August 10, 2018 at 3:41 p.m.
Mathein says Hartman can't fix the department he has broken
Medical examiner says another perspective needed in sheriff's office
Mathein says Hartman can't fix the department he has broken
Mathein is challenging incumbent sheriff Grady Hartman in the Aug. 14 Republican primary. Deputy Greg Gardner is also a candidate.
"My main reason for wanting to be sheriff is because, after working with that agency for many years, I think we need to change direction, maybe make a culture change, in that I think the agency has become an agency unto itself," Mathein told The Lakeland Times in a recent interview. "I believe we need to bring it back to being an agency for the community, for the county."
The way to do that, Mathein said, is to elect a sheriff from the outside who can bring in another perspective.
"We're at a point where there has been a lot of damage done," he said. "There has been a tremendous amount of discord, not only within the agency but outside it. I don't know, with the way leadership is right now, that they can fix or turn around the image the public has, even giving it their best shot."
The bottom line is, Mathein said, those who caused that damage cannot undo it.
"I think that the tarnish cannot be wiped away by the person or people who did the tarnishing," he said. "We have to bring in somebody and start fresh, and that is my goal, to make that agency above reproach, respected and respectful, and beyond competent."
Mathein also wants everyone to know he's not out to clean house because he believes in the department's current personnel.
"In our sheriff's department, we've got a trove of phenomenal people, and, at this point, I wouldn't replace anybody," he said. "But I think that, through the leadership, many of them have been steered into more of a mindset of it's us against them, and it shouldn't be that way."
Not an insider
Mathein says that what distinguishes him from the other candidates most of all is that he is not part of the sheriff's department.
"I'm an outsider," he said. "I have not been part of that culture. I didn't grow up there. I don't have any baggage there. I'm sorry, but no matter who you are and whatever position you are in and whatever agency or company you are in, if you have been there a while, you have developed antagonists, you've developed friends, you've developed potential problems down line, especially in circumstances of promotions and those kinds of things. I don't have any of that there."
However, Mathein says he does have good relationships with those in the department.
"We have a tremendous relationship," he says. "They all know me very well. I don't owe anybody anything and nobody there owes me anything."
Another advantage, Mathein says, is that he has broad experience working with diverse agencies.
"I come from not just working with the Oneida County sheriff's department, I've worked for agencies much larger than theirs, and markedly smaller than theirs," he says. "I've got over 40 years dealing with the public, and I bring that to the table because not only it is varied but it covers a lot of bases. I am a people person. I don't have an ego. I've been the chief. I've been the preacher. I've been the owner of the business. I've done all those things, and I want to do this because I believe firmly that we need to turn this thing around."
Mathein says more scrutiny of the sheriff's department by the county committee of jurisdiction would be welcome.
"Legally the buck stops at the sheriff," he said. "Morally and ethically, even though it stops there, I'm a proponent of, the people who are cutting the checks and the people who are answering to the citizenry should be kept abreast to the extent that the law allows for it."
Mathein said the medical examiner was similar in that respect to the sheriff.
"The medical examiner's office is independent," he said. "My committee of jurisdiction does not set policy and cannot set policy, but I talk to them and I am very open with them about what we do because very simply, when something might be hitting the fan, I don't want the back door to be swinging open and kicking me."
In government, Mathein said, people, especially overseers, have a tendency to put blinders on.
"As long as everything is going along OK, and no one is calling their phone and burning it up, we're good," he said. "It is the sheriff's job, it is the ME's, or the county clerk's job, or whoever the elected official is who is appointed to handle those things, to handle them on a daily basis. But the magnitude of that and the repercussions potentially that were going to and then did come of [certain situations], I sure would have liked to have had a closed session and decided where we are going with that. And I have done that myself, even with discussions with Vilas, that don't necessarily need to be public at the moment but I want them [the committee of jurisdiction] to know about them and then they can decide if it needs to be public."
Mathein said no one can go it alone.
"I've been in this a long time and I learned a long time ago that the faster the people I report to know what's good or bad, the easier it is as I go forward because, if I need help, if I'm not certain of something - and I don't know everything - I can rely on them and ask, 'OK, we talked about this. What's my next step?' ... As the new sheriff, I'm very much into, 'Yeah, it's my ship, but nobody runs anything alone.'"
An empathetic sheriff
Mathein says the most important skill a sheriff needs to have is the ability to bring compassion to the position.
"You have to be willing to listen to all sides of an issue, whether it is in-house or external and not be one of those who flies off the handle," he said. "The experiences that I have had over the years have taught me that there's two sides of every story and I don't go with what one person tells me."
Mathein again said the department is full of talented people, many of whom want to do more to improve the agency.
"So take those talents that we have and mold them and make that agency something that everybody is happy to go to work to in the morning or whenever they come in and are proud to stand up and say, 'I belong to this' and who understands that there is a future," he said.
I might be the sheriff, Mathein said, but that's a family, and we need to treat each other like a family.
"We have phenomenal people who really care about what they do, and I want to push that to the point that they are not just treating that as a job," he said. "That they are treating that as part of their life. We have some folks that do that. To the extent that we get into the schools, that's a program that we have been doing really well. Our drug unit is working and making a dent. The public doesn't know that, PR isn't helping that. If the public were made aware of these things, theres a lot of good but the leadership is just not getting it."
Changing direction
Mathein said he has a very specific plan for changing course in the sheriff's department.
"Number one, I believe that what we really need to focus on is making the folks that work for the sheriff's department understand that they were hired to do a job," he said. "They were hired because they were felt to be qualified to do that job, and that we need to let them do that job."
Number two, Mathein said, the department needs to make sure that employees understand what that job is, what the principles behind that job are, and what the agency puts as its priorities.
