Stevens County sheriff candidates differ widely

Stevens County voters face a stark choice for sheriff: a far-right constitutionalist who’s been convicted of flouting the law or the veteran cop who locked him up.

Such a contest might seem lopsided, but the constitutionalist is a former county commissioner who previously was elected to the Kettle Falls School District and Stevens County Public Utility District boards.

Former County Commissioner J.D. “Andy” Anderson, 69, actually got more votes in his unopposed Republican primary than three-term incumbent Sheriff Craig Thayer, 48, received in his unopposed Democratic primary.

Anderson’s 3,637-to-2,977 primary advantage may not represent a valid comparison because the county leans Republican and voters weren’t allowed to cross party lines. But it makes a number of residents nervous about the general election voting now under way.

Letters to the editor in last week’s edition of the Colville Statesman-Examiner extolled Thayer’s qualifications and excoriated Anderson’s record.

Colville City Councilwoman Nancy Foll reminded voters that Anderson put his foot in his mouth in December 1994, a month before he was sworn in as a county commissioner.

Anderson later apologized for saying, “You ought to just take them out and shoot them,” when the director of the Stevens County Counseling Services told him the agency treats people with mental problems and drug addictions.

Foll and others also cited Anderson’s lack of law enforcement experience and his December 2000 arrest and subsequent conviction for obstructing an officer and failure to identify himself when stopped for driving with an expired registration.

The incident occurred two years after Anderson failed to survive the Republican primary in his bid for a second term as county commissioner.

At his arraignment, Anderson declared his case “dismissed” and walked out. Thayer personally brought him back when the judge issued an arrest warrant.

Representing himself in Stevens County District Court with a variety of constitutionalist arguments – including assertions that the court had no jurisdiction over him and state laws didn’t apply to him – Anderson was convicted and sentenced to three months in jail and fined $1,000.

Visiting Ferry County District Court Judge Lynda Eaton agreed to allow Anderson to remain free, pending appeal, on a $5,000 bond but had second thoughts when Anderson persisted in arguing.

“Well, perhaps I’ve made an error,” Eaton said. “Maybe a $5,000 bail bond is insufficient. … You continue to make it perfectly clear to me that you have no respect for the laws.”

A Superior Court judge rejected Anderson’s appeal in April 2002, and he had to serve his jail sentence.

Anderson said in an interview this month that “what they arrested me for is not something that they can arrest me for. A misdemeanor is not a crime. A misdemeanor is not a jailable offense.”

In fact, though, misdemeanors are petty crimes for which countless people have been sent to jail.

Anderson seemed to confuse misdemeanors with infractions, such as speeding tickets, but he has a novel view of traffic tickets as well.

“If you’re not in commerce, you’re not in traffic,” he said.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael Clay reminded voters in his letter to the Statesman-Examiner last week that Anderson was one of the speakers at an Aug. 10, 1994, meeting in Wenatchee that featured Militia of Montana founder John Trochmann; Jack McLamb, founder of Police Against the New World Order; and Dan Black, commander of the Lake Chelan Citizens Militia.

Anderson has denied belonging to any militia groups, but he acknowledged in January 1994 that he sent a letter to more than 186 Colville residents and businesses accusing the Jewish Anti-Defamation League of stealing police files and kidnapping a woman.

“I find it frightening that such a man could be in charge of law enforcement in this county,” Colville physician Leslie Waters said in her letter to the Statesman-Examiner.

Even “lifelong Republican” Bud Stanley of Colville urged the weekly newspaper’s readers to vote for Thayer. Stanley cited Anderson’s lack of law enforcement experience except for some military police work in the 1950s, and noted that Thayer is a lawyer as well as a certified peace officer who has worked his way up the ranks.

“Why do I need to be a certified law enforcement officer as the supervisor of the place?” Anderson asked in an interview. “You hire people to do that.”

In addition to basic law enforcement, the sheriff supervises the county jail, the sheriff’s ambulance service, the county Emergency Services Department and the dispatch center for all police, fire and ambulance services in the county.

Without some previous law enforcement experience – and state law specifically says military experience doesn’t count – certification requires completion of a 720-hour “basic academy” as well as passing lie-detector and psychological tests.

It isn’t necessary to be a certified officer to run for sheriff, but state law requires those who are elected either to become certified or to apply for an “administrative exemption” by showing their departments have at least 10 certified officers.

Except in major emergencies, sheriffs with administrative exemptions are prohibited from doing any field work.

The Stevens County Sheriff’s Office has 27 commissioned officers, not counting the sheriff, but Thayer said the county still can’t afford a sheriff who’s unable do police work.

“I have to get involved in all the major cases to some degree,” he said.

Anderson said he decided to run for sheriff because of an eviction this year in which Thayer’s deputies enforced a June 6 court order against one of Anderson’s friends, 58-year-old Jimmy Ellis Clark.

Court documents show Clark refused to leave a 20-acre property near Colville that was sold at auction when the owner of record, Larry W. Cole, failed to pay taxes for three years. Clark later produced a deed that Cole gave him in July 1999 in exchange for $12,000 worth of silver, but the deed hadn’t been publicly recorded.

County Treasurer Sue Harnasch said a big orange placard was posted on the property in October 2003, warning the land would be sold at auction if the taxes weren’t paid. Harnasch said Clark sent the notice back with a message that “this private property is exempt from levy.”

The land was sold at auction in December 2003 and, after protracted litigation, Superior Court Judge Al Nielson ordered the Sheriff’s Office to evict Clark and his wife, Toni Lea Clark.

Anderson was with the Clarks in June when sheriff’s deputies ordered all of them to leave or be arrested.

Thayer said he had a sworn duty to enforce Nielson’s order, but Anderson said he would have refused “because the sheriff is the highest authority in the county, and he (Nielson) cannot force me to enforce an illegal order.”

Unlike Thayer, Anderson has no formal training in the law. He joined the Air Force at age 16 after doing construction work in rural Florida.

Anderson served for 20 years, including three tours in Vietnam, and retired as a sergeant in 1974. Before retiring again, he worked as a telephone repairman, a Kettle Falls city administrator, manager of a VFW hall in Olympia and owner of a Kettle Falls motel.

Anderson points to his record of frugality as a county commissioner – arranging for extra insulation in the courthouse roof, and monitoring construction costs for the Martin Hall regional juvenile detention center. As sheriff, he said, travel and training money would go to employees, not him.

Thayer touts his record of bringing in more state and federal money, in part through influence he has curried through leadership roles such as his recent presidencies of the Washington State Sheriffs Association and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

He cites a new computer-aided dispatch and jail records system, computers in deputies’ cars, double-bunking and improved security in the jail, a video courtroom, a new anti-methamphetamine detective and a better radio network.

“No county or city is an island, and we rely on interagency cooperation,” and that cooperation would be “seriously compromised” if voters elect a sheriff who believes he can decide by himself that some laws are invalid, Thayer said.

“There would be nobody put out of their home,” Anderson said. “… The people that know me know what I stand for. They know that I am honest, and they know that my word is my bond.”