Sheriff candidates vie at forum

Three Hancock County sheriff candidates each made the case Friday for why voters should choose them to address drug and mental health issues. The Republicans — recently retired Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Cortez, 31-year law enforcement veteran Daniel Harmon and Sheriff's Capt. Mark Price — spoke at a GOP-sponsored forum. With no Democrats running, it appears the one who gets the Republican nomination on March 19 will become the next sheriff. Sheriff Michael Heldman is not seeking reelection. All three candidates cited illegal drug use and mental health as the two major problems which need to be addressed by the next sheriff. Price said that too often there is a lack of resources to deal with the mental health needs of people the sheriff's office encounters. "We need to really focus on how we can get better help to them, how we can get them in facilities and in areas that they, too, can get the help that they need," Price said. Harmon said the sheriff's office needs to be more proactive in fighting drug problems. "I'm not talking about going after the person that is a user. I'm talking about going after the drug dealers," Harmon said. "I want to make sure that our (drug enforcement) team is going out there and kicking doors, plain and simple." Cortez said he had a proven record at the sheriff's office in fighting community drug problems. "That is one of the things I was big on. I introduced training on how our rural officers can interdict drugs. When I went to Fostoria and I was leading the drug task force we took a very aggressive approach," Cortez said. "The issue in Fostoria was that there was a visual presence. We went in there and we did traffic stops. We did plain clothes investigations and we removed that. In fact, we got calls from other communities that said, 'Stop what you're doing because you are pushing all of the people over to us.'" Cortez was teeming with more ideas. "Our special programs need some revamping. Our K-9 program, our two K-9s have retired so we don't have K-9s right now. So I just want to rebuild that," he said. He wants to expand the sheriff's current school resource officer program. "I want to use the contacts and the information and the data that we can pull from those contacts with (school resource officers) and the students to determine what the current needs of our students (are)," Cortez said. "And furthermore, work with community resources so we can try to forecast what exactly it is that our students need in the future." He would have deputies wearing body cameras to improve officer accountability. Cortez also said the sheriff's office has high turnover. He said he would work to help personnel build career paths and to instill in them a sense of pride and joy in being a deputy or corrections officer. Price said that since working in administration at the sheriff's office the past three years, he has improved recruitment and retention of officers. "By the end of the year we should be fully staffed on the enforcement (division)," he said. "We made some changes upstairs on the corrections floor. We are down two positions as we speak today, which is a great leap in the way that we need to go."