Sheriff requests budget increase for safer community.

Sheriff requests budget increase for safer community.
February 10, 2011
By Jessica Steen

       Disagreements were brought to attention in a meeting Thursday afternoon between the Sherburne County Sheriff and several County Commissioners who argued over equipment and police personnel. Sheriff Gus Diceasari argued "You're putting the lives of the people of this county in jeopardy." Commissioner Anita Shenuski and Raymond Laybourne supported his views. Commission President Anne Chenn disagreed, along with fellow commission members Valerie Dawkins, Faith Ellis, Jose Gardoz, and Roland Grauman, and says "The county does not have the money to buy new police cruisers and hire five new sheriffs deputies."

        The argument lead to accusations and opinions about where this money is going. During a heated argument Shenuski stated "We never had problems until we began letting migrants come to this county to work. They are a problem for our law enforcement, our schools, and our health care system. They take away jobs from decent people and work for next to nothing and if something gets stolen, you can bet it is one of them that's taken it. We need to protect local residents from them." Shock seemed to spread over Chenn when she responded with "Those people who come here to work are decent, hardworking people being employed at jobs that local residents don't want to do. They add a great deal to the local economy and they pay taxes. You are being a hypocrite when you try to blame those people for everything." The county commissioners estimate there are around 5,000 migrant families now in the county working in agricultural, construction, and service industry jobs. Commissioner Jose Gardez states "many of the migrant workers became permanent members of the community, opening business and earning citizenship."

        The important point of the meeting was finally addressed, in which what the budget increase would be supporting. Eight new police cruisers are needed to replace eight older vehicles that have over 150,000 miles on them. DiCeasari claimed "its getting too costly to maintain the older vehicles and they spend too much time in the repair shop." Higher fuel costs and increasing cost for health care for employees contributed a bit. As well as $30 million contributed to build a new prison to reduce over-crowding. The buget allotted was $127 million, which has been dispersed quickly. An additional $580,000 would be needed to supply these new vehicles and hire five new deputies. Chen suggested to DiCesari that the deputies not drive their vehicles home each day as the do now to save fuel costs and preserve mileage and to also make more cruisers available. DiCeasari disagreed and stated that "letting the deputies drive their cruisers home and parking them in their neighborhoods was a deterrent to crime." Final vote for the commissioners was 5-2 against DeCesari's request for an increase in the budget this year.