By Brian Wright | Casa Grande Dispatch
The Pinal County Deputies Association wants direct answers from sheriff candidates on pressing questions and will seek them by conducting sit-down video interviews.
A letter penned by Deputies Association President Ben Cook was sent to all four sheriff candidates — Republicans Mark Lamb and Steve Henry and Democrats Kaye Dickson and Kevin Taylor.
Each candidate will be asked the same six questions and will have 20 minutes to respond to them on video.
All candidates are asked to answer the following:
— Take a few minutes and tell us about yourself.
— As sheriff, what will be the biggest challenge you face?
— Describe the current attitude and morale of the Sheriff’s Office. What will you do, if anything, to improve the [aforementioned]?
— We have heard from the Board of Supervisors regarding their stance on the budget shortages. Keeping this in mind and leaving the board and the county’s budget out of your answer, what can you do to address the pressing need to improve the pay for all employees within the Sheriff’s Office?
— The Sheriff’s Office Detention Center is currently severely understaffed. This has caused a multitude of issues within the facility. How do you plan to address this?
— Volunteers are a precious resource to any organization. What changes, if any, would you propose to our current volunteer program?
In 2012, PCDA held a debate with the sheriff candidates before the primary election. Cook said the organization decided the video interviews would be a good way to inform all the deputies about their choices for sheriff in 2016.
“We’ll put the video on our website for all of our members to see,” he said. “This is the best we could do to get the most information out to all our members.”
The interviews will take place next Tuesday, and Cook said it will take a couple of days to edit and upload the video to the PCDA website, pinaldeputies.com.
Once the deputies have a chance to view the video, a silent ballot will be conducted. The candidate with the most votes will receive the official endorsement of the Deputies Association.
Cook said the members are also requesting an opportunity to sit down and speak one on one with each of the candidates.
“Some (candidates) that I’ve talked to are willing to do that,” he said.