Sheriff Candidates Square Off at Forum

The two men running to be Stephens County Sheriff square off at a Town Hall event.

The Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce and AM 630 WNEG sponsored the forum Thursday at the Schaefer Center in downtown Toccoa.

Incumbent Sheriff Randy Shirley is facing challenger Jim Davis in the May Republican primary.

Shirley said that one of the things he is proud of is that the Sheriff’s Office has run under budget during his tenure.

“One of the things I ran on was better communication with county leadership,” said Shirley. “We have really worked hard in that endeavor. We have been under budget every year I have been in office.”

Shirley said other accomplishments include the establishment of a traffic unit and the Explorer program.

However, Davis said the Sheriff’s Office is being mismanaged.

He said he would take money saved in the budget and invest back in items like more and better body cameras and, referencing this year’s death of an inmate at the jail, a checks and balances system for the jail.

“By Randy’s own admission, he gave $200,000 back to the county government,” said Davis. “I am not going to.”

He said he would never put anything above public safety.

“I will take that $200,000 and invest it into what they call a key lock system, so that when a cell check is done, the individual guard or corrections officer will have to insert a key, turn it, and a picture of that guard will be taken at that time, showing that the cell check was done within a 15-minute period.”

Regarding that incident at the jail, Shirley said that his standards and protocols are adequate, but adds that it is hard to keep jailers because of pay.

Meanwhile, the two men were also asked about gangs in Stephens County.

Shirley said on a scale of 1 to 5 they exist, but adds that a GBI agent has told him that some progress has been made.

“He said that they do not have leadership right now and that is because the leadership not only in this county, but in the metropolitan Atlanta area was arrested in a RICO indictment,” said Shirley. “With gangs, it is all about money. How do they get the money? They get the money through selling illegal drugs. I would rate it probably on a 2.”

Davis did not put a number on it, but did say there is a gang issue.

“We have a gang problem in this county,” said Davis. “We know this because Tomas (Colbert) was killed by gangs. In order to alleviate gangs, we have to attack the gangs head-on. We have to have good intelligence from our communities and we also have to have the community involvement. We need to do this together as a team, not as a Sheriff’s Office and definitely not as a sheriff himself.”

There is no Democratic opposition in this race, so whoever wins will be unopposed in November.