Six candidates are in the running for the position of Monroe County Sheriff. We sat down with all six of them, to ask a couple questions before the big election day.
The first question we asked, "Why are you the best candidate for Monroe County Sheriff?"
Here is what they had to say; Michael Bittick says, "Well I think Monroe County is a growing community, and with that growth is going to come issues that we need to deal with in a proactive manor. The last sheriff that was here was John Cary Bittick. He’s my cousin. He was here for thirty six years, and when you have a long serving sheriff like that, sometimes it’s good to have a fresh set of eyes to come in, and say listen what’s working and what’s not working. I’m also someone who has been in law enforcement for over two decades. I have several degrees, and I’ve also worked my way up through the ranks of the Macon Police Department to the Macon Sheriff’s Office. I love Monroe County. I’m very involved in Monroe County. I was on the chamber board, I was in Leadership Monroe, and I constantly stay involved and I feel like I’m a finger in the pulse of what’s going on in this county. I just want to make sure that we keep it safe for people in Monroe County. That’s what I want to bring to the table. I want to bring my experience to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office because it’s a community that we all love."
Lawson Cary Bittick III follows with, "I’ve been around law enforcement my entire life. From birth to today. My family has dedicated their life to public service, particularly law enforcement, going back as far as 1921. I think the furthest back we have is the 40’s. It just seems to be in our blood. We can’t deny it. My mother was a deputy warden. My father was the sheriff. I’ve seen him help people when we’re just sitting in restaurants, and people come up with genuine questions, and they genuinely need help with family emergencies, and it’s just second nature for me to help to help folks. And that’s what I want to continue to do. I want to continue to help Monroe County."
Next, Brad Freeman, "“I have the most training. I have thirty five hundred hours of post training. I am a graduate of the FBI national academy from Quantico, Virginia. I have 32 years of experience with the Monroe County Sheriff’s office, and I’ve also got numerous awards for outstanding work performance."
Ronnie "Jocko" Evans explains, "My experience, and knowledge, I have a total of 42 years in local law enforcement, and I’m ready to take on the responsibility as Sheriff of Monroe County. I was encouraged by citizens and the community to seek the office as sheriff. I had overwhelming support, and it’s time to put the citizens, sheriff’s office employees, and the sheriff’s office first. I’ve seen the in and outs, the ups and downs of the sheriff’s office and I think the citizens, the sheriff’s office employees, and the sheriff’s office deserves better, and it’s time to take the sheriff’s office to the next level."
Followed by Stacey Penamon, "I have been at the sheriff’s office for almost twenty years now. I’ve been through just about every division there. From jailor, to patrol, to radio investigation, and I’ve also gotten my four year degree in Criminal Justice. I’ve done a lot of supervision and management. I’ve taken a lot of classes for that. I’ve supervised a lot of people. I love the people at Monroe County Sheriff’s office, I love the people in Monroe County, the citizens in Monroe County, so for me I know that when I talk to people I show them respect, and give them the respect that they deserve because I want the same respect in return. So, I can talk to just about anyone."
And lastly, Troy Copelan, "Monroe County’s had the same sheriff and family here for years. I think that I am one of the only few candidates that’s not from here. I’ve been here about 20 years, but twenty years here, and you’re still an outsider. You know in a lot of things, but I have insider knowledge. My kids were all raised here, my kids have now started their own families here, so I’ve got a lot invested in this county. But, I’m one of the ones that will come in and make the changes that need to be made. A lot of these other guys running, worked and have been there their whole career. I’ve been to other places, working other places, and I know how it’s done, and I know what needs to be restructured. I know what needs to be re-budgeted, and I’m the one who will do it. I don’t have any ties here in this county, as far as the good ole boy system, or who’s who. I’m not one of those, so I will make the changes without having to worry about feelings I guess."
Moving on, we asked, "What is the biggest crime problem in Monroe County, and what are some way you'd fix it?"
Michael Bittick starts by saying, “Well there’s several issues. One of the things of course whenever I’ve been going around talking to different communities like High Falls and Bollingbroke and Colloden areas one of the things you hear about, several issues, one you hear about is drugs. I want to make sure that we’re looking internally through the sheriff’s office, and say is our drug unit where it needs to be. The issues that are happening in High falls are going to be different than the issues happening in Bollingbroke. So, we need to make sure that we know the issues of every area. So, drugs are an issue, so I want to make sure we are structured away we need to be, and we are staying proactive in that area. I want to make sure we have people staying on the trims also. Working with our school systems. Different trends. You have meth that may come back around again, or heroine is on the upswing again. We’ve talked about the opioids addiction. So, we need to make sure the education is out there for our community, and we need to make sure we are educating the students, we need to educate the teachers, and the parents of the students so we know what we need to look for. Also, transient crime is a big issue that’s out there. That border that’s between Macon and Bibb is not like it used to be. So, depending on where you live, you’re going to have transient crime coming in so we need to make sure we are staying on top of that in a proactive manor, and that’s on the patrol side.”
