NAACP Townhall Forum for Orange County Sheriff

A little late notice but I’m going to try to live ‘blog this evening’s forum.

First up, OC Sheriff candidates: current Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass and recent Chief of Hillsborough Police Clarence Birkhead.

Web sites:

Clarence Birkhead – clarencebirkhead.com
Lindy Pendergrass – www.facebook.com/pages/Lindy-Pendergrass/496688695219


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

4 responses to “NAACP Townhall Forum for Orange County Sheriff”

  1. Administrator Avatar
    Administrator

    Clarence up first. Wants to build on experience pulling in community to jointly address issues. Was successful in Hillsborough proactively interacting with residents – working through Neighborhood Watch process – sought out residents to help.

    Wants to modernize operations of department, improve coordination and cooperation between county and municipalities. Will make sure department is reflective of the diversity in our county including front-line. As former Duke University Chief experienced with broad range of responsibilities.

    Lindy next. 54 years of experience, starting as patrolman in Chapel Hill. Brings professional experience to bear on problems – seeing fruits of decades of work – first crisis unit in NC – trained deputies in cyber-crime training, etc.

    Deputies and department are most responsive – resource officers play a mentoring role within community especially school system. Works to intervene in kids lives in cooperation with DA, Judges to turn kids from criminal track.

    Lots of technology – in car cameras, DCI will soon have 800mhz radios (a concern of mine) to inter-operate with other departments.

    “on time, doesn’t leave until the job is done”

  2. Administrator Avatar
    Administrator

    First question is on “Secure Communities” and ICE (immigration enforcement).

    Clarence: Clear that the OC department doesn’t function as immigration agents – ICE compliance restricted to what is required.

    Lindy: Doesn’t have the time or resources – 2 people – to work as immigration agents. Doesn’t send deputies to construction sites to look for immigration violations. Underlines that the current process requires finger-printing and that those fingerprints are sent to the national database for further action.

    Next question on fiscal responsibility and reliance on Federal prisoners for revenue.

    Lindy: 138 slots in jail, 75 slots allocated for housing Federal prisoners – “very profitable” – currently 14 prisoners over limit. Current Federal monies reduces operations cost by $3M. Money from Feds also for expanding facilities, etc.

    Clarence: Wants to make sure that the balance between Federal prisoners and local be re-evaluated – doesn’t think that the jail should be a profit center – need to make sure we have adequate capacity to address local needs – we shouldn’t be running a Federal jail.

  3. Administrator Avatar
    Administrator

    Closing statements – sorry I’m lagging here.

    Lindy – solid experience, open-door policy – welcomes the public to come and talk to him about issues – used flexible approach in deploying resources – doubling up on jobs

    Clarence – “need to be proactive, not just responsive”
    – community-based approach – diverse department to meet the challenges before us…

  4. zabouti Avatar
    zabouti

    Thanks, Citizen Will!

Leave a Reply