Information You Need as a Voter!

By Bruce Ruff

We need a strong sheriff who will demand border securing, develop the idle training facility you've owned for 9-years and who will stop out-sourcing forensic work by creating local jobs to facilitate revenue generation for you and us.

There are only 58 sheriffs in the state of California. The sheriff, as the "chief law enforcement officer of the county" is responsible to provide for the county's law enforcement services, safety and security by state law.

Securing the borders is one of the necessary steps we must take before we can realistically begin to sort out the critical issues we have grown to recognize after decades of failure of many to properly address this issue.

I will seek Washington's support in securing the borders. As the one person in the county who is mandated to address these issues I will aggressively seek a solution of this critical matter. The oath of office for elected officials states, in part, the official will defend against all enemies both foreign and domestic...

If Washington officials fail to respond, as they have so far, I will seek to file a law suit against the Government on your behalf. I will have it argued that in order to effectively do my job, as your sheriff and a State empowered, locally elected official, it is manditory the borders be secured so we can address issues related to law enforcement's duties and mandates.

The new law passed in Mexico allowing personal use of drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and others will further complicate our safety.

NTC (Camp Nimitz) TRAINING FACILITY

You and I have owned the old Camp Nimitz Training facility since 1997.

I volunteered my time to speak, throughout the county, educating various groups to encourage San Diego City, under the Susan Golding administration, to dedicate the 28.5 acre site as a regional training site for all emergency service providers.

The campaign effort was successful, however, it has essentially remained idle since 1997. We continue to lease space from the San Diego Community College District as we did 30-years ago when I attended the training academy.

The original "no cost to you" opportunity at NTC has been lost through the failure to act. The development will now require fiscal commitment - but I believe the County has the ability to make this happen.

When I am elected June 6, 2006 I intend to pursue the development of the site as a Regional Public Safety Training Center it should be. The sheriff's department, in particular, needs this development to occur so we can recover your almost 100% loss of service from the Sheriff's Department's Detentions Services Bureau conversion to detentions only training. This is a loss of service to you of about 60% of the sheriff's departments personnel.

Making the uninformed decision to down-grade the training levels of the detentions personnel to save some money on salaries has, in reality, cost you loss in future use of these employees - unless you are in custody.

Detentions now exists only to facilitate the processing and detention of those in custody. And, those in that service will never leave to perform law enforcement duties in your community - the only exception to this is if you fund an entire additional academy course of training. This practice speaks for itself and those who approved the practice.

Down-grading of the detentions operations personnel's training has cost you and continues to cost you every day.

The abandonment of the gift of the NTC facility needs to be reversed - I will do that and use the facility to up-grade the training of those in detentions operations. They will once again be trained for full utilization and service to you.

REGIONAL CRIME LAB

You were promised a regional crime lab 12-years ago. You don't have it!

You and I pay a reported $196,000.00 per year to out-source forensic evidence analysis to other counties.

I will stop this practice and hire the necessary personnel to perform the analysis right here in our county. I will also seek to create a lab capable of in-sourcing work. We will assist those who can't afford to maintain their own lab as we are expected to do.

This will create revenues for the County instead of costing you hundreds of thousands annually.

I will seek a medical doctor or forensic-PHD to oversee the labs quality of performances.

FINANCIAL and OTHER FACTS

You have spent $4-billion tax dollars on your sheriff's department over the past 12-years.

You now have a sheriff's department that is under-staffed, under-trained, under-equipped, 60% less capable of responding to regional emergencies than it was 12-years ago and it is the lowest paid law enforcement agency in San Diego County.

The list of what you don't know you is huge - I have shared just some of what I know you should be aware of before you vote this year.

You deserve better than this and I will see you get it!

Please visit my web page http://www.bruff4sheriff.com, invite me to speak to your group, and get involved on June 6, 2006.

"Get RUFF on Crime!"

Please Vote!

Sincerely,

Bruce Ruff