Lawson Cary Bittick III responds with, “I was a criminal investigator for five years. I saw an increase in burglary and thefts, and I saw an increase in fraud cases, credit card frauds. So one thing I’d like to do is increase the patrol division. I think every candidate agrees with that, and I’m hoping the county commissioners are listening . We currently have four deputies on the road. I personally would like to increase that to six, and then utilizing the state agencies to assist us with interstate 75, and we need it because we do get a lot of calls on 75 with speeding drivers or broken down vehicles. There really not emergency calls, but they’re taking deputies away from their zones. So like I said we’ve seen an increase in burglaries. I’d like to have a focused unit just for burglaries, where we’re having several burglaries in one areas. I’d like to have, particularly an unmarked unit watching, and hopefully capturing the people committing the crimes, as well as, increase investigators. As an investigator, the case load became so heavy at times that you weren't’t focusing on every single case as much as you needed to. Some cases you’re not going to be able to solve you realize that from the very beginning, but you still try to help every victim because every person is a victim of a crime. Kind of the way that we do it at the sheriff’s office currently and the way I plan to continue it, is still utilizing the Care Cottage, which is our victim services so you become a victim of any crime for that matter. They’ll send you what your victim rights are. They’ll give you the resources to speak to people if that’s what you need. Even if we are unable to make an arrest or a prosecution.”
Then, Brad Freeman says, “Right now probably the biggest crimes we face are obviously drugs. Which I think affect every community and theft. How we would basically combat these is one have a very robust drug unit, and number two provide a crime scene unit, or establish a full time crime scene unit that could collect the evidence and prepare for prosecutions of a crime.”
Ronnie "Jocko" Evans explains, "Well there’s not just one problem in Monroe County. You have residential burglaries number one, and number two would be the drug problem. To attack those problems you have to have personnel, You have to have bodies to attack those problems. The next question is where’s the money coming from? Where’s the money coming from to pay those employees.”
Followed by Stacey Penamon, "We’ve been having a lot of break-ins in homes and in businesses. We also have a drug problem, which we’ve been having in High Falls for a long time now. So with the burglaries and break-ins, I know one of the main things I wanted to do was get with communities, get with the business owners, and try to get a strategy together of what we need to do, where we need to position our deputies, where we need them the most, which would help getting neighbors involved in neighborhoods. I think that would help with crime, and bring that down. As far as the drugs, that was another thing. Get with the communities, these clubs that we have here in Monroe County, they would work good if we could get into those, and see where we have our problem areas, and what we need to do. Then we’ll know how we need to crack down on the drug problem too.”
And Troy Copelan says, “You know, I guess like most rural areas we do have a problem with drugs. You have the opioid, you have the meth, you have the different ones that are spread out with towns. It’s everywhere nowadays. I think one of the problems with Monroe County, is we have so much rural area that we don’t have enough deputies right now to cover. So, you get them all on the outside of the corners of the county, and different communities, and it’s kind of just running wild. I think our biggest things, one of our problems here, was we have very few deputies out patrolling, and that’s what we need more of. We need to get our deputies raises. We’re one of the lower ones starting out, and you can’t compete with other counties around you if you’re not paying what their deputies are making. So, that’s one of the biggest changes, because I think once we get that in here, we can change a lot of other stuff. But, probably improving our drug squads, and things like that to help with the problems we have in our communities.”
The final question we asked, "What is the first task you want to tackle if you become sheriff?"
Michael Bittick says, “Just like whenever I take over any other division, I want to make sure I come in first thing and look over the budget and see where we are spending money, where money can be saved or moved around if need be, make sure we are using that and I bring that budgetary experience to the table for someone who is over a Criminal Investigation Division and Crime Lab. Actually, working with a budget and having to develop a budget, so I bring that experience to the table. So, that’s the first thing anybody should look at, at first. And then it’s just sitting back and saying listen, let’s look at what’s working, and what’s not working. So as far as, one specific thing, no, but the first thing I’m going to look at would be the budget.”
Lawson Carry Bittick III says, "Working with the county commission, and trying to get that ultimate goal of increasing the patrol division. As well as, revisiting our old relationship with the state agencies to hopefully help us. They’ve had a lot of focus, and they’re kind of low themselves. Law enforcement in general is having a problem recruiting. So two things focus more heavily on recruiting, working on the county commission to hopefully increase one or two deputies a year. We don’t’ want to put to much of a burden on the tax payer but we can do it slowly over time. As well as working on vehicles. We are overdue on vehicles. We haven’t had a car budget to my knowledge for over ten years. So what we’ve been surviving off of, we are a department of about one hundred twenty employees probably about seventy deputies, and we have been surviving off of three patrol cars.”
Brad Freeman, says “Increase the number of patrol deputies we have the same amount of deputy patrols per shift in 2018, than we did we I started in 1986, and that’s just unacceptable in today’s world.”
Ronnie "Jocko" Evans says, “It would be to attack the drug situation here in the county. Right now there’s not enough drug investigators to deal with that problem, and the drug unit needs to be brought up to full staff in order to attack that problem.”
Stacey Penamon says, “Budget. To make sure that we’re not unnecessarily using money where it doesn't’t need to be used. Because the overtime, I know from working there, a lot of the officers get a lot of overtime, and that kind of burns the budget. Like I said unnecessary spending in other areas like maybe with cars, and making sure that we’re not having unnecessary maintenance on cars that we shouldn't’t have out there. “
And last, but not least, Troy Copelan finishes with, “One of the biggest things, that we need in this county, is to have more deputies. Now, of course we’re all coming in here, and this is just a two-year term for any of us, so people got to kind of keep that in mind that with all the changes that everybody’s promising that they’re going to do, well they only have a year and half or so to do it. Your firsts few months, you’ll just be getting into office, then you’ll have some time to really start making some changes, but then you’ll have to start getting ready for the next election. So, with this, and the changes that need to be done, they will be done, but the problem is you can’t expect large changes. So, it’s one of those things where getting better deputies pay, adding more deputies, and stop all the wasteful spending that our county does now.”
Early voting is open until Friday, Nonmember 2nd.