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January 2009 |
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BLACKFOOT — When Wayne Brower walks out of the Bingham County Commission Chambers at noon on Jan. 12 it will be for the last time in his official capacity as he ends a 12-year run as one of the county’s most popular and respected leaders.
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Read more...
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It’s official - Holm will run for sheriff |
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Friday, 22 August 2008 |
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By Emily Hone BLACKFOOT — C. Dayle Holm announced officially Thursday that he will run as a write-in candidate for the office of Bingham County Sheriff in the November general election.  C. Dayle Holm
Holm lost the Republican nomination for sheriff in the primary election to incumbent Sheriff Dave Johnson, but said he’s not satisfied with the reason for the loss and neither are the large number of people who support him.
However, he said, that’s only one of the reasons he has chosen to conduct an expensive and time consuming write-in campaign.
“I don’t believe the people of Bingham County are being served by the present administration,” Holm said. “They see sheriff’s deputies patrolling the highways and writing traffic tickets, while out in the county people are being burglarized and having their property stolen or vandalized, and they tell me nobody is investigating the crimes.”
Holm said the department is not making proper use of the county’s Search and Rescue unit, a group of volunteers whose role is to provide assistance when people are lost, stranded, injured, or otherwise need help.
“The sheriff may have a well-trained group of volunteers as he says, but they’re no good to us if they’re never allowed to go out, and the people who need help are the ones who suffer. If I’m elected I will rebuild the unit and let them do their job.”
Holm said sheriff’s deputies are issuing an inordinately high number of traffic tickets, and this is adding to the economic hardship of some county residents. He said motorists report they are even being stopped for failure to wear their seat belts, when Idaho Code states that alone cannot be used as the reason for a stop.
He said the law formerly required officers to have probable cause to stop a vehicle, but now they can do it for “reasonable suspicion,” and in his opinion it’s being overused.
“People don’t need to be nailed for every little thing,” he said. “It’s true some of the tickets are legitimate, but people feel they’re being harassed.”
He’s concerned also about the turnover of staff in the sheriff’s department, Holm said. “Forty-nine civilian and law enforcement officers have left the department since Johnson took office,” he said. “That’s a waste of the county’s money. It takes time and money to train an employee, and that’s especially true where certified officers are concerned. It costs $20,000 to train a deputy and put him on the street. We should not be losing these veteran officers.”
Holm said if elected he will have an open door policy at the sheriff’s department, where the personnel as well as the public will be free to come in and voice their concerns. “The sheriff’s office is a public service office,” he said. “They’re there to protect and help. People should not be intimidated by the sheriff’s office.”
Holm said he realizes running as a write-in candidate is an uphill battle where getting the actual vote is concerned, but it’s not as hard as people think, and he and his volunteers will inform people how simple it is.
He has had 60,000 stickers saying Dayle Holm, sheriff, printed up and they will be mailed to every registered voter in the county, Holm said.
His large staff of volunteers will be going door-to-door in the county asking people to vote for him and they will explain how to use them.
“All they have to do is bring the sticker with them to the voting booth and stick it on the inside of the ballot sleeve as they vote.”
Holm said he stands prepared to debate the issues in the sheriff’s race and hopes to organize a forum for that purpose.
Holm served 12 years as sheriff before retiring in 2004 at the conclusion of his third 4-year term. He said he had no intention of seeking the office again until people began calling him a year ago and asking if he would run.
“If I believed Dave Johnson had really won the election in May, I wouldn’t be doing this, “ Holm said, “but we still have questions about whether the votes were counted right, and so do a lot of people who voted for me. I feel they have the right to have their votes counted.”
Holm referred to an error on the ballots in certain precincts that reversed the votes for two of the three sheriff candidates in 19 precincts, giving his votes to Johnson and Johnson’s votes to him.
Those precincts were recounted and the votes assigned correctly, but Holm says he now believes there could have been more errors and that there should have been a revote for sheriff to be sure the count was accurate.
Brent Arave, campaign manager for Holm, gave a news interview in June saying the question of why Holm appeared to be winning the nomination until the recount showed he was losing had been resolved following an investigation.
Arave said Thursday, subsequent findings gave him doubts, but the Holm campaign was misinformed by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office about the statutory period in which they had to file for a revote. “They told us it was twenty days, when in reality it was five for the primary,” he said, “so we missed that opportunity. Now we can have another vote.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 August 2008 )
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