How St. George Gained Community Support During Anti-Police Protests

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
For us in St George.
We've really tried to focus oncreating a welcoming culture for
our employees, the millennialgeneration and the ones behind
it.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Are you seeing that they need this encouragement?
Pat on the back.
Is there a little bit more ofthat that is required now than
it was before, or is thepersonality of a police officer
just kind of typically alphamale types that they don't
really do that?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
You compare us to any other community or county or
metropolitan area throughout thecountry, for the similar
200,000 population, I still feellike we have a relatively low
crime rate.
Oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
From the Blue Form Media.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Studios.
This is the 435 Podcast thepulse of Southern Utah.
This is the 435.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah.
If you're looking for a nicecup of coffee and you're in
downtown St George FS Coffee Co,that's where you're going to
want to stop.
It's right there on the cornerof Tabernacle and Main Street in
downtown St George.
So if you've got a bicycle,ride it on down there and grab a
drip coffee and tell them the435 guys sent you.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, they didn't teach us that kind of stuff in
the police academy.
They didn't how to deal withmultimillion dollar budgets and
personnel issues.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's more on how to diffuse situations at that stage
.
So when did you get in?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
How long have you been with St George?
20,.
This is my 26th year, so I'll26 in november.
Wow, so 25 total.
Yeah, I started here.
I've been always with saintgeorge police and, uh, born and
raised originally from here.
In fact, my grandfather was thecounty sheriff back in the 60s
and 70s, oh crazy.
So served four, four terms thathappens.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Quite a lot is like police officers, their kids.
A lot of them become policeofficers or or in the law
enforcement that happens.
You see it quite a bit kind of afamily, family oriented career
yeah, it's like once you see dad, a part of it, there's there's
the bad things, but then there'slike the good things about it.
My, uh, my father-in-law was adetective in garden grove.
He's a homicide detective atthe end, but he did patrol and

(02:02):
all kinds of stuff in GardenGrove but he had all girls and
none of them became lawenforcement.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
We've hired a lot of our retired employees.
Their kids now work for us.
Yeah, so we have several thathave come back and they work.
It's kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah.
So watching St George, you'vebeen here for the big bulk of
most of the change.
I mean there was a big changebetween pre-1970 and then from
the 70s to the 90s, but reallysince the 2000s that's been yeah
so all through the 80s, growingup in the 90s, when I was in
high school, it was just a lotof change.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I wasn't paying so much attention to it because I
was just growing up and havingfun.
But looking back now andrealizing the growth.
But then, yeah man, the 2000shit and it's just been a rocket
crazy.
Never, never thought I didn'tthink.
You know in my lifetime, and alot of the old timers I talked
to we never thought we'd seethis type of change.
Yeah, you know, in saint george, so it's been pretty intense

(02:59):
meaning they.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
You couldn't see a world where so many people would
want to live here, or yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I just it always seemed like kind of a little out
of the way place, even thoughwe're along I-15, it seemed to
me like just kind of a littleMayberry, you know where people
wouldn't necessarily want to behere and and I mean it's always
been a great place forrecreation and outdoors and
that's always attracted somepeople, but more just passing
through on vacation, yeah.
But now we just see so manypeople wanting to come here and

(03:27):
live and partake of the greatthings we offer.
You know, as far as outdoors,but then also I think it's just
our community, and probably someof what we're going to talk
about today is just the greatsupport that we have.
We have good people here, yeah,Both people that have been here
for decades and people that aremoving here.
For the most part, we're seeingjust great people that support

(03:50):
public safety.
They support us and it's justgreat.
A lot of people ask me whathappened after COVID and
comparing pre-COVID topost-COVID or George Floyd or
whatever you want to focus on.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, just like the big wave of anti-law enforcement
.
You saw that around the countryand I tell them honestly in
Washington County, nothing floydor whatever you want to focus
on.
Yeah, just like the big wave ofanti-law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
You saw that around the country and I tell them
honestly, in washington countynothing didn't we.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
We saw an outpouring of support.
So we had you know the big back, the blue signs everywhere.
You had you know localbusinesses buying those signs
and hand them out to to anyoneand everyone.
So I felt like, um, whateverwas going on in the country, we
it was an opposite feeling here,that everybody came out of the
woodwork to support us.
Probably more support.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, yeah, but some, some of the anti there was,
some anti law enforcement therewas a couple of small group
protests and stuff like that,but it seemed like we had some
meetings too at the time.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
You know, we we tried to sit down and hear concerns
and, uh, we spoke with severalpeople that and I wouldn't even
say they were necessarily anti.
I think it was just this, maybean opportunity to try and get
some change to happen.
And now everybody has theiridea of what that change should
look like.
You know, and, and we listened,but uh, we felt like you know

(05:00):
our community and what, howthings were going here, at least
in St George, we felt like itwas headed in a good direction,
yeah, and so we listened, butwhen, when, sometimes some of
those agendas would try and bepushed on us, we respectfully
decline and say, you know, oneof the big things was like
school resource officers.
I remember that was kind of apoint of I wouldn't say
contention, but people were like, oh, police officers shouldn't

(05:24):
be in schools.
I wouldn't say contention, butpeople were like, oh, police
officers shouldn't be in schools, we shouldn't have cops in
schools, it should be socialworkers and you know that kind
of thing.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
And I that doesn't make any sense at all and that
was going to be.
My question was like what?
Like?
What were the arguments?
Like what would they want tosee change in?
Because I looked across thecountry and I thought it was
just, it was madness.
It's like people had beencompletely brainwashed.
It's like let's get rid ofpolice altogether because
there's some racism element toit.
I was like wait a minute withthe alternative.

(05:51):
What's the alternative?
The alternative is way worse.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
We saw how that played out.
So Seattle, the big majorcities that did defund the
police, minnesota, they've hadto walk that all back.
They've had to like double payto get law enforcement to even
come back, because you have tohave law enforcement, you have
to have law and order in oursociety.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
So they learned their lesson, but now they're paying
a price for it for you know, 10,15 years, you see this big push
and you're like I'm out of here, I'm gonna go somewhere else,
they don't come back right andthen.
So then you're just stuck withwhoever's left and it's like you
know the qualification you wentfrom I need a really high

(06:33):
qualified individual to justwhoever says that they'll raise
their hand right, and then thatthat becomes really difficult to
set these, these standards.
Like I'm not racist, you'rehired it's like wait a minute.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Well, at the end of the day, the boots on the ground
, the police officers and mydeputies.
They need to know that theirgoverning body, whether it's the
elected sheriff or the citycouncil, mayor, that they're
supported, and if you have amayor or city council, that's
anti-police.
That's such a ding to moralethat no one's going to want to
work for you.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, one of the questions I kind of gave you in
advance to think about that was,like you know, building morale
within the police force.
Cause it's a tough job, man,it's a tough job I had.
I had a friend this is backwhen I was living in California
and he worked at the Irvine PDand he, it was a no response, it
was a a call to check onsomebody's you know if they're

(07:26):
okay a wellness call, welfarecheck, welfare check, and the
guy had been dead for probablylike a week, so he's out bloated
and he like he came back and hewas telling me like how much
that impacted in like the smelland in the house and everything
and it's, it's tough, it's badman, it's it's hard to like
think the personality that takesbecause you think they're just
cops that are just writingtickets right, pulling people

(07:47):
over.
But you know, even in thissmall town stuff like that
happens and there's there's alot of emotional like drain that
happens on police officers.
So that morale, keeping moraleup within the the force, seems
like something you have toactively do all the time Is
there.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, I know like for us in St George, we've really
tried to focus on creating awelcoming culture for our
employees.
Um, it seems like lawenforcement.
Even in my career.
It's changed a lot, you know,compared to when I first started
and you, you had thesechallenging calls and you'd feel
these emotions and and kind ofthe the.

(08:24):
The idea sometimes was likedon't get emotional, you get.
You know they're going to thinkyou're crazy, they're going to
think I need to go to acounselor and then they'll get
fired from the job.
And so now, though, we we makeit very much a part of of our
culture and you know we've forour officers, we mandate every
year they go through and get atalk with a counselor.
We give them an hour.

(08:45):
They're paid for it, they don'thave to say anything, but at
least we get them in the door.
We have a peer support team inour department to help with some
of the more senior officers tomentor the more junior officers.
We really try and focus onoverall wellness.
For years it was just physicalwellness and being physically
fit for the job, but now we'reseeing a transition and that
there's such a need for just awell-rounded wellness of a

(09:08):
person and just taking lawenforcement away from it.
Life's stressful, right, andpeople are stressed, and so
anything we can do to try andhelp minimize that stress and so
we provide a lot of training wereally try and help our
officers cope with, you know,whether it's work-related stress
or personal stress we want tomake sure that they're.

