Budget Fight

     County commissioners and the county sheriff faced off on Thursday afternoon over new police cruisers, sheriff’s deputies, and county funds. “You’re putting the lives of people of this county in jeopardy,” said Sheriff Gus DiCesari.
     DiCesari was talking to Commission President Anne Chenn about his request for new cruisers and five new deputies. DiCesari said that eight of the older cruisers have over 150,000 miles each on them and need to be replaced. Buying new vehicles would cost $580,000 over and above the county’s $127 million budget. Chenn said that there is not enough money to carry out the requests, and the commissioners voted 5-2 against the proposal. 
     The sheriff replied by saying, “This is the first time in my 27 years as sheriff that the county hasn’t allocated money to the sheriff’s department to buy equipment. My deputies can’t keep driving these old vehicles. Something bad is going to happen.”
     Later on in the meeting, Commissioner Anita Shenuski discussed why she does not want money to be spent on programs helping migrant workers in the county. She explained by saying, “We never had problems until we began letting migrants come…they are a problem for our law enforcement, our schools and our health care system. They take away jobs from decent people and work for next to nothing and if something gets stolen, you can bet it is one of them that’s taken it. We need to protect local residents from them.”
     Chenn denied that immigrants are a problem saying, “Those people who come here to work are decent, hardworking people being employed at jobs that local residents don’t want to do. They add a great deal to the local economy and they pay taxes. You are being a hypocrite when you try to blame those people for everything.”