Letter: LTN off the mark with DCSO endorsement
To the community,
Regarding your editorial, “Keep Pierini as Douglas County Sheriff”, you say that DCSO candidate Dave Brady’s character has been questioned. That’s an odd use of the passive voice coming from a presumably professional journalist on such an important matter. Who questioned his character, and on what basis? Not including that in your editorial makes that sentence nothing more than an unsubstantiated slur.
During the sheriff’s candidate forum last week at CVIC hall in Minden, (Ron) Pierini blabbed the name of his gang task force officer to the crowd for the sake of puffing up his campaign. If you know enough to editorialize about who should be running DCSO, you would know that the Norteños – the primary gang presence in Gardnerville – targets gang officers and their families. Pierini recklessly put this officer’s life, and his family’s lives, in danger out of selfish vanity. Would that meet your criteria for questioning someone’s character?
As to editorial credibility, you might have asked Sheriff Pierini why his budget has gone up fivefold in 28 years — from $3 million to over $16 million, yet he fields the same number of patrol cars now as then, as he confirmed to the Record Courier in May 2013.
Sheriff Pierini’s experience, education, and training have proven to be the perfect qualifications for running the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department in 1992. Now, not so much. He and his very well paid command staff have no idea how to manage a budget. Given that it’s not their money and no one is looking over their shoulders, they have no incentive to learn.
Dave Brady has far more street-level law enforcement experience than Pierini, plus the education and experience to fix what’s wrong in DCSO. Brady should be elected sheriff.
Lynn Muzzy, Minden
It will be a relief when this election season is over. I am so tired of spinning campaign claims like this one that I cannot energize a reply to respond point by point to refute the claims, criticisms and distortions. All I can say is Ron Pierini has a demonstrated record of operating DCSO and keeping the citizens and businesses of Douglas County safe. I will take that fact to the voting booth. Mike
Perhaps the author of this letter can explain why there is a threat of gang activity regarding DCSO, when a previous endorsement letter for the same candidate from Tom Martel says, in part: “I spent a lot of time investigating gang-related homicides in Phoenix before retiring and returning home to the Carson Valley. I can assure all that we do not have a ‘gang problem’ here.”
If a campaign cannot even get it’s supporters to agree on an important and pressing issue like gang activity, it is apparent that they aren’t quite ready to lead the department.
Excellent comment, Mr. Bradford.
Excellent comment, Mr. Bradford.
I am confused by the references to gang activity. One candidate’s endorsement letter says that we have gang problems, the other says that we do not have a gang problem. Which is it?