Candidates span the globe

Boundary County, Idaho, would hardly be considered the beaten path to anywhere, but one candidate for sheriff here used to chase drug smugglers around New York, another worked major crimes from Phoenix to Anchorage and the third – the local guy no less – helped put together an international police force in Kosovo.

Just say the global village comes to North Idaho.

Oh, and the man they seek to replace left the county early for a police job in Iraq.

Greg Sprungl, Republican, may have an advantage over fellow candidates Kevin McDonald, Democrat, and independent Geoff Palmer. Not only is Sprungl a former elected sheriff of Boundary County, he is now the sheriff, having been appointed Sept. 15 by the county commissioners – by split vote – to fill out the term of George Voyles. Voyles, after losing by 23 votes in a hotly contested GOP primary, didn’t deliver a resignation letter until after he had left the country four months shy of ending his term.

Sprungl last month said he didn’t relish taking office while in the middle of a campaign. Palmer said, “I feel it is unfair for a candidate to gain office in this manner.” McDonald shrugged the matter off, noting only that the replacement process is designed to be partisan.

Since being sworn in last month, Sprungl has resumed round-the-clock patrol coverage – one of the top priorities for all the candidates – and he is addressing areas where the county jail failed inspection and recently lost state certification, another big campaign issue.

The jail needs relatively minor repairs to the booking area and kitchen, Sprungl said. He has found that money had been budgeted for the repairs before state inspection, but “the projects just hadn’t been worked on.”

“That’s one reason I wanted to get in and start working on these things and get somebody back at the helm,” Sprungl said. “I thought waiting until January would be too long.”

Around the first of October, “We went back to covering the clock,” Sprungl said.

Not counting the sheriff, the nine-officer sheriff’s department includes five patrol deputies, a patrol sergeant, the chief deputy, a drug task-force officer and a detective.

In order to “cover the clock” as he put it, Sprungl dons a uniform and fills portions of patrol shifts as does Chief Deputy Charlie Dennis.

McDonald has a similar plan, expecting to pull patrol shifts as sheriff if he is elected, but using the chief deputy slot more as a detective position and spinning the designated detective slot into patrol.

“The official title is chief deputy-slash-investigator,” McDonald said. He has already chosen Foster Mayo of the Bonners Ferry Police Department to be his chief deputy, McDonald said. The restructuring would allow “thirty-three percent more patrol coverage,” without creating new positions, he said. Finding a way to work within tight budgets is a must in Boundary County, McDonald said.

Palmer also expects to be a sheriff who goes on patrol, citing – like both his opponents – the reality of a tight budget in the sparsely populated county. Palmer and McDonald expressed similar ideas for stretching the county dollar.

McDonald said he will try to start a reserve program, tapping many retired law enforcement officers in the area.

“We have a lot of talent here. There are a lot of retired law enforcement men and women who have expressed interest in becoming involved with a reserve program,” McDonald said. “We have assets we can use” he said, to form a reserve program for patrol and volunteer civilian report takers so deputies don’t have to be called away from patrol to meet a citizen in the lobby of the sheriff’s office in downtown Bonners Ferry.

“There are so many retired cops here,” Palmer said. “Why not use the resources that are available,” by asking interested retired officers – including his brother, Don, a highly experienced murder investigator, to volunteer their expertise as needed.

Palmer, who ran in 2000, said he has been surprised at a lack of a policy and standards manual for the department. Creating such a document would be among his first tasks if elected, he said, for accountability and professionalism.

Sprungl said he is working with the Bonners Ferry Police Department to have updated and matching policy manuals so that deputies and city officers – who often cover for each other – can perform in a more consistent manner.

In addition to working with a United Nations-led training force to create a local – and diversified – police force from scratch in Kosovo, Sprungl notes “I am the only candidate who is a certified peace officer in this state.”

The narrowness of that definition makes McDonald and Palmer laugh.

McDonald cites 34 years of law enforcement experience, first with the New York state transit police and later as a criminal investigator for defense attorneys. The experiences not only taught him good police work, especially in drug smuggling cases, he said, but also showed him what sort of police work doesn’t stand up in court.

Palmer said working major crimes in Phoenix and Anchorage are thorough training for running the sheriff’s office.