The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG – Walla Walla County Sheriff John Turner presented his quarterly report at the July 16 Waitsburg City Council Meeting, reporting that crime stats were “on par” to date as compared to last year, and that the WWCSO had worked 306.80 hours above the contracted hours in Waitsburg.

Turner said that crime stats can be deceptive in that they don’t reflect things like the increase in illicit and prescription drug use and gang activity. Turner said crime stats were up in the cities of both Walla Walla and College Place but not in the areas WWCSO was responsible for.

Turner said residents will soon see some new faces on patrol. Paul Green, son of Waitsburg School District music teacher Brad Green and his wife Amy, was recently hired as a deputy.

Green, who has a Navy background, is currently attending academy with fellow new hire Kevin Gifford. Gifford moved from a position as a corrections officer at the county jail. Kevin Maas was also hired and makes a lateral move from Idaho.

Turner also addressed the recent transition of the county jail, in which operational control was moved from the WWCSO to a newly formed county corrections department. Mike Bates, who manages the county’s juvenile justice facility, is serving as the jail’s interim director.

Turner said that cities like Prescott and Waitsburg, that have contracts with the Sheriff’s Office that provide for housing criminals in the jail, will probably need to renegotiate those contracts down the road, but that it didn’t appear that there was an immediate need to do so.