MIDDLETOWN— The Middletown Area Town Hall (MATH) held its monthly meeting on Thurs evening at the Middletown community meeting room. Lake County interim Sheriff, Rob Howe, was present at the event to share news and updates regarding the Sheriff's department and law and order in Lake County.
"Staffing is the biggest challenge we face. It's not just a Lake County thing or a California thing. It's nationwide with law enforcement. We are a profession that sometimes takes a beating. Something bad will be in the press every day. We suffer from that a little bit. It's impacted or amplified, I'd say, by social media and everybody's connectivity nowadays.
He said one of his goals in the coming year is to try and beef up staffing. "One of the big challenges with that is we're short staffed in dispatch and the jail as well. People don't understand, or some don't, that the sheriff doesn't really have the responsibility of patrol. It's not mandated. We're mandated to do certain things like operate the jail, dispatch, those kind of things."
How added that the department currently has between five and six deputy patrols assigned to the jail or dispatch due to being understaffed and said that If they can fix those problems, get those deputies back, it would improve matters.
"This is something we're going to be really creative (in), to try to figure out ways to solve it. I'm an optimist. I always see a pendulum and I think we're gonna head back in the right direction." He added that COVID had a lot to do with exacerbating the staffing problems with people who just stopped working. He spoke about low salaries being an obstacle to hiring.
"Our board has done a really good job. They've been progressive and trying to improve salary benefits for not just the Sheriff's department but for the (other) County departments, my old department probation as well. We're getting better in that area, but it's hard for us in my county. We're surrounded by Sonoma and Napa who will pay up to double what we can pay. We tried to do something really innovative and start our training programs. We're sending deputies to the academy. We pay for them to go," said Howe.
Howe said he wants to improve law enforcement "because public safety is very important and it's easy for me to say that. It's been my career for 30 years. But I do believe it's true. I think everything kind of folds after that. Certainly the mental health aspect is a huge challenge we face and other than calling us and we deal with it from the legal standpoint. I see the people in the community that I didn't see before and I have to wonder what's causing this and why is it increasing? And I really don't know."
There are presently two full time active task forces this year, focusing on large groups that cause environmental impacts, illegal dumping and human trafficking. "If we get information like that, those are our priorities. Other than that, we will spend all season cutting down (illegal marijuana grows). Our focus is going to be on grows that cause other problems, environmental impacts, illegal dumping pollution in our lake, a big grow near school.. circumstances that will certainly get our attention", he said.
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