(09:29):
Look, my job is the, or my goalas the chief.
I want to be able to getofficers through their career
right.
I don't want to.
It's expensive to have to hireand train and I'd much rather
retain people.
And so if we can prevent theseproblems from arising where they
feel like they have to leavethe job, then we we certainly

(09:49):
want to do that?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, cause it's more than just about money, right,
or being happy in the job.
It's like feeling like you'regrowing in the position, right,
cause that's especially formillennials.
You know, being how long youguys have been on.
Have you seen a difference inthe recruit, the mentalities you
know over the years?
Because it seems like you hadthis tough type individual.
You know, probably the decadesbefore Gen X, maybe, maybe even

(10:14):
the boomer generation, whereit's a little bit more tougher.
You keep your feelings on theinside, you just put your head
down, you just do your job andyou don't talk about it much.
But the millennial generationand the ones behind it, are you
seeing that they need thisencouragement, pat on the back?
Is there a little bit more ofthat that is required now than
it was before?
Or is the personality of apolice officer just kind of

(10:35):
typically alpha male types thatthey don't really do that?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
I think we've seen a change.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
I think it's a little of both.
So naturally I think we areseeing some that are those type
A personalities.
They're just, they were bornfor the job, right, but then at
the horrific sites right, deadpeople, kids that are victimized

(11:06):
.
Back when I started in themid-90s so 1996 is when I first
started as a police officer thatwas the culture.
You suppress it, you keep itdown, you're a tough guy.
But now we've seen a 180 withthat culture.
Change with peer support groupsand encouraging counsel.
Change with peer support groupsand encouraging counseling yeah

(11:30):
, that is a change.
But I think naturally you'regoing to see the guys that want
to be SWAT cops or bomb techs orwhatever.
You're already going to have apercentage of those types, but
we have seen the numbers changeto where you do have to pat them
on the back a little bit more,yeah, and recognition is huge.
So that's one thing that Ithink both of our agencies do is
anytime you know you got alife-saving award or a medal of

(11:52):
merit or a commendation letter.
So we're hyper-focused onpaying attention to what our
people are doing so we canrecognize them and I think that
means the world to them to havethe chief or the sheriff
personally, come up to him andgive him an award and a little
plaque they can put on theirwall at home.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, so how long have you been chief?

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Five years, march of 2020.
And what'd you do before that?
I was the deputy chief forabout 18 months and then,
previous to that, I was acaptain and then, previous to
that, a lieutenant.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So I've come up through the ranks in st george
so as like a captain, likewhat's the job role of the
captain you're in charge of,like you're in charge of, so
every department's structured alittle bit differently, or an
office, you know, in thesheriff's office, but um, so in
my department you have officersand detectives, which are kind
of the line staff.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Then the next level up is sergeant, and sergeants
work in detectives, they work inpatrol.
So varying levels are kind ofyour first line supervision.
Then you have a lieutenant andthen a captain Captains in the
St George Police Departmentthey're division commanders and
so right now we have threedivisions.
We have patrol administrationand special operations.
We have a captain that overseeseach of those divisions and

(13:03):
they help with the budgeting.
So when it comes time I can'tbudget for the entire department
.
It's far too big of a task andso.
I have these captains that canhelp me with the budgeting, the
administrative issues that comeup, and then also there are a
little bit more of theoperations.
Right and handle that.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
And then you have the deputy chief, which is just
under me and then then me as thechief.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
So, and then for the sheriff's department, for the
County, what is it?
What does that structure kindof look like?
Um, so, so I'm, uh, the electedsheriff, so I'm up every four
years.
I've been in a sheriff justover three and a half years now,
but uh, for me I've got myselfas the sheriff and then I have
one under sheriff that that cansign my name and act as me if
I'm not available, and then Ihave three division chiefs.
So, unlike Chief Whitehead, Iam statutorily obligated to run

(13:54):
our county jail, which is a bigundertaking.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, I don't envy the sheriff, that's the one area
.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I'll always say I'm glad you're the sheriff, the
jailing is tough yeah the onearea I'll always say the jail.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
I'm glad you're the sheriff.
The jailing is a tough is it'stough, yeah, so two.
So I have 206 employees, buttwo-thirds of those are running
jail operations, correctionstaff, um, but as far as the,
the order, the structure, so Ihave the undersheriff, then I
have three chiefs, so I havethree separate divisions the
patrol division, the correctionsdivision, then a support
division, which is supportsupport division is like court
security, transporting inmates,running the kitchen work crews.

(14:29):
You'll see inmates picking uptrash on the side of the road
but, yeah, only a third of myemployees you actually see out
on the streets are detectives.
With the drug task force, anexample.
So we use inmate labor to cookmeals, an example.
So we use inmate labor to cookmeals.
We cooked 471,000 meals lastyear a lot of food.
Luckily I have the average costper meal to $1.85.

(14:52):
Nice, and that's for it's likea, it's a mini city, so anything
you'll need on the outside, wehave to provide medical services
.
So, even though by default I'ma law enforcement agency right,

(15:13):
but I have.
But I have 12 full-time nurses,I have three licensed clinical
social workers, I have acontracted doctor things that
you wouldn't think that I wouldhave my hands in, but I do.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, yeah.
And so how many inmates arethere in any given time?

Speaker 3 (15:27):
at the About 460 is where we like to keep it.
Anything higher than that.
We're doing an expansion now a$25 million expansion.
That's going to add about 85more beds with growth.
So when that when the jail wasfirst built in 1998, so about a
500-bed facility it was $10.5million to build in 1998.

(15:49):
We're doing an 80-bed expansion, we're about $25 million.
But in 1998, when the jail wasbuilt, the idea was the county
size.
We would house about 100 countyinmates but then we would house
350 state inmates.
So the state is paying thecounty to house inmates that
have been sentenced to the stateprison.
So it's a revenue generator forthe county.

(16:11):
Now, 25 years later, thoseroles have reversed.
Now I have 350 county inmatesand only 100 state inmates.
So that's just something I canpoint to.
With the growth over the yearsthat we're having to house a lot
more county inmates.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
So, um, thinking about that, how, how that growth
?
I could go a couple ofdifferent directions.
Let me take a step back though,Furthers.
Where, when did you decide?
What'd you do before you ran tobe the sheriff?

Speaker 3 (16:37):
I've worked for the sheriff's office since 99.
I started with Washington cityin 1996, which Washington city
in 1996 is about.
What Lavergan is now?
Yeah, so uh, in 19,000 people.
Yeah, ish, not much.
Um, it was a big deal when wehad an Albertsons come in, yeah,
so, yeah, uh, well, or Walmartis that used to just be all

(16:58):
desert bushes out there.
I remember chasing a few guysthrough there, but before
Walmart was even there.
Um, so I started, uh, incorrections with the sheriff's
office.
That's kind of where everybodystarts working in the jail.
But I had previous patrolexperience, so I only worked in
the jail for 14 months, butduring that time I at least
received my correctionscertification.

(17:18):
So in law enforcement there'sdifferent certification
depending on what route you go.
So then I went out to patrol in2000 with the county.
I worked as a sergeant inpatrol and investigations, then
a lieutenant over investigations, then I was the chief deputy
over patrol for four years andthen, when Sheriff Pulsifer he

(17:39):
ended up getting sick withcancer and needed to retire, he
made me the undersheriff forabout six weeks and then there
was a special election and thenI became the sheriff.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Oh, nice yeah.
So when's your election?
You're elected every four years.
You would have been just lastyear, right, or two years ago.
Two years ago.
Two years ago.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah.
So I'm just over two years inmy first four year cycle.
So next year would be campaignseason, four-year cycle.
So next next year would becampaign season.
I would get sworn in again injanuary of 27 I'm 27, so was it
was the?

Speaker 2 (18:08):
because I can't help but think did you anybody run
against you?

Speaker 3 (18:11):
um, I did have one one of my lieutenants running
against me in the specialelection.
Uh, ended up getting about like60 or sorry, 76 percent of the
vote and that.
So I didn't have anybody runagainst me in the primary, oh
yeah okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
So, thinking about, because you don't have to run
for office, you get appointed bythe mayor, right, correct, yeah
.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
And so he's every day yeah every day.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
He's running for your job all the time.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, no, it's so.
The way it works is I'mappointed by the mayor at the
majority vote of the citycouncil.
Okay, and so you know, if thecity council were to come in and
decide they wanted to go adifferent direction technically,
I think, and every city has alittle bit different it's maybe
written in their ordinance alittle bit differently, but,

(18:55):
yeah, a majority council votecould potentially have me
removed.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, so you're kind of answering to the people as
well as the ones who areappointing you, right?
Because if the city's upsetwith how the policing is being
done, they're going to go to thecity council.
The city council is going to belooking at the sheriff like,
hey, are you actually doing this?
Is this matching?
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:15):
the chief.
Yeah, that's a lot of timesthere's worries I think some
people have about having anunelected police agency there
there.
I know there's a lot of debateout there about this I mean, you
can argue both sides, I think.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I think you probably easily argue both sides, sure?

