There’s a new sheriff in town.
Or there will be soon, anyway.
Thursday evening was the first time all the candidates for Lewis County sheriff appeared together for a public event, and one thing seems clear: change is on the horizon.
The four candidates — Daniel “Danny” Riordan, Matt McKnight, Kenneth Cheeseman and Tracy Murphy — appeared at Jester Auto Museum and Event Center on Thursday evening for a forum hosted by The Chronicle.
Candidates responded to questions focused on local and state policies, consistently providing examples for how the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office could improve its services.
The forum came months after current Sheriff Rob Snaza announced he would not seek a new term.
Many answers from candidates followed a common thread of restoring the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office to its former glory. McKnight revisited a key point of his campaign platform, restoring the office’s accreditation with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Others touched on programs once supported in the county that they would like to see come back.
“We need to refocus our volunteer program,” McKnight said. “We need to work with other agencies to have joint volunteer programs so we can move this agency forward.”
Murphy and Riordan both spoke of volunteers as a way to bolster the department's law enforcement presence in the county and build relationships with the public. Murphy discussed investing in a cadet
program that would accept unpaid volunteers in an apprenticeship role. Murphy joined the Centralia Police Department as a cadet at the age of 16. He’s currently a sergeant who leads to the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team.
Riordan advocated specifically for bringing back the county’s reserve officer program, referring to it as a “force multiplier” for the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
“It went away for whatever reason,” Riordan said. “I believe that's a huge thing for us to bring back, because people want to volunteer.”
Hope Alliance of Lewis County Director Kris Camenzind and Lewis County Department of Emergency Management Director Erika Katt were among those who asked questions focused on cooperation and collaboration between the sheriff’s office and other local groups.
Camenzind stated the relationship between the nonprofit she operates, Hope Alliance, and the sheriff's office has declined in recent years and asked if the candidates would be willing to rebuild that relationship in the future. Hope Alliance is a Centralia-based nonprofit centered on helping victims of domestic and sexual violence by connecting them with housing and other resources.
All of the candidates said they would be willing to rebuild the relationships once in office. The question again brought up mention of programs once used by local law enforcement that have now fallen by the wayside.
Murphy mentioned that when he first started with the Centralia Police Department, domestic violence advocates would come on rides with the department and take referrals from the officers to reach out to victims immediately after a domestic violence call.
He added that these programs are essential for deputy safety and could help the sheriff’s office secure additional funding through grants intended to fund programs helping domestic violence victims.
“Domestic violence in our communities is a real thing, and every time an officer or deputy responds to a domestic violence call, there's always danger for them,” Murphy said.
McKnight agreed with Murphy’s statements and went into more detail about opportunities for the office to get more funding for domestic violence prevention through the STOP (Services, Training, Officers and Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program. McKnight, the deputy chief of police for Chehalis, serves as a member of the local STOP grant committee that decides how to direct federal grant funding to local agencies.
States and local jurisdictions receive STOP grant funding from the federal government and are responsible for directing that funding with 25% dedicated for law enforcement, 25% for prosecutors, 30% for victim services and 5% for courts. The last 15% is discretionary to be allocated as needed.
Katt asked candidates how they would coordinate and communicate with Lewis County Emergency Management to make sure they are prepared to respond to emergencies like major floods. The question brought into focus another common thread from the evening: communication.
Cheeseman, a retired veteran of the sheriff’s office, focused on communication in many of his answers throughout the evening, stating that relationships between the sheriff's office and local media and agencies “need to be mended.”
In this case, his fellow candidates agreed as all four said they would prioritize communication with the Department of Emergency Management, but some also honed in on recent shortcomings. Riordan, a longtime local deputy, appeared to hint at some recent shortcomings from the sheriff’s office, stating that teams that were prepared to respond to the December flooding in East Lewis County were not called in despite being on call.
McKnight mentioned that he attends local emergency management meetings on behalf of the Chehalis Police Department and rarely sees a representative from the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.
“Those meetings have fire departments, they have civilian staff, they have radio operators. They have every aspect that you would need in the disaster,” McKnight said. “The sheriff's office not having somebody there is, frankly, unacceptable.”
All four candidates at Thursday evening’s event have filed with the Washington state Public Disclosure Commission to run for Lewis County sheriff this election cycle, and all have declared their intention to register for the ballot when its registration opens in May.
The Chronicle has already begun following the campaign and information on each candidate's platform is available through previous reporting.
For previous reporting on Murphy visit https://tinyurl.com/3y4vwx4c. For previous reporting on McKnight, visit https://tinyurl.com/4a3a5e93. For more information on Cheeseman, visit https://tinyurl.com/53jsraze.
