DiCesari accused the commissioners of shortchanging the county.

With the county’s budget at $127 million, can one assume there would be plenty of money for equipment and personnel? The answer is no, in fact, it is causing much debate over how this money should be spent.

The meeting Thursday night between the county sheriff and county commissioners was anything but calm. Sheriff DiCesari wants available money to go towards new vehicles for the Police Department. In addition, he believes the county can hire five more deputies.

“It is getting too costly to maintain the older vehicles.” He said. “Commissioners eliminated the equipment budgets for my department this year, and now I can’t buy anything. My deputies can’t keep driving these old vehicles.”

Commission president Anne Chen suggested to DiCesari deputies not to drive their cruisers home everyday because it would make more cars available and preserve mileage. DiCesari had no trouble with a rebuttal, stating the fact that deputies drive their cruisers home and parking them in their neighborhood was a deterrent to crime.
“You are putting the lives of the people of this county in jeopardy.” He said.
The commissioners voted 5-2 against the sheriff’s request.

The argument continued to be heated when immigrants became a topic of issue. There were statements thrown around about them being the problem for law enforcement, schools and healthcare

Commissioner Anita Shenuski said, “They take away jobs from decent people and work for next to nothing. If something gets stolen, you can be it is one of them that’s taken it.”

President Chen denied that immigrants are the problem, bringing up the point that they are hardworking people that add to our economy and are tax paying citizens.