Speaker 1 (19:30):
so it's almost like and I think there are pros and
constables.
But you know, like I said, Ithink, saint george,
traditionally, if you look atthe way we've policed, uh, our,
our political, uhrepresentatives don't really get
involved in our department.
We've been very fortunate inthat they hire I feel like they

(19:51):
hire good police chiefs.
Now I'm probably one of theweaker leaks out of this Right.
But they've picked good peopleand typically those chiefs have
put in good administrations.
They, you know, they run a verytight ship.
They have, you know, theofficers do a very good job and
so we really haven't had.
I look, I have some colleaguesand friends in other states and

(20:13):
other cities and man, I hearabout the, especially when you
start getting some politicianswant favors or they want oh hey,
my kid got arrested for thisand we got to fix that Crazy.
That's where sometimes it getsa little difficult, it gets
dicey.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
So yeah, but don't deal with that here, thank
goodness?
Yeah, I agree, and as wecontinue to grow, things like
that, you know, are going tocome up Eventually.
Things like that come up, butyou just got to deal with them
as they come around.
So, as the residential growthnumber has continued to grow,
you know what?
What have you had to like adapt?
So like adapting and changingto managing.

(20:48):
You know you have I need thismany officers on their beat.
You know patrol officers out inthe public.
You know special operations.
You have all these differentthings that you might need that
you didn't, at one point in timeyou didn't need, and now you do
need.
Where are we at in that growth?
Do you feel like we're stillcatching up for our growth,
cause it happens so quickly?
Do you feel like um, staffingand having the different

(21:12):
departments that you need as wegrow?
Do you feel like we're keepingup with that?
Um, not to say that it's like,well, if we're not keeping up,
it's your fault, but uh, butjust thinking of like you're
you're going to be makingprogress, right, but just
thinking of like you're going tobe making progress right.
We're not going to always, we'dlike to be in front of it all
the time.
But are we actually in front ofit or are we still kind of
playing catch up?
Since this last big residentialgrowth boom, at least in St

(21:32):
George or countywide, I knowcounty, you know the county
management has gotten quite big.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
We're constantly looking at the needs of the
community and right nowcountywide, I feel pretty
comfortable.
I think we've added to the DrugTask Force over the years.
We've added to the gang unitover the years.
So as problems arise we arereacting and we're suppressing a
lot of those, particularly onthe gang side.
So in the 2000s we had a lot ofHispanic gangs.

(22:03):
We end up.
We don't have that issueanymore right now.
Like our focus is outlawmotorcycle gangs that are trying
to claim Washington County astheir territory.
But anytime we get a flare up,our suppression efforts have
been really good to where ithasn't become a real big problem
.
But we have to continue thatsuppression because once it
becomes a problem it's reallyhard to walk that back.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, it seems like you let it take root and then
it's like you let a little bitof weeds in the yard and then
all of a sudden it's a ton andthen it's a lot more difficult
to kind of put it down.
So what do you think on the StGeorge side?

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well, that's what I think has really been great
about you look at lawenforcement generally in the
county wide.
About you.
Look at law enforcementgenerally in the county wide.
You know we participate verywell together and we have a task
force that we can focus on someof these, because crime doesn't
really respect boundaries,right yeah right crime that's
happening in saint george isgoing to bleed over into other
communities, and so that's whereit's been great to have other
supportive agencies in the inthe county that want are willing

(23:01):
to come together and focus onthese.
You know task forces are really.
You're able to do a lot morework when you all put your heads
together and collaborate.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Joint operations yeah .

Speaker 1 (23:11):
St George.
I think we're doing better.
You know, if you would haveasked me this just right around
COVID 2021, 2022, st George, Ifelt like we were needing some
resources and we've hired.
So I actually looked this upand prepped for this.
So we have hired.
Let's see, I thought I had 41positions since 2021.

(23:35):
Now that's sworn in civilianthroughout our department, but
that's that's significant growthin our department and so that's
not only been keeping up butalso catching up, I think, from
where we got behind and uh, Ithink you have churn as well,
you have turnover as well, soit's not just like adding to it.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
You have some people that are leaving and you got to
fill those slots.
Plus, you need to add some ontop of it turnovers probably
about 10 is kind of where wherewe seem to see it.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
So not not too bad, um, but, yeah, so it's.
But I think we're gettingcaught up now.
We still have some areas I feellike we need to do a little bit
better in, but we're.
I don't think we're having togrow at the pace we have the
last three years, yeah.
So, uh, interesting thing aboutsaint george is we've got a lot

(24:18):
sometimes where other cities andsometimes I'll use a comparison
like the Provo city, provo cityuh, most of their city is just
all smashed together, right,yeah, um, st George, we're kind
of unique in that we have a lotof open space and I'm I'm kind
of whining about this.
The sheriff's like, oh, welcometo my world.
But we have this open spacebetween several of our

(24:38):
communities and subdivisions inthe city, and so one of the big
things we try and focus on inpublic safety is response times
and make sure that we haveappropriate response times,
especially for those highpriority calls.
And it becomes challenging.
Most of our population, most ofour calls, is in the downtown
area, but now we've got downalong SR7, we've got several
large communities.

(24:59):
Sometimes our response times geta little bit long and so we've
done some redistricting with ourarea adjustments, trying to
stage officers moreappropriately, as we've seen
this growth.
But again, it's trying to keepup with those changes and always
looking to find ways to be moreefficient.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I didn't think about this until just now.
If there's anybody that canactually has like a right to
complain about the traffic, it'sthe police officers.
Like, if I get a call and I gotto go, I got to go to the on
Dixie Drive and it's threethirty Right, it's like, even
with your sirens going, you knowyou're trying to get through,
you got that median in themiddle, you can't go left or

(25:38):
right, you can't get past.
You know, if anybody has aright to complain, to be you
guys.
So what, what?
I mean, what's that feeling on?
You know, as traffic's gone,you know staging officers.
I guess that that's kind of achallenge.
But, um, do you feel likethere's there's a actual issue
with the traffic?
Do?

Speaker 1 (25:54):
you really, I think anybody that lives in the area
or visits here for more than Idon't think I don't think it's
that big of a deal so becauseI'm from southern california, so
like that's the difference iswhat you know, what context you
bring now if I'm from the laarea or even vegas or salt lake.
Yeah, our traffic, but, but forus, a city our size, there's
congestion issues, you know, andI think, uh, they're, they're.

(26:14):
At some point we're hopefullygoing to be able to expand.
I know there are a lot of roadsin the works, some arterial
roadways that we probably needto help alleviate some of the
congestion.
But even taking aside just thevolume of the traffic, the
concern I get is theinattentiveness, the selfishness
, the distracted driving.

(26:35):
I mean, we see it all the time.
I drive an unmarked vehicle,right, and if I stopped every
person that I saw on a cellphone from the office to my
house, which is a 15-minutecommute, it'd take me two hours
to get from one place to theother, because people are, just.
I mean, we've become soconnected through these
electronic devices, right, Imean we've become so connected

(26:55):
through these electronic devices, right, and now the cars they
drive themselves, and even thecar I drive, it's not a
self-driving, but it'll keep mein the lanes, you know, it
vibrates and the steering wheeladjusts, and so now we think, oh
, the car's going to do it forme, so maybe I can just start
doing this task or that taskyeah.
Yeah, so we see that.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
I was looking at my map, I was looking at directions
.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, that to me is the bigger problem over the
volume of the traffic is justthe oh it's turning, I know it's
going to turn red, but I canjust sneak through and you know,
then the other traffic they'lllet me go, and the red light
runners, it's.
You know, we see that a lotyeah.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, there's a lot of traffic.
We have a lot of trafficaccident type stuff, which is
unfortunate, especially withkids on bikes too, and I know
there's.
You know I have this.
I have the love for the bikelanes and things like that, but
that becomes a really, a reallydifficult thing for you guys to
manage is is, you know, seeingso many pedestrians on the side,

(27:53):
but you can already tell likedrivers are already distracted
with other drivers, much lesspedestrians that you can't
really see as much.
So do you feel like you know,are there some different ways
that we could do bike lanes andthings like that, that that we
haven't thought about?

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Personally, I think in St George, uh, and maybe it's
Utah generally, and some ofthis goes back to, like the
original settlers, right, I'veheard, and I don't know if this
is even the truth, but when theyoriginally platted out St
George City, if you look atdowntown St George, the roads
are really wide, and I heardthat was so that they could turn
the horse carriages or thebuggies or whatever the

(28:31):
horse-drawn vehicles, so theycould turn them around and not
have to back them up.
And so we've got these reallywide roads.
Well, you see, with vehiculartraffic, the wider the road, the
more inviting it is to gofaster speeds, right, and so you
could have a really wide road.
In fact, we see this at times,some of our wide residential
streets, and the speed limit is,of course, only 25, but people

(28:53):
feel like, oh, the road, theroad's wide, and so, and so then
you start introducing kids with, you know, playing on the on
the sidewalks or playing in thestreet, even sometimes all these
electric devices now and thoseget in the street and and it
just becomes so you start havingthese conflicts where sometimes
I worry that maybe we need tolook at doing some things

(29:15):
differently with you.
You know separating in ourroadways.
You know pedestrians andbicyclists from the motoring
public, because it doessometimes it just gets.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
It seems like there's just a lot of points, of a lot
of areas where there can bemistakes made, where, if I think
, maybe some design could belooked at differently.
Look, I want to be able todrive my car right, yeah, and I
think a lot of people, butthere's also a good segment of
our population and that seems tobe growing.
A lot of people want to bikeand they want to commute on
things other than in cars, andso I think we have to be