"Number three, the folks need to be able to feel that everything they do is not put under a microscope," he said. "That said, everything they do is put under a microscope. But I don't believe that the staff needs to be afraid of that."
Mathein said he has heard from numerous sheriff's department staff that sometimes they don't want to make a decision because they are afraid they will make the wrong one.
"Well, what are they there for?" he said. "If everything we ask these people to do they are now beginning to question, are we being affected? The people on the street need to make quick decisions. They need to make the best decisions possible. We need to make sure as leadership that they have been given the tools to do that, the authority to do that, the responsibility to do that, and the understanding of that position."
In the first 100 days of his tenure, Mathein said he would take a look at every single program or line item within the agency.
"My own experiences tell me there are things being done that maybe we put not enough importance on versus too much importance," he said. "I need to get my arms around what the staff believes are important and what aren't, what the public believes are important issues and what aren't."
So in the first 100 days, Mathein says he wants to find out whether what the agency is doing is effective.
"We've talked about the drug war or school security," he said. "So are the resources that we have being used appropriately, do we need to beef up or cut down, those kinds of things.".
Much of it comes back to the staff, Mathein said.
"I think it's going to take a big effort to get the staff to understand that they are part of this," he said. "They are not robots. They are part of it. Their input is valued, and their position there is valued, and I think they need to be coddled a little bit and brought to understand that my responsibility is not to come in there and wreak havoc on everything going in."
Rather, Mathein said, as an administrator his responsibility is to make sure the agency is doing the very best that it can for citizens and the public and the staff.
In that regard, the public's perception of the agency needs an overhaul, Mathein said.
"We need to develop our public relations so that the only thing the public is seeing isn't negative," he said. "We need to work with media outlets, we need to work with community groups and present to them the good things we are doing. They always see the bad."
It's just life that some things will go awry, Mathein said.
"But when [the public] can look at that agency and say, 'We know 95 percent of what they are doing is really phenomenal, and there's some slip-ups but they are dealing with it,' performance-wise I think that enhances the whole program," he said.
More transparency is needed if the public is to get that picture of things, Mathein said.
"My heart is telling me that the public, seeing what they only see, doesn't necessarily understand the scope, and if you have an administration that won't publish anything, won't get out into public, you can't expect them to back you up," he said. "You can't expect them to understand what is going on, and we need to turn that whole thing around."
Budget issues
Mathein said the sheriff's department budget is not in bad shape, but he would focus to make sure that pay and benefits packages are appropriate.
"I know there's been a lot of turnover," he said. "I think we need to take a look at administration-wide, if we are appropriate for the needs. I know there's always the discussion about the pay for those personnel - we need to look at all that and make sure that what we are doing is right for everybody."
Budget-wise, Mathein says the public doesn't necessarily understand that money not only goes out but comes in.
"The inmates from the state, that process generates some income," he said. "But I don't think we have a true understanding of what it costs to run the sheriff's department."
Mathein pointed to the amount of warrants being served as one example of what the department does - two people, Mathein said, out trying to serve warrants.
"Deputies are out there trying to do that and handle traffic and handle all the other things that we are being called to handle," he said. "... We are being called to handle more things. ... The public is very much into needing and wanting services and we have to make sure we're evaluating what we are doing."
In addition, some cost items are charged to other departments, such as building and grounds, so that a real picture of what it costs to run the agency is obscured, Mathein said.
"In the long run if you are an essential service, the checks just keep getting written," he said. "I don't agree with that, but that's the way it is. I think we need to be more accountable."
Whether there are enough officers on the street is a tough question, Mathein said.
"If we look at the numbers of people assigned to that, we probably do," he said. "But if we look at the people that we are actually able to put on the street on any given day, based on a whole host of other circumstances, [it's tougher]."
The large jail population with state inmates requires more prisoner transports to a variety of places, Mathein said.
"If you transport one prisoner or 10 in a vehicle, you have to have two deputies," he said. "So now if we take the two deputies off the street, we have now depleted our responsibilities. We are a big county. So what do we do? We have to bring in additional people. But the additional people have to be gun-carrying sworn law officers. So there's overtime. If you go to Stanley or somewhere for whatever reason, that's two people on overtime for, what, 8 or 10 hours. I think the whole process needs to be looked at."
While it's cheaper in most cases to pay overtime than it is to hire somebody, and while many officers like overtime, Mathein questioned whether it
was the right thing to be doing.
"My concern is, I want to make sure that as the sheriff department we are providing for our citizenry first," he said. "That's our responsibility, is this county. And before we send people outside this county, I want to make sure that we are good here."
Again, Mathein said, one of his first tasks is to look at the books and figure out what is and isn't making sense.
Issues
Mathein says drug and alcohol are the county's biggest issues.
"Secondarily, one of our biggest problems is the inability of people to get along with each other and the domestic stuff, and the 'I can't talk to my neighbor to work something out, I have to call the police,'" he said. "It's not a criminal issue, but it sucks a lot of time and resources."
As for school security, Mathein says locally we have some good things in place.
"I don't think putting a cop in every school is the answer," he said.
He said focusing on and controlling access points is important, as is training staff and teachers in knowing what indicators to look for.
Mathein said concealed carry without a permit is a bad idea.
"I'm a firm believer in the Second Amendment, but if we allow society to always do whatever they want to do how can we expect to have any semblance of control over anything?" he asked. "If you don't have to have a permit that means you can be whoever you are and carry a gun, legally or illegally."
With open carry, at least a person knows another is armed, Mathein said, but even that should be addressed.
"I think that's the loophole that needs to be addressed," he said. "No open carry unless you have a permit to open carry. We have a concealed carry permit and if you're a law enforcement officer and carry openly that's one thing, but we've made it so honest people who follow the procedure can tuck one under their shirt, yet anybody can just throw one on their hip. Does that make sense?"
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