By MICHAEL SMITH 
Los Alamos

I personally don’t care if we have a sheriff or not, but I feel there are some misconceptions going around about the sheriff’s office. If we’re going to make a decision about this it should be based on accurate information.

First, the assertion has been made that the sheriff’s office is required by the state constitution under Article X Section 2. While that is true for most counties, Los Alamos has an exception because it is an incorporated county under Article X Section 5. This allows us to operate under a county charter, which is where the elected offices are currently specified. For example, while Article X Section 2 requires an elected County Treasurer, we don’t have one because it was removed from the county charter. We have a hired CFO instead, which is perfectly legal as an incorporated county. Likewise, all it would take to remove the sheriff’s office is a simple amendment to the county charter which removes that office and assigns those duties to LAPD instead (like the sex offender registry). 

Secondly, there is the topic of disputes or what to do if there was corruption in LAPD. The argument is that only the sheriff can stand as an independent arbiter in such cases. That also is not true. Simple disputes can still be handled within the courts, while cases of corruption typically wouldn’t be investigated by the sheriff anyway. That would fall to the state police, state attorney general, or the FBI depending on the circumstances. Removing the sheriff’s office would not remove your ability to appeal an LAPD decision or to expose possible misconduct/corruption.

I haven’t yet decided how I’ll vote on this office, but it certainly seems to be a very emotional issue here. I’m hoping this information will clear things up for some people.