(29:51):
somewhat open to those needs inour community.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, I'm in favor of , uh, having downtown slow down.
Like, how do we get downtown StGeorge to slow down and
increase the density?
Because I think there there's a, there's this community, a
collective community elementthat comes in, is like, as you
get more dense but you put theminto, let's say, the apartments
out in Washington, offtelelegraph or I mean even some

(30:16):
aspects of desert color.
You know, looking at desertcolor in the mixed housing types
where you have higher densityand low density, single family,
you know townhomes, you havethis big mix of different stuff
in there, but in downtown it'sjust homes and then you have
commercial where, if we couldget more dense and get people
walking around and have have a,a, a slowing the traffic down

(30:37):
down the Boulevard, narrowerstreets, like that kind of a
thing slows, slows traffic down.
Um, I think it builds communityinvolvement when you can see
your neighbors and you can talkto the people that are around
you and not so stuck in.
You know social media and allthe getting people outside.
I think.
I think there's a lot of valueto that within the community.
But it makes um, the higherdensity makes policing difficult

(30:58):
too, you know, and so and Ihear, you know, I hear a lot of
people speak to the contrary.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
They're like you know , I want to have my big lots and
I want my wide streets and Iwant to be able to drive my full
sized, whatever the truck is.
And so I get it.
And I don't know that anybody'snecessarily right or wrong, but
some of that's where I thinkthese difficult decisions fall
back on our elected officials todecide.
How does this city look movinginto the future, because the

(31:23):
growth it's going to grow.
How do we want that growth tolook?

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, what do we want it to look like?

Speaker 1 (31:28):
And then sometimes us as public safety, we're caught
trying to help keep people safe,you know, in inappropriate ways
.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, that makes sense.
So if we look at so you talkedabout, like the motorcycle gangs
, what are some of the other?
Like you know, I'm I'm reallykind of concerned.
I have young kids, nine andunder three, three boys, and so
I've seen a lot of articlesabout abductions.
I think there's been a couplejust in the last couple of weeks
of like an attempted abductionand then one where a girl was

(31:59):
abducted and she was recoveredlike an hour later, which kudos
to whoever the department wasthat did that.
Are you seeing there's a risingtrend in certain criminal
activity just in this moment oftime, Because obviously in some
years gang activity is going tobe more prevalent and in other
years other types of activityare going to be more prevalent.

(32:19):
Are you seeing any specificcriminal trends that at least
the public should just be awareof and be more vigilant towards,
Because you guys can't do it,you can't be everywhere always.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
I think with growth you're naturally going to see
crime increase.
We live in a low crime county,right, so we're doing a good job
.
But I don't think there'sthere's any magic bullet that's
going to say oh we're, we'regoing to just cut crime from
growing with with growth.
But yeah, one thing I pointedto is, you know, 15 years ago,
st george city, washingtoncounty, whatever we, we might

(32:51):
have a homicide every two orthree years and now we're having
three to five in a year.
So aggravated assaults havegone up.
So those are some things that Ican see.
That man, in the last 15 yearswe're seeing crimes against
people to the aggravated assaultside up to homicide.
That has increased with thegrowth.
But when you go from 55,000 toover 200,000 in the county,

(33:13):
that's just part of what comeswith growth.
Thousand to over 200,000 in thecounty yeah, that's just part
of what comes with growth.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
People coming from other states that you know came
from high crime neighborhoodsand maybe some gang involvements
and things like that.
Yeah, the um, the.
I know we kind of have importedcrime right Cause I've heard,
especially like in the nationalparks and like the parking areas
for the state parks and stufflike that, where they'll have,
you know, gangs come up fromVegas and then they'll, they'll
hit a bunch of cars all at onceand I feel like a few years ago
I was hearing that quite often.

(33:42):
I don't know if that's is thattrend continued?
Is that still something thatyou guys are battling on a
regular basis?
It?

Speaker 3 (33:47):
is.
I saw I caught like a travelingcrime wave.
They're usually from otherstates or Vegas.
You know, being close proximityto Vegas doesn't help us out in
that regard, but they'll.
They'll come into theneighborhood, they'll go to a
gym parking lot or a parks nocandy gets hit.
You know, busting windows out.
They're looking for creditcards.
They'll immediately take thosecredit cards to Walmart, get

(34:08):
prepaid visas.
So then the money's clean andthey'll or retail thefting.
Yeah, just traveling throughwith I-15 coming through, it
brings everything with big drugloads.
You know, 60,000 fentanyl pillsor 30 pounds of meth in one car
.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, the fortunate thing, kind of
going back to like the peoplecrimes and the homicides and the
ag assaults and those types ofthings.
One thing that I think is stillcool.
Though you look at you compareus to any other community or
county or metropolitan areathroughout the country for the
you know, similar 200,000population, I still feel like we

(34:47):
have a relatively low crimerate.
Oh for sure, you know.
And so again, hats off to ourofficers and deputies, our
communities that are, you know,they don't let that stuff fly.
We really are still veryfortunate here.
I think the biggest thing inthe city that we see are, you
know, the drugs are becoming anissue.
Unfortunately, property crimesare always, always, seem to be

(35:07):
an issue.
A lot of those are just crimesof opportunity.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, some people Amazon thefts.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
I still have family members I still have family
members that leave their houseand go somewhere and leave their
doors unlocked.
You know it's like why do youdo my?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
I deal with that, with the small communities like
enterprise.
Yeah, you know they're, they're.
They leave their doors unlocked, their cars unlocked, and so
when one of these travelingcrime sprees goes to a community
like that, they get hit reallyhard.
Do you hammer um?

Speaker 2 (35:33):
yeah, the yeah it's it's it, and so it's, it's kind
of.
It's kind of one of thosethings is you.
The only way we learn as acommunity is being aware of when
it's happening, Right, and so,uh, when I, when I look online
and you look at you know what'sthe crime rate in Southern Utah,
some, some websites will giveus an A, you know an A, or an A
minus or something like that.
And then some will give us a C,like I, I I sifted through so

(35:55):
many different websites, liketrying to be like okay, what's
the number, and then I found theBureau of Criminal
Identification and so I was ableto search by County and find
like hey, here's the crimes byoffense, and then it goes back.
You can go back like five years.
Yeah, Um, do you guys have likea, a public reporting, to kind
of give like here's the data sothat the public can be aware of

(36:15):
stuff like that?

Speaker 1 (36:16):
So all of our numbers I think statewide get reported
to the state.
You can go to the state websiteand you can look at each.
You can look at it broken downby county, by municipality.
There's different criteriayears or months or days and all
that data is available on theUtahgov website Because we all

(36:36):
report our information to thestate and then it gets uploaded
there.
So that's kind of nice.
So people throughout the statecan go to and look at crime data
the one thing to keep in mindsometimes crime stats drive me
crazy because it's like duisthey were driving me crazy
because I'm like yeah, so it'sit's subjective number one, but
number two, uh.
So say, last year St Georgearrests 1,000 people for DUI and

(37:00):
we realize that you know weprobably got a problem.
And so the next year I take twoofficers and say I want you
guys to go focus on DUIs for thewhole next year.
What does it look like?
When they start arrestingpeople, they're going to arrest
more people, right?
So now it goes up to 2,000arrests a year.
So it looks like we've had thishuge increase in DUIs.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Well, it's not that there's more drunk drivers on
the road You're just catchingmore, you're catching them more,
and so that's what happens alot of times.
That's what I was looking at.
I was looking at the data.
I was like this is eithertelling me one of two things is
we were doing a poor job at itbefore and now control, and it's

(37:39):
it's potentially getting awayfrom us.
But even if you look back, likesimple assaults is like the
best number and this this is onthat state website that I'm
looking at you know there was uh15, 15,000 simple assaults in
2020, uh 17,021, 17,022, justover 18,000.
So we're like growing, but notreally significantly.
You know, year over year, the2024 was barely different than
2023.

(38:00):
So it's like there's not reallyone single category that I can
see is like, hey, we have thislike spike, spike in in criminal
behavior, and so that's whereI'm looking at.
I'm like OK, but I don't know,is this just because this is how
many officers we can help toprocess this many deals, or is
it that this, this many offenses, is just you know, what would
they have?

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Probably a little of both, right?

