern about the sound from the gunfire is that I am aware that silencers can be used so there won’t be interference (in the neighborhood). It’s kind of a double-edged sword because if you want to eliminate sound, it has to be enclosed and if it’s enclosed the cost is going to go up. But I think they have found a location that’s away from the majority of the population. You’re never going to satisfy everyone.” The abrupt action by the Board of Commissioners last week to endorse the Saluda property — the fourth try at siting a law enforcement training center — tipped the scales for Rocky Hyder, the retired county emergency management director. Hyder announced he was endorsing Griffin.“Examine Lowell’s platform and then compare that with recent actions by the county commissioners,” Hyder said. “I have never seen a group of commissioners scramble so hard to save face for a sitting sheriff.”He also sides with Griffin on equipping deputies with body cameras.“I can’t imagine a future where video, possibly even live video streams from law enforcement officers are not standard practice,” Hyder said.Yorke Pharr, who has opposed McDonald’s efforts for shooting ranges at now four different sites, said it’s fitting that the sheriff's primary comes up in less than a month. “This should be a political referendum,” he said at a Saluda town board meeting Monday. “There’s one sheriff that is for it and one candidate for sheriff that is not and I hope people that do not want this thing will understand which one they need to vote for on this matter.”     Read Story »

Saluda Politics

Round 4: Saluda residents fight sheriff's shooting range

SALUDA — Residents near the Macedonia Road site Henderson County officials have targeted for a shooting range and law enforcement training center are organizing to stop the project.   Read Story »

Henderson County Politics

Ward opposes law enforcement training center

County Commission candidate Don Ward has come out against a law enforcement training center, including the new lower-cost version that the Board of Commissioners endorsed last week. "I am in opposition to any current proposal for a new training center in Henderson County at this time, at any cost," said Ward, a former two-term commissioner who is running for the District 4 seat. "It is unnecessary as adequate facilities in both county and state are already available. Training is always imperative; however, law enforcement has access to the North Carolina Justice Center locally as well as access to other state training facilities." Ward said that the county now has wasted money on architectural plans for a $20 million training center that the Board of Commissioners has now dropped in favor of a more modest facility with an outdoor shooting range. Commissioners on April 2 agreed with the recommendation by County Manager Steve Wyatt to pursue the purchase of an undisclosed "extremely remote" site for the training center, dropping their previously approved choice to put the center on the old baseball field at Blue Ridge Community College. "The use of training resources readily available prevents duplication of services while making it possible to spend tax dollars more wisely on schools, school safety and security," Ward said in a statement. "School Resource Officers must be in every school with Social Workers desperately needed as well. It is also crucial that recommendations of each newly formed School Safety Committee be met. These are necessities that our children and our schools deserve. ... "As a commissioner, I could not justify a $6 million plus tax expense on currently unnecessary training facilities. There are more immediate needs to insure safety and security in our schools that must be met; needs that can be addressed in a shorter time frame with more significant impact. The greatest challenge we have is to protect our children and give them a safe environment in which to learn and thrive. This is my commitment to the children and parents of Henderson County."     Read Story »

Henderson County Politics

Debt 'keeps me up at night,' Tillis says

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis pulled no punches last week in a wide-ranging business roundtable that covered local, national and world issues — and, of course, President Trump.   Read Story »

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