Last week,
the Wayne County Board heard Sheriff Mike Everett quote the cost for new
communication equipment at $139,000 for a five-year lease. County Board
Chairman Steve Ehrhart said the county didn’t have the money.
When I heard
this, smoke came out of my ears. Does anyone remember the passage of a county safety
tax back over a decade ago. It was supposed to help equip our first responders.
It was supposed to generate $600,00 a year. I checked---it actually generates
$830,000.
For a
moment…consider this. You are the only deputy on duty covering over 715 square
miles. You are equipped with a radio that doesn’t work. In fact, all repeater
towers around the county are inoperable. If you are north of Cisne….and
countless other places within the county, you don’t even have cell phone service.
That’s not made up….it is reality.
Why would
you ever stop anyone at one-in-the-morning? There is no such thing as back-up.
This is the
county board that found $231,476 in March to buy new voting machines. Never
batted an eye.
At this
moment, according to the county treasurer, there is a zero balance in the
safety fund. I can only guess this is exactly what the state did to us with the
passage of the lottery to benefit education. It was a shell game. We voted in
the lottery…in this case…the safety tax…and the budget got supplanted with a
new infusion of money. The surplus went other places in the county budget.
The safety
tax is not making things safe in Wayne County.
Ehrhart told
the Sheriff, “You may have to drive a Ford because we can’t afford a Cadillac.”
Right now, deputies don’t even have a pogo
stick.
At the same time Sheriff Everett is putting in for himself to get a brand new car while his jailers don’t even have radios that work. And quite frankly the sheriff is never even at work so why does he need a new car.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous: Do you actually
Deletehave firsthand knowledge? It sounds like Mr. Miller does.
Ah you have to love the all knowing anonymous comments. I've personally always been a firm believer that if you don't have the nerve to sign your name to it, then it has no credibility.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Mike Miller and I am born and raised in the Wayne County area. I've had the privilege of working as a Correctional Officer at the Wayne County Jail for the last 15 years and have seen multiple Sheriffs come and go during my time here. I also work as a Dispatcher and spend the majority of my work week on the radio and can personally attest to the pitiful condition that the current system is in. This is not an issue that has happened over night, nor can the blame of its current situation be placed on one person's head. The system has been held together for years by minimal maintenance and has gotten to a point that it is no longer functioning at a level that can safely serve our Deputies and you our citizens. Mr. Drieth is correct in his article that for the majority of the day we are working with one road deputy and that he is responsible for covering over 715 square miles with no immediate backup as a realistic option. Now, imagine eliminating one of your most important life lines that crucial to you in your performance of duties and to potentially save your own and someone else's life. Not a pretty thought to have, but it is what our deputies work with every night and why our Sheriff is fighting for a new radio system. Thankfully we have a county board that continues to listen to him and is making attempts to work with us to give this crucial lifeline back to the deputies and our citizens we serve. Hopefully, with continued open lines of communication, this will be accomplished and we can better serve all of you! None of us got into this career as a quick attempt to get rich. We all have a desire to serve and to try to make our community that we live in and raise our families in a better one.
I also feel that I should address another comment made in regards to our current Sheriff "never even at work." I work here, Tuesday-Friday, and personally see Sheriff Everett at work daily. Yes, obviously as Sheriff, he is going to have meetings, training seminars and other administrative duties that take him away from the office, but even during those times he contacts the office multiple times a day to check in and see if there is anything that he needs to address. He has helped in the implementation of a new report writing system that he can access remotely and continuously remain up to date in the goings on of the office. As to the vehicle situation, his vehicle has the most mileage on it in our fleet. He makes the majority of our inmate transfers that include doctor's visits, picking up subjects who have been arrested in other counties on our warrants, taking sentenced inmates to the Illinois Department of Corrections and so on.
We here don't want for the newest, best of the best equipment that has just been made available. We simply want to perform our duties to the best of our abilities and to be able to do so with properly functioning equipment. We want this so that we can be able to go home to our families each night and to be able to make every attempt to keep our citizens that we serve as safe as possible.
Mike Miller
LOL @ Mr Miller
ReplyDelete