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, it's probably the other thing to consider when
you look at the crime stats.
You brought up kidnapping,right?
Um, actual non uh, the wheresomeone kidnaps and abducts an
unknown person very rare here,right?
yeah, it's normally likesomebody who knows somebody it's
usually a family member, butremember those also include
custodial interference cases andthere's a lot of others that

(38:42):
get lumped into that crimebecause they can't have a crime
category for every single crimescenario a lot of these, they
lump them together and so whereit may look, you know, I think
in saint george I was looking atthe data and it had increased,
you know, looked significant,went from like 30.
We were kind of 30 on averageand then it's now it's up to
like 50 this last year.
And some of that is, you know,going back without sifting

(39:04):
through the data and saying, isthat like I didn't bring my kid
home at the prescribed time,when the divorce decree or the
custodial agreement saysotherwise, that may fall under
that criteria.
And so is it really kidnappingsor are there other things in
play that you know, sometimes weget a little bit worked up over
the actual data when we don'thave all the information.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
I think it's a it's a tough thing too to have.
The conversation too is likewe're we're having a podcast,
trying to trying to, you know,flush out some of these things.
It's like, well, I don't wantto like panic the community and
be like, hey, yeah, there's,there's a bunch of kidnappings
happening, right, so I can seehow they're.
Like there's this balancebetween you don't want to stoke
panic and fear over things thatare happening, and it's a
balance of okay, but how do wedisclose and make, make the

(39:47):
public aware of some of thesethings?
You guys do a lot of outreach.
I know you have a lot ofdifferent programs to bridge the
gap between the law enforcementand the community.
Maybe help me understand assomebody who's not from here.
Like they're thinking aboutmoving to Southern Utah.
Like how does the policingcommunity, both in the sheriff
and St George, how do they getinvolved in the community?

(40:09):
What are some of those programs?
So for us, we do the sheriff'slike I just keep the prisoners
in the prison.
I just don't let the prisonersout.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
We do have some unique things, like our recovery
court.
We used to call it drug court,so that's something that the
sheriff's office is involved in.
So not only are we tackling thedrug problem by providing
deputies in the drug task forcethat are going after the dealers
and the users, but we're alsoin the long-term rehab process,
which a drug court compared toor recovery court.

(40:39):
We're calling it um morepolitically correct Right.
Uh, clarification though right,it's like it's not just about
the drug.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
It's about like, how do we get these people that are?

Speaker 3 (40:46):
how do we get them employed and stable and take
care of themselves and theirfamily?
So it's it's a year longprogram.
Um, we usually run about 60clients in there, but I have
four full-time deputies thatthat's all they do is helping
that program for the long-termsuccess.
So the benefit to me lower thelikelihood of having to take up

(41:09):
jail space too right, and anyprogram that will help somebody
get on the straight and narrowI'm going to support.
But that's one one way that'smore of a community oriented.
That's just not taking peopleto jail or writing tickets that
we care about the community.
We want to help you in yourrecovery and it's um drug court
or recovery court.
Compared to private in-housetreatment, it has a 30% higher

(41:33):
success rate.
So that's good.
The badge means something um,instant sanctions, so if you
mess up you're going to go spendthe night in jail.
Yeah, so that's that's whatmakes that program successful.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
And I want to.
I want to we're going to comeback to St George's programs,
but there's there's been a lotof conversation, especially in
my demographic and themillennial group, is that it's
like the DARE program when wewere kids didn't necessarily
have the results that it wasintended to have.
Right Is lowering drug usageover time, right, and so the war

(42:04):
on drugs seems to be thisnever-ending war.
It's like this endless battle.
And so, from your perspective,looking at like the users and
the dealers, do you find thatyou're putting more attention on
really trying to skip the userand be more focused on how do we
, how do we stop the, thedealers, how do we try to, you

(42:26):
know, cut off the, thedistribution of it, or is it is
it, is it a balance where you'relike, well, I mean, you're on
meth right now and you have someon your pocket, in your pocket,
I have to take you, you in.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
So our drug task force that is, their focus is
finding the dealers is a deal,and they'll.
They'll usually, you know, havemultiple instances before they
make an arrest.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
So they're, they're, uh building as much of a yeah,
so they don't have time to dealwith users, they just don't.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
They have.
They have plenty to do justgoing after dealers so.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
So do you think that maybe the punishment could you
use a bigger stick?
Do you think, like using abigger stick would be more of a
deterrent?

Speaker 3 (43:04):
We used to have a bigger stick, so was it 2014-ish
JRI?
So this kind of gets a littlefrustrated with the justice
system in general.
So several years before Utahlooked at it, california had
done it.
So Utah could have said, hey,we see that California basically
decriminalized a lot of yourhard drug possession.
So meth, methamphetamine,fentanyl, cocaine, the hard

(43:28):
stuff, pretty much everythingbut weed right.
So they took those fromfelonies to misdemeanors, right.
So they took those fromfelonies to misdemeanors.
So now the officer literallyhas, if you have meth on you,
the officer could decide towrite you a class A misdemeanor
citation and send down your wayrather than a trip to jail.
So that's, that's a little bitof frustration.
On the bigger stick, like Imentioned with the drug court or

(43:49):
recovery court program, isthere needs to be consequences
and those consequences need tobe immediate to get people's
attention.
Needs to be consequences andthose consequences need to be
immediate to get people'sattention.
So, um, prior to JRI.
So the justice reinventioninitiative readjustment, justice
, reinvestment Okay Initiative.
So there were some good thingsabout that, some funding for a
treatment centers, rehabfacilities, so that's.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
That's a good post, jri Post, you know uh criminal
activity.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
So initially, when JRI came in, our drug court
participant numbers went waydown because there wasn't like a
zero to five prison sentencehanging over their head.
So a lot of people go into thatprogram because it's either you
go to this program or you'regoing to prison.
Well, that prison incentive, Iguess, went away and so we saw
our numbers reduced.
So now you have to have thatthird possession charge for it

(44:36):
to be enhanced to a felony.
So over the last four years orso people have caught up to that
.
So they're on their third orfourth possession charge.
So now they're looking atfelony, now they're looking at
potential prison time.
So now our drug court numbers.
We have people waiting to getin to that program now.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
So and all the while, all the while, it was like
three times more resources toget them to the same point, as
if we would have just startedright out of the gate.
You got to go to jail fourtimes for for you to start
taking it serious.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
So that's a little bit of frustration there.
Even the courts I've seen so ona on a County inmate judges are
typically can sentence thatindividual to 365 days in a
county jail.
Historically, anything overthat they would go to prison on
like a zero to five or a five to10 or life, whatever it may be.

(45:26):
So now, now, if a judgesentences somebody on a zero to
five, once the judge sentencedthem, then it's 100% completely
in the board of pardons handsWell with a lack of prison space
.
Even with the new prison, theyoutgrew it before they even
moved into it.
The local judges are beingfrustrated because they're doing

(45:46):
a zero to five.
They're wanting to see thisperson spend some time in prison
while they're out in five orsix months because the board of
pardon got to make that decision.
So just just last week I had,uh, I had a judge, uh, so they
can stack charges so they can dothree, 65 for this one, three,
65 for this one.
So I've had a local judge,because of frustration with the
prison, sentence somebody toCounty jail for 1250 days, um,

(46:10):
well beyond the 365 we usuallysee.
So that's, that's um, that'skind of an issue for county tax
dollars can.
Now the state, who has a muchbigger pot for funding, would
pay for that person to be inprison.
But now this judge, out offrustration with the system,
sends them to county jail fortwo or three years.
That's on the local washingtoncounty taxpayer to fund that.

(46:31):
Yeah.
So man, it's kind of got itit's.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's interesting, though, because it's these
little ins and outs, because youknow what the the idea that
it's like, okay, well, we justneed to get these people help,
yeah.
That's like, well, yeah, butthey don't want help.
And so if you don't give themthe carrot or the stick, it's
like, well, if you want help,we'll give you help, right, but
if you don't want help, we stillhave to have some other avenue
to where you're not continuingto degrade the public health and

(46:58):
safety of the people around you.
Because, you know, no matterhow you look at it, somebody
who's swept up in meth or anyany of the hard drugs they
ultimately will result to.
I got to do whatever it takesto get my fix, which goes to
stealing and, you know, whateverit might be definitely
impacting the the greatercommunity.
So it's not this victimlesscrime and it might be once or

(47:19):
twice, but it's the slipperyslope that these hard drugs
slide people down on right.
It's like, how do you?

Speaker 3 (47:25):
I would dare say most of our property crimes are
because the, the addicts, aretrying to feed their habit.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
They're not working nine to five jobs, yeah, so
they've got to find a way, yeah,to to feed their habit, so yeah
and I think we're really luckythat we haven't had, you know,
our we haven't done what otherstates have done, where they've
completely bought into thiscomplete legalization.
Yeah, I mean it's.
You look at the problems theyhave, you know, the needle
dispensaries and all that stuff.

(47:49):
It, oh my gosh, it's chaos insome of these states that have
done that and so luckily wedidn't get to that point.
But even with the JRI, they'restarting to look at maybe making
some adjustments.
But the whole thing I thinkfrom my perspective with JRI is
I think in theory the programworks, but there wasn't enough.
They didn't have enoughresources in place before they

(48:13):
pulled the trigger right, theyjust all of a sudden pulled the
trigger and changed the statutesand there's not resources,
there's not places where peoplecan go and get the counseling,
the help with addiction and allof those things, and a lot of
that fell back on the county andthe county taxpayers and I
think that was a lot offrustration that we experienced,
probably more so the sherifffelt that it was frustrating.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
So do you think, do you think there's like this room
, because I know there's a lotof uh, I hear some negativity
and I I mean even me personallyI think like privatizing jails,
I'm like that just seems likethe like the easiest way to just
slide off into this is aprofitable thing.
So we're going to stuff as manyyou know criminals in there as
we can as a private organization.
So how do you guys feel aboutthis private jailing I know it's

(48:58):
a tough one, it gets reallycomplicated because, we're still
paying for it.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
And if they're a private company, their goal is
to make money.
So quite often in the can andacross the country we see so we
have jail standards we havebecause we have state inmates,
we have the state coming, wehave the state come and do
inspections.
So the private prison, theirgoal is to make money, so their
standards are going to belessened and typically they end
up having a lot of issues.

