Jail impasse must end. Sheriff should concede even if county is not blameless | Editorial

Benton County commissioners and Sheriff Jerry Hatcher have been in a power struggle over control of the jail since mid-October, and it needs to end.

It’s time Hatcher concedes and makes the best of it.

The commissioners made their split 2-1 decision to take jail operations away from Hatcher, and the majority won’t back down.

And it appears a significant number of jail employees have lost faith in Hatcher and welcome the change.

We don’t see how the sheriff can win this fight. For the sake of stability, he needs to accept the decision and cooperate with the transition.

That said, it’s clear the commissioners blundered the process from the beginning.

The decision was rushed. If the commissioners had allowed enough time for citizen discussion, the community’s doubts and concerns surrounding this situation likely would have been alleviated.

It also would have provided time to work out details ahead of time instead of after the fact.

We criticized commissioners early on for moving too quickly and leaving the public out of the picture. Last week the Benton County Republican Party echoed our concerns.

The party’s precinct officers approved a resolution Dec. 5 opposing the county takeover because there was no chance for public involvement.

The topic was not on the county’s published agenda, but was brought up and discussed anyway at an Oct 8 meeting. Two weeks later, Commissioners Jerome Delvin and Jim Beaver approved the more, while Commissioner Shon Small opposed it.

Benton County Republicans recently urged county commissioners to reverse their overhasty decision and start over with financial research and citizen input.

Unfortunately, their recommendation is coming very late, and the commissioners aren’t likely to start the process over. And even if they did, it likely wouldn’t change the outcome.

Still, commissioners would be smart to pay attention to the party’s concerns. The scolding is not partisan — the sheriff and all three commissioners are Republicans.

Instead, the reprimand comes from a sense of obligation.

Dennis Walters, chairman of the Benton County Republican Party, said when the party helps get people elected, then the party owes it to the people it represents to act when those elected officials don’t follow expectations and shuts them out.

Party leaders called the commissioners’ actions “serious government overreach.”

Walters said precinct committee officers approved the resolution as quickly as they could, deciding to draft the resolution at their November meeting and then unanimously voting in favor of it in December.

He said Hatcher did not approach party leaders to ask for their support. Walters said the group wanted to send a message so the commissioners learn a lesson for the future.

He believes commissioners think the ends justify the means, but they’re wrong, he said.

Three unions representing employees at the jail are on record supporting the commissioners’ decision. The unions previously had voiced no confidence in the sheriff.

One jail officer told the commissioners last week, “We fight a big, ugly monster every day. We don’t need a monster to be running our jail at the same time.”

Regardless of how pleased jail employees are with the change of command, the process getting to this point was badly managed.

Elected officials have an obligation to include the public in their decisions, even if they think they know best and their minds are already made up.

Hatcher needs to accept the commission decision and move on. The commissioners need to remember they work for the public.