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The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office redistricting plan is opening to mixed reviews.
If the plan does what the sheriff’s office says it will and keeps deputies on the roads, we don’t see the harm.
If, however, service is reduced and response times lengthen, the Incline Village/ Crystal Bay community has been done an injustice.
Time, it seems, will be the final arbiter.
Is the time it takes deputies to transport their own prisoners worth sacrificing a service previously offered by the constable’s office? Is the time it takes for backup to arrive in Incline, whether from Placer County or Reno, short enough to keep deputies and citizens out of harm’s way?
The Sheriff’s Office must prove it can handle this change responsibly and safely.
On the surface, it appears to make no sense to do away with the Incline Village Constable’s prisoner transport program, because even if a deputy is only away from Incline for 20 minutes, it leaves one deputy on his own for that span.
If you follow the old adage of plan for the worst, hope for the best, we hope one deputy can cover every square mile of Incline/Crystal Bay from the California state line to Sand Harbor. But, we hope the Sheriff’s plan to cover that area if multiple emergency calls appear across town will work.
We understand all county agencies must tighten their belts, and if the sheriff can balance their local patrol duties with prisoner transport, we applaud the cost-saving, single-agency measure.
It cannot, though, come at the expense of community safety.
If one person is injured or worse while waiting for response, it isn’t worth it, and serious questions must be asked of the officials who approved the plan. In that hopefully unlikely event, look to the Capt. Steven Kelly and the administration of the South District, Undersheriff Todd Vinger and ultimately Sheriff Mike Haley for answers.
If the plan does what the sheriff’s office says it will and keeps deputies on the roads, we don’t see the harm.
If, however, service is reduced and response times lengthen, the Incline Village/ Crystal Bay community has been done an injustice.
Time, it seems, will be the final arbiter.
Is the time it takes deputies to transport their own prisoners worth sacrificing a service previously offered by the constable’s office? Is the time it takes for backup to arrive in Incline, whether from Placer County or Reno, short enough to keep deputies and citizens out of harm’s way?
The Sheriff’s Office must prove it can handle this change responsibly and safely.
On the surface, it appears to make no sense to do away with the Incline Village Constable’s prisoner transport program, because even if a deputy is only away from Incline for 20 minutes, it leaves one deputy on his own for that span.
If you follow the old adage of plan for the worst, hope for the best, we hope one deputy can cover every square mile of Incline/Crystal Bay from the California state line to Sand Harbor. But, we hope the Sheriff’s plan to cover that area if multiple emergency calls appear across town will work.
We understand all county agencies must tighten their belts, and if the sheriff can balance their local patrol duties with prisoner transport, we applaud the cost-saving, single-agency measure.
It cannot, though, come at the expense of community safety.
If one person is injured or worse while waiting for response, it isn’t worth it, and serious questions must be asked of the officials who approved the plan. In that hopefully unlikely event, look to the Capt. Steven Kelly and the administration of the South District, Undersheriff Todd Vinger and ultimately Sheriff Mike Haley for answers.