(49:22):
The feds will come in and shutthem down or oversee their
operations.
So I don't I mean again, we'restill paying for it.
So I think it would the privateprisons would end up costing
the tax dollars more, because atleast we're not trying to make
money off of it, we're justtrying to break even, right?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
You're legitimately just trying to say you're a bad
person, you have to go in thisplace over here.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, Whatever the cost is, we'll cover it but, I'm
not trying to make money offthe deal.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
So I kind of look at it.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
I don't really couldn't weigh much in on the
private jails, but I look at itas maybe a different perspective
going.
How would I feel aboutprivatizing police?
I mean, to me I see a lot ofred flags and a lot of concerns
with that.
Well, I mean, a lot of peoplehave private securities and
things like that, rightBusinesses and I think security
is one thing, but if youprivatize police, some of these

(50:12):
government organizations thattraditionally have been the role
of the government, and now westart looking at privatization,
I don't know.
I think I'd want to do a lot ofdigging and research before I
commit to any of these.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
There would be way too much opportunity for
corruption.
If, again, you're a businessand your end goal is to make
money and your private policeofficer can decide to write
somebody a ticket or not, likewe're not making money off a
citation, right?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
yeah, it's just well then, the elected system, like
private police, seems to me likea we've.
We've gone so far off the railslike there's, there's, there's a
example, but but thinking, butthinking of like okay, well, how
do we make these analogies,like, how do we, how do we solve
the carrot and the stickapproach?
You know, do we make theprisons less desirable?

(50:58):
So it's like the 365 is reallybad, but I, I just I see enough
of like life behind bars, likedocumentaries where I'm like it
seems pretty crappy yeah, itseems like not a place.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
even, uh, even, with the you know, extreme um, um,
not extreme.
Well, continuous inspections.
We have simple things like I ha, I have a dietician that plans
all of our meals because 20years ago an inmate got too fat
in prison and they sued theprison, and so so I have, so I
have to hire a dietician.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
So their caloric intake is just so much to where
they're not going to lose, orit's it's it's that sheriff
Wasn't there, that sheriff in inArizona and he was like
everybody gets a ham sandwich,and then it was like in the
desert.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
What was that?
Yeah, the tent city.
The tent city, it's whatever.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Sheriff.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Arpaio.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Arpaio, joe Arpaio.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Joe, yeah, sheriff, joe, maricopa County.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
So he had.
You know, most of the citizensreally liked it Cause he had
them.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
You know, wear pink jumpsuits and tent cities and
he'd always say if our, if ourmilitary can live in tents these
inmates can live in tents Froma marketing perspective.
If you're like I'm going to,I'm going to market the stick
approach.
Like if you want to go intojail?
This is going to suck, you know.
At least he had it.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
There's a balance, cause at the same time he he was
the sheriff in the country thathad the most outstanding
lawsuits against him because ofsome of that.
So it's a balance, right.
I mean just having your freedomtaken away.
You're in an 8x10 cell.
We get to decide when you eatthree meals a day, but
restrictions.

(52:28):
So we classify each inmate alevel one through four, level
one being the most severe.
Like you're on a homicidecharge, you're going to be a red
jumpsuit and you're going to bein lockdown.
So for 23 hours a day.
And when you do get time tocome out, you get to come out of
your cell and be the only onein that section to watch a
little bit of tv or walk aroundthe day room type thing.

(52:48):
Others, they can watch tv allday.
They can rent movies on atablet, they can buy shoes um,
crazy instant coffee.
So you know that that seems toomuch.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
We need to cut all that stuff out, Sheriff.
What are we doing here?

Speaker 3 (53:02):
So those are the.
Those are a state inmates thatdo they can read a book.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Here you can read a book.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
So they're the ones doing our laundry, cooking our
food, picking up weeds in thecommunity.
Um, it's, it's all.
It's a management thing.
You know like is it?
Is it awesome that they're injail and they can watch TV all
day?
Well, but it's a managementtool for me Right.
So if I can keep them occupied,you know, watching a movie or

(53:27):
reading a book or some yard rectime, oh man, I could, I could
go.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
I have so many.
We can do a whole episode onpolicing because it's it's it's
so fascinating to me, becausethere's, there's this.
You know there's this historybehind jails, right, there's a
history between you know, youhad the sheriff in the town
keeping law and order, and thennow you have these cities, right
, as you described it, and thenhow do you keep order within the

(53:50):
city?
Cause you know being able tocontrol it right.
You order within the citybecause you know being able to
control it right.
You're not it's not a one-to-oneright, there's only so many,
it's like a 50 to one yeah, soit's you have to, and we've
we've heard the stories, we'veseen, you know, riots inside
jails and how, how bad andsideways that can go, and that's
, that's the.
There's a hard red line.
It's like we don't ever want toget anywhere close to that kind
of thing.
So how do you keep the peaceinside?

(54:12):
But we're going to keep.
We're going to keep running.
Um, I, I do want to talk aboutlet's let's talk community
outreach, like St George city,cause I know you guys do quite a
bit, quite a bit of stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, this is where we really have tried to do
better in the last several yearsand we try and partner not just
with us I mean, initially itseems to start with us but we've
also included a lot of ourneighbors.
You know, the sheriff's officeoften participates in a lot of
these events and other policedepartments One of the things
that I'm really proud of and Ican't take any credit for it,

(54:42):
but every summer, You're thechief, you can take credit for
all of it.
No, my job is to dish it all outand give credit where credit's
due.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Oh my gosh, Now the thought slipped me, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Our um.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Spear Academy.
Yeah, you know.
So every year our SROs andthey're the ones that actually
brought this idea to fruitionand work through it, but every,
every summer, we do kind of asummer camp for kids that are
transitioning from elementary tointermediate and then from
intermediate to middle school.
And because we found, as wewere talking to our SROs, that
sometimes those transitions arehard, and because we found, as
we were talking to our SROs thatsometimes those transitions are

(55:16):
hard.
Ros being resource officersright, yes, sros are school
resource officers, and so theycame with this proposal and it's
like no, it totally makes sense.
You know, how can we help kidsdevelop this positive
interaction, these opportunitiesto hang out with the cops,
learn life skills, have fun?
You know, we give them tours ofour vehicles, give them canine
demonstrations.
They, you know, just really,it's a week of an opportunity to

(55:37):
build some rapport and alsoteach them about transitioning
and challenges they may face,who they can go and talk to if
they do have challenges.
And so we do a lot of communityoutreach throughout the year and
it's, I think it's been verybeneficial in our department.
I could go on and list a lot ofthings that we we try to do, um
, and and a lot of this.
Again, I to my officers and mydepartment, I say look, you guys

(56:00):
bring the ideas, let's, let'stry things out of the box,
thinking any ways to involve thecommunity.
Because what happened, uh,particularly even before the
whole George Floyd thing, um,back in 2016, there was the, the
, was it trayvon martin?
anyway, every five years over.
You know, historically for thelast several decades we've had

(56:22):
these where there's a bigflare-ups and people are mad at
the police in those communities.
And so we've tried to do it'slike look, we've got to build
those relationships so that whena shooting or a significant use
of force happens, we've alreadybuilt credibility with the
community and let them kind ofsee what we do and who we are,

(56:42):
so that they know that we're notjust this invading force that's
out there attacking people anddoing things that they shouldn't
be.
And so we try and focus on alot of community outreach in the
city and build thoserelationships.
And I don't feel like wenecessarily need to.
I don't think, you know, if wewere to have an officer involved
in a shooting or any of thosetypes of incidents here, I think

(57:05):
the community overall overallwould come out and support us if
we did the right thing.
But I still think that it'simportant.
People like to feel they, they,they like police and they love
to be part, feel they, they likepolice and and they love to be
part.
Uh, feel like they're part andknow what's going on.
And so our social media, forexample, we we try and have a
very uh, a lot of social mediainfluence.

(57:25):
We're always trying to come upwith new and creative ways to
engage with the community.
Some some things have worked.
Some things haven't worked sowell, but you know it's, it's
just trying to find those waysto to again appeal to different
and and you talk aboutmillennials versus, you know,
gen X, like myself, or or babyboomers, and all of those people
different things appeal to themand so we try and look at

(57:46):
different ways to engage thosedifferent groups and have those
conversations.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
I would say, I would say, um, I would argue, you do
need to do that only becausethere you don't ever know, like
that outreach to the community,you don't know when that next
event thing might happen, right,and and I think, uh, I would
argue, I don't think most peopledo love the police, like they
like the idea of a police, butthen they get pulled over.

