Debate: Deschutes County Sheriff candidates face off

Published 1:30 pm Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Deschutes County Sheriff candidates William Bailey and Kent Vander Kamp faced off Monday night in their first televised debate ahead of the Nov. 5 election, discussing issues ranging from the sheriff’s office budget to ongoing political tensions within the department.

The debate was hosted by local news channel KTVZ, and The Bulletin tuned in to give our readers the highlights.

Opening statements

Vander Kamp, a sergeant in the sheriff’s office, spoke first during opening statements, focusing on the ways he has been preparing for the role of sheriff during his 20-year career at the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

“I’ve been developing myself for this opportunity for years now through special training, formal education and diverse work assignments in both the public and private sectors … Today I currently supervise the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team and the Deschutes County Illicit Marijuana Enforcement team,” Vander Kamp said.

Bailey, a captain, focused his opening statement on his roots in the community.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to service. I grew up on the Oregon Coast. I’m a lifelong Oregonian, and I moved to Bend after serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. On a fishing trip I got a job at G.I. Joes, met my wife two weeks later in 1998 and that began my transition and my life here in Deschutes County … For the last 22 years, I’ve been a sworn law enforcement officer for the sheriff’s office,” Bailey said.

Homelessness

When questioned about homelessness and how each candidate plans to protect residents living near and within the encampments, Bailey and Vander Kamp both emphasized their support for safe camping programs. They also both emphasized that the sheriff’s office cannot address homelessness alone, and must build strong relationships with community partners.

However, Bailey took a stronger stance on enforcement.

“As the captain of the patrol division, I’ve been working and meeting with local and federal partners and then implementing proactive patrols within the public lands and the homeless camps to reduce fire risk,” Bailey said. “For the last year and a half, a number of individuals have received citations and criminal action towards trash, human waste and the destruction of our public lands.”

Vander Kamp took a more personal approach, focusing on the harsh realities of homelessness in Deschutes County as well as his hope to address root causes, such as addiction.

“Homelessness has become the humanitarian crisis of our lifetime. It’s really come to the point now where we need to have a realistic and common sense approach to how to deal with it … The sheriff’s office must enforce those criminal laws and get back to bringing those relationships that we have with our service providers. I spend much time right now with the Homeless Leadership council … where we’re trying to get resources for drug addicted people and mentally ill people so they can then connect with services off public lands.”

Measure 110 and deflection programs

In 2020, Oregon voters approved Measure 110, a ballot measure that effectively decriminalized drugs. However, the measure received significant backlash, and in 2024 it was reformed via House Bill 4002 to recriminalize drug possession as a misdemeanor and add what are called deflection programs, which give people suspected of drug possession the option to enter treatment and avoid the criminal charges.

Vander Kamp came out during the debate as strongly against the original Measure 110. He said that as supervisor of the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team, he does not believe decriminalizing illicit substances helped reduce the “huge flow of drugs” coming into Central Oregon and that “we are now at the point where we need to redesign the way that looks.”

Bailey also “completely agrees with the reform of Measure 110.” From his perspective the ballot measure made it a “free for all for drug possession and use in Oregon … but now with the deflection program, when somebody is ready to accept help and they’re at that point, options are in place moving forward. But if they don’t follow through with that, there’s still a consequence and that case will still get in front of the district attorney for prosecution.”

Vander Kamp agreed that the deflection program could be beneficial for the community, and that it has implications not just for those who are breaking the law.

“How do we take care of the person and the problem? What it really comes to is, do we take deflection treatment over jail and that’s a big yes. We really need to make those services available to not only people that are in trouble, but also people that are not in trouble, that are looking for help in rehab or treatment that can benefit from those services,” Vander Kamp said.

Budget spending

The area where the two candidates disagreed on the most was how to address sheriff’s office budget shortfalls. Since 2020, the sheriff’s office budget reserves have consistently declined. In tandem, the office has seen scrutiny for spending tens of thousands of dollars on a slushy machine, golf carts, fitness trackers, fruit bowls and a free meal program for the jail employees.

Bailey defended these purchases, saying that the slushy machine is actually very popular in the community and accused Vander Kamp of drumming up controversy. Instead of being more frugal, he advocated for increasing the transient room tax to help support sheriff’s office funding.

“Roughly 30% of our patrol calls are related to tourism, nearly half of our search and rescue calls (and) around 40% of our jail bookings, so tourism has a big impact on the sheriff’s office budget and transient room tax is that supplement to help support that,” Bailey said.

Vander Kamp disagreed with Bailey’s assessment, saying that if the average person doesn’t get to ask for a bigger paycheck during hard times, neither should the sheriff’s office.

“I think learning how to tighten our belt rather than asking for more money is the way to do this. Transient room tax is great, but because it’s flat it also has the potential of declining or perhaps going away altogether, should voters choose. I think we need to wean off that and focus on the money that we’ve already been given by voters and not ask for more during tight times,” Vander Kamp said.

Other topics

Bailey and Vander Kamp faced off on a number of other topics, including education, where they mostly agreed that the sheriff’s office has built strong connections with Bend-La Pine Schools. But another area where their views differed significantly was regarding four potential lawsuits the sheriff’s office might face alleging discrimination and intimidation within the agency during this political campaign.

Bailey took the strong stance that the office was “on the right track” before Vander Kamp announced his candidacy, whereas Vander Kamp argued the workplace environment in the agency has needed reform for some time.

“It’s been a rough year. I’m not going to lie. I think some of my co-workers are in a bad place … It’s not where I thought our office should be and where we should be going,” Vander Kamp said. “The office is in desperate need of a change. It’s imperative that people vote for that change.”

Despite these divisions, both candidates agreed that come Nov. 6, the most important thing isn’t who won the election, but making sure the sheriff’s office sees a stable and peaceful transition.

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