(58:10):
They're like I freaking hatethe police.
You know what I mean, or youknow, and so, um, but when they
need them, right, they they'regoing, they want to be able to
trust them in doing that, and soI think that community building
, that community trust and beingvisible within the community, I
think that is important.
And one thing that's uniqueabout Southern Utah versus,
let's say, southern California,where I'm from, is and I didn't

(58:32):
grow up there, so I wasn't a kidthere and so I didn't
necessarily like know a bunch ofneighbors there.
But even my, uh, myfather-in-law, he worked in
garden grove, but he didn't livein garden grove, he lived in
orange, right, and it's, youknow, it's an hour drive away,
and so he wasn't actually likeliving in his community and
patrolling in his community,right, and so it's kind of like

(58:53):
the you.
You know all the policeofficers here, right, you can't
help but know them.
You're going to see them out.
You know my son, he sees theschool resource officer and he's
like, hey, how's it going?
You know, and so there's that,that human interaction here
locally, that they don't get inother areas, like, I would argue
, even up in Utah County.
They're at this point where youknow they can have police
officers that are living, youknow, roughly around their,

(59:14):
their precinct or their, is itprecinct?

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Yeah, Well.
So yeah, Do you live in UtahCounty but you work for Salt
Lake City police?

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Yeah, and so so you're, you're completely kind
of disconnect, disconnected fromthat community.
And so there is this I don'tknow the police in my area where
, here, you actually get to knowwho they are, you know their
families that you know, you knowabout them, and so there's that
natural trust that's kind ofbuilt in.
But I think it's, I think it'ssuper important.
So it's good to see that youguys do it, cause I'm aware of
all of it, but I think a lot ofpeople coming from outside the

(59:42):
area might not know, kind of,some of the things that we do.
Um, okay, we're, I want to.
I want to wrap on.
Your least favorite topic is isthis illegal immigration push
from the president?
Are you seeing because this isa very political slanted moment
in time where it's like, hey,we're going to deport millions

(01:00:03):
of people?
I know for certain that there'sillegal immigrants that are
working in Washington County,and so what are some of the
pressures that you've gottenjust in the last couple of
months from the state, orwhether it's federal mandates,
things like that have you gottenspecific orders to say, hey,
this is how we're handling theillegal immigration, or are you

(01:00:24):
guys going on as business asusual?
It's like this is what we'vealways done.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Maybe I'll go first, go ahead, and I'll give the
nonpolitical answer.
And then I'll let the sheriffclean up if there's anything
that he wants to add.
So for us, I'm pro-immigration,by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Yeah, I'm, pro-immigration.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
So for us, nothing's changed With St George Police
Department.
We have always looked at look,immigration is.
There are laws that governimmigration, but those are
outside the realm of what wetrain our municipal police
officers to be.
There's all kinds of rules anddifferent things.
We have enough to keep us busyon keeping our community safe

(01:01:03):
and, from my perspective, ournumber one priority should be
community safety.
And regardless of who iscommitting crimes in our
community, they're the ones weshould be holding accountable.
And so if someone comes to ourattention, regardless of who is
committing crimes in ourcommunity, they're the ones we
should be holding accountable.
Yeah, and so if someone comesto our attention, regardless of
who they are, regardless oftheir immigration status, we're
going to hold them accountablefor committing crimes.
And now if there's some, somepoint during that process, it's

(01:01:27):
discovered that they may be hereillegally or undocumented, then
we'll let Homeland Securitycome in and we'll let them deal
with that.
But that's not our officersaren't out asking for
immigration papers.
We're not conductingimmigration checkpoints.
That's not our role.
The other thing you have to lookat is one of my biggest fears.
We talk, going back to some ofthese part one, crimes, the sex

(01:01:51):
offenses, the assaults, thoseserious things, what we've seen
in some areas, where you getthis idea that the police are
going to arrest you and haul youaway for immigration issues, we
actually find that those peopleare less likely to report
crimes and so they actuallybecome very soft targets and

(01:02:11):
become victimized by all kindsof horrible things.
And it would just break myheart Some of these little kids
that it's not their fault, thatmaybe they've been brought here
illegally, you know, and nowthey're being victimized or
things are happening and so wewant to try and keep as neutral
as we can when it comes to theimmigration.
Now, certainly, if there's lawsthat we can enforce and we need

(01:02:31):
to be part of that, we will.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
But we want to number .
Our number one priority iscommunity safety and keeping
people safe, regardless of whoit is.
So there hasn't been like anadded you know coming down from
the governor's office or fromyou know a federal agency has
come down and said, hey, we needyou to, you know, focus some
effort into this task that weare.
You know the president'spromised the country like, hey,
we're going to deport all theseillegals.

(01:03:00):
So how do you, how do you,mobilize all law enforcement
from the top down in everyfederal agency?
You haven't.
You haven't seen any differentinitiatives coming in and saying
, hey, we're going to look atthis, uh, and and focus on this
area in a special operationstask force or anything like that
.
No, from us nothing's changed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
We continue to just hold, hold a crime perpetrators.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
It's still early.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
It's still early in the game too, and yeah, and
there may be.
I mean, at some point if therewas a state statute or statutes
that you know we've, that wereenforceable.
But right now it's just.
I mean, you look across thecountry, even the circuit courts
are disagreeing on who can,what the process is and who can
be deported.
I mean, look at all of these.

(01:03:38):
Some are saying that they haveto go through a process, Others
are saying, no, that's prettycrazy.
Right now there's just a lot ofuncertainty out there, and so
we keep our heads down and justfocus on the— To Chief's point.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Just to break it down , there's two systems when we
talk about law.
There's a federal system,there's a state system.
So I, as the sheriff ChiefWhitehead is the chief, and all
of my deputies, his officers wecan only enforce state law.
We can't enforce federal law.
So there's no nexus for us toenforce immigration rules.
It's just not in our wheelhouse, and vice versa.

(01:04:11):
A lot of federal agencies can'tenforce state law.
It's just not in our wheelhouse.
And and vice versa, a lot offederal agencies can enforce
state law.
The biggest thing for me is thesheriff, particularly with jail
operations, and I I want tosupport ice and their mission
and president Trump and hisgoals and, and you know the, the
line in for me is we, we, weneed to be a country of law and
order.
I would agree with legalimmigration if we can expedite

(01:04:32):
that process.
But we need to vet and knowwho's coming to our country.
We need to know that they canprovide for themselves and their
family and they're going to bea benefit to our country.
I'm all for that, 100%.
There are some roadblocks therethat I actually have an
employee that's on a visa andshe's been trying to get
citizenship for years, paid tensof thousands of dollars to an

(01:04:54):
attorney and she's no closer togetting full citizenship today
than she was four years ago.
It's frustrating.
She's a great employee, um,legally working for me and all
that.
Uh, she can't, she couldn't bea certified deputy.
She's civilian staff.
But uh, for, for me, one of theone of the biggest changes is
during the last uhadministration.
Um, for changes is during thelast administration.

(01:05:19):
So for years and years the jailhad a contract with ICE to
house some of their inmates forlonger periods of time, usually
just while their court processis going through or if there's
an ICE hold and they have statecharges.
So they could stay in my jailfor months or years if needed.
Under the last administrationthey made that contract so
difficult that I had to cancelthe contract.
It was putting way too muchliability on me.

(01:05:40):
They had hired twonon-government entities to come
in and do ridiculous inspections.
Like they had to have their ownentrance they had to have Like
a specific soap.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
I heard like there was something like Special
lotion lines.
Special like crazy rules.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I couldn't lock their inmates down if they were
fighting, like without callingand getting their permission
first, which I can't.
I have to be able to manage thejail and part of that is being
able to break up fights and lockinmates down immediately.
So, anyway, we canceled thecontract.
So me and Salt Lake County werethe only ones trying to deal
with them long term.
Now they can hold up to 48hours, but that's not my rules,

(01:06:18):
that's their rules.
So now and when somebody wasbeing booked into jail, we were
always.
They were always screeninganybody coming into jail for
immigration status.
For immigration status andunder the last administration,
so they'd be booked in on statecharges.
Ice would look at them and,instead of putting a hold on

(01:06:39):
them and deporting them, they'dgive them a piece of paper
called a promise to appear incourt because they were asylum
seeking.
So then they were technicallyin the country, legally till
their court date, but theircourt date's eight years down
the road.
Now what's happening is anybodythat's coming in on state
charges being screened and iceis actually putting a hold on
them and deporting them.

(01:06:59):
So anything from dui todomestic violence, simple
assault, so that that's what Icall the low-hanging fruit.
So if you're in the countryillegally and you end up in my
jail, you're going to bedeported so that's a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
That is is happening, correct, that is happening.
So I would say and from what Iunderstood too, it was like from
, uh, from Bush to Obama did thesame thing Ice.
Ice was basically non-effectiveduring Obama and then when
Trump was elected, it was icewas being effective, like they
were allowed to do their job.
And this is from an ice.
I would talk to an ice agent.

(01:07:32):
This is before.
The podcast is probably 2019.
Yeah, right, and he was like itwas crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
just from one administration to the next, it
was like I was able to do my joband then I wasn't able to do my
job exactly, which is just socrazy yeah talk to our local ice
guys uh, had a lot to do, andthen they woke up the next
morning and had nothing to do.
Yeah, for four years.
And then this, this switch wasflicked and then all of a, and
then all of a sudden they'rebusy, busy.
So initially they were doing itaround and they have, you know,

(01:07:59):
what we call like a hot list.
So they're not just going andif you're illegal in the
community and you're going towork and you're taking care of
your family, there's nothingthat's putting you on the radar.
You're going to be here for along time.
Yeah, we're going after thecriminals.
Yeah, here for a long time,we're going after the criminals.
So we literally have files ofpeople that we know that are
illegal in the country, thathave been convicted of serious

(01:08:20):
offenses sex offenses, homicidesand those are on our hot list.
Those are who we areproactively.
I'm having my deputies workwith eye, shoulder to shoulder,
to go and round up that elementin our community.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Yeah, and those are the ones too that you know if
ICE comes to us and they have awarrant, an arrest warrant for
somebody, those we're not goingto turn our backs on.
Look, let me tell you this wehave a lot of.
We have good federalpartnerships here with all of
the three-letter acronyms, andyou know they're great partners
down here.
And one of the things that'sbeen really frustrating to me

(01:08:53):
lately is you see these videos,particularly back east and in
some of the states, where youhave these ICE employees going
in and they're trying to arresta person and you've got all
these people coming out andtrying to interfere with the
arrest.
That's criminal and if we everhad an operation like that and
they requested assistancebecause they felt like there was
propensity for violence, wewould certainly go in there and

(01:09:14):
if people interfered they wouldbe arrested by our officers,
because that's not we let themdo their thing.
But you know there are somepeople in our community that if

(01:09:38):
they come to our attention andthey're committing crimes and
their warrants for their arrest,then they will be arrested.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, yeah, makes sense, it's.
It's a crazy time.
It's a crazy time and as wegrow, I know there's going to be
more and more challenges.
Um, but um, I was.
This was the last question,because then we can wrap,
because it's it's three o'clocknow and I appreciate you guys
giving me an hour on this.
We, we can talk about a lot ofdifferent stuff, yeah, but, uh,
what, what do you feel like yourofficers like, need, like, is

(01:10:05):
it like a vending machine?
Like, is there something thatyou're like man, our guys is it?
I think they all just got newweapons at st george city.
They all got new, new guns.
Like, is there, is theresomething that you guys know
that you're like man?
If I could give this to mypolice officers, I'm trying to.
I'm speaking to the, thewealthy individuals that I know
are listening to this podcastright now.
It's like I want to donate tothe, to the police force of the

(01:10:27):
station.
What do you guys?
You guys are getting a newpolice station.
You're moving into the old cityhall, so yeah, we're.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
we we're getting remodeled, so we'll remodel our
current building and the oldcity hall.
So we'll actually have twobuildings.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
Do they need like?

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
a gym down there.
So that is one of the thingsthat we're looking at and we
would have to budget to fundthat.
You know, there are those typesof things.
Here's the hard thing.
If there were people out therethat were interested, they could
certainly reach out to me.
What do is look through ourbudget and of the items that we
had to cut, maybe that weren'thigh enough on the priority list
, I would start there, um, butas far as people, whether they

(01:10:59):
can you know, monetarily theycan donate or not I think just
recognizing our officers out inthe community, thanking them for
the job that they do, uh, I'lltell you what makes my day when
someone offers to buy me lunch.
You know, it may not seem likea lot, uh, and sometimes some
officers feel, like you know,they don't want people giving
them something based on who theyare, and so they may decline.
But I always tell my officersit's like you know, maybe you

(01:11:22):
should, should allow that whatdid trump say?

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
he's like if he give you a punt, if they give you a
putt, you pick up your ball andyou go to the next hole.
We're just talking about theplane you got you, thank them
and you pick up your ball.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
But I think back to the recognition that the sheriff
talked about earlier on in theshow.
Sometimes we just all need alittle pat on the back, yeah,
you know, and I think the morewe can just really promote our
police and thank them for thejob that they do and be willing
to help out.
When you know things are tough,I think that's really great.
But certainly if people want todonate, we actually have a

(01:11:53):
donation account at the policedepartment that if people want
to come in they can donate.
If they have a pet projectmaybe, hey, your next canine
that you have to purchase wewant this money to go towards
canine or canine supplies.
We have a shelter that weoperate and it gets very costly.
We want this to go towards theshelter needs, and so we
certainly would be open to anyof those donations.
Or someone may just want tocome in and say, hey, here's

(01:12:14):
some money, do with it what youwant, and so I'll let the
sheriff so in my world, sostatutorily the sheriff shall
manage all search and rescues inthe county.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
So search and rescue is a big part of my world.
Yeah, countywide Zion NationalPark even.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
That was part of one.
It's one of the other questionsI want to talk about.
That was part of one.
It's one of the other questions.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
I want to talk about.
There's some give and takethere.
So, anyways, we have about 100volunteers and we don't give
them everything they need.
There is some expense out oftheir own pockets for radios or
ropes or backpacks, I mean.
So we do have community groups.
Rotary Club has been good.
We had Finley for a lot ofyears that donated.
But when we see donations comingin the sheriff's office it's

(01:12:53):
typically search and rescue orour canine program.
Those are the ones thateverybody just wants to help out
and there's always going to bea need there, right?
Radios aren't going to lastforever.
Ropes need to be replaced, justtechnology changing with GPS
units and things like that.
So I think that would be a bigpart of it.
Our canines, you know, chewtoys only last so long.

(01:13:15):
We do have a company in townthat donates the food to our
canines, which we reallyappreciate, but little things
like that.
So we've used some donations tobuild a canine training facility
out at my office.
That's awesome.
You mentioned a gym.
I have a nice gym at my officealready, so we don't need that.
But St George City couldprobably use some help there.
Yeah, uh, but the back to thevolunteer side.

(01:13:36):
So, uh, search and rescue wehave uh, two ground teams, an
East side team and a West sideteam, but then we have technical
rescue, things like high angleuh, swift water dive teams, and
then we also have an EMS team.
So those are the disciplineswithin search and rescue and we
have very dedicated volunteersthat donate, you know, hundreds
of hours a year.

(01:13:56):
During COVID we saw, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
California and Nevada shut down.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
So we saw a huge influx in Washington County with
tourism and we're getting alittle breather right now.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
I think we are.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
So we that.
So that 2021, we had 175rescues.
That doesn't count the rescuesin Zion National Park.
So we do.
Zion National Park is inWashington County.
Ultimately, it is myresponsibility for search and
rescue, but the park has our ownsearch and rescue team which I
rely on.
I would say that if we had todo everything in Washington

(01:14:32):
County, plus what the park woulddo, that double my rescues and
I don't know if I'd be able tokeep up with just volunteers I'd
have to really look seriouslyadding some more full-time staff
or shutting down trails andbeing like you can't.
Yeah, sorry you're done, but wedon't want to do that.
I know we don't, but I meaneven even talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
I've heard you know there's funding cuts like
national parks and things likethat.
I've heard that there there wassome concern with this.
Administration is like cuttingfunding to national parks is
like part of this.
You know waste, fraud and abuseand like there was some worry
there and it's like at a certainpoint there's some dangerous
some dangerous places thatpeople probably just shouldn't
be.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
I heard a little chatter from the park park
ranger up there, the park rangerup there, so they have law
enforcement rangers and thennon-law enforcement rangers, but
they haven't seen any directimpacts to Zion National Park.
They've had some protesters upthere, but they've been peaceful
.
At the park entrance, yeah, butwe haven't seen any cuts there.
I think a lot of it isreevaluating, like needs, right,

(01:15:30):
how many park employees do weactually need?
And let's find that number.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
And so so we're making sure we've got the right
fit financially and to supportthe parks.
So I don't think there's anytalk about shutting down
national parks.
So you've heard a lot about thestate of Utah wanting the
federal government to turn overBLM and Forest Service land.
National parks are neverincluded in that discussion.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Yeah, so we're safe with the zion and yeah, and then
getting all that that land,it's like then now we have to
manage it.
Now, now we actually, now wehave to support those at those.

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
Well, we, we do, man, I mean at the state level,
that's what.
So I think.
So washington county is like 76federal land.
Yep, coincidentally, 74 of mysearch and rescues is on that
federal land, oh, wow.
So I'm, I'm here already, I'mhandling that as the sheriff on
BLM and forest service, they'renot handling it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Yeah, they just need to give us that land back.
Just give it to us.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
Well, I'm.
It would be nice if we theykicked in a little federal on
their land.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
But that's for another day that is Another day
that is All right, guys.
Well, we're going to do a duel,we're going to find and settle
this whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
You can't just concede, you're the chief man
You've got to be like.
No, I could totally be thesheriff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Maybe I could if I was lucky, if you were lucky,
all right guys.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Hey, thanks for coming.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
We'll keep you in mind.
We'll come back and do anotherepisode, maybe in a year or so,
but I appreciate you guysspending the time to do it and
reach out to the community.
Keep up the good work.
Keep safe, thanks.
Thanks a lot.
Hope you enjoyed this episode,guys.
We'll see you out there.
Thanks for listening in.
If you enjoyed this episode,please like and subscribe.
Make sure you're following uson all the social media websites
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We love your support.

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