Editor’s Note: We felt that this column and the information it presents was important enough to be run today instead of Ms. Yount’s usual Wednesday run date.
After hearing a rumor from many different sources that Rep. Michael Wray was going to sponsor a bill in the legislature to curb the jurisdiction of the Henderson Police Department, the facts were needed.
Here is a link to an e-mail sent to Wray on August 25, 2009. His answer was that Sen. Doug Berger and Rep. Jim Crawford and he were “reviewing” the law concerning the jurisdictional powers of the Henderson Police Department.
Now, there are many laws that need reviewing and changing in this county. One example of a set of laws that badly serve our citizens are the election laws that control our Board of Education. We are one of the very few counties that hold a partisan election for our school board. Likewise, we have no school board members who serve at-large. Here is a great opportunity for our legislators to enact legislation that would be beneficial. And while they are changing those elections laws, they need to change the way the Henderson City Council is elected so that there are staggered terms and an entirely new council would never be voted in on any given year. This would make good business sense in our community.
If our legislators wanted to do some good for our community and our citizens, they could look at providing lead tests for school-age children that live in houses that could expose them to harmful levels, or earmark money for cleaning up the streams that run through Henderson, or enact legislation that helps to provide educational expenses for foster children after the age of eighteen. These are just a few of the needs in our community that could use some legislative work. These ideas do not have lobbyists or big donations behind them, but these are things about which our elected officials should be concerned.
Is there really a need to reduce police jurisdiction? Just how is that going to be helpful to the citizens of Vance County? How is that going to fight or reduce crime? With the great number of registered sex offenders throughout our city and county, the rise in gang activity, the drug traffic, the prostitution, not to mention assaults, thefts, and gun violence, why would anyone think that reducing the area that Henderson police could protect would be a worthwhile piece of legislation?
Wray followed up his email response to me with a telephone call. He informed me that Vance County Sheriff Peter White requested that he investigate the present law and he (Wray) submitted that request to Berger and Crawford. In the telephone conversation, Wray kept insisting that we all just need to “co-operate” and “get along.”
Well, there is a time to get along, and then there is a more important time when you need to cut from the pack and lead. That is what our Henderson Police Chief Keith Sidwell is doing everyday. I see first-hand in my neighborhood what a police task force can accomplish. Removing problems and improving living conditions for our citizens will be good for everyone, and that includes property owners, renters, property managers, neighbors and especially law enforcement. Chief Sidwell has brought players to the table who are not shying away from the problems that have been allowed to fester around here. A city limits sign does not mean that the problems should be ignored, and a city limits sign should not give anyone protection from scrutiny.
For far too long, many of the people in charge just turned a blind eye so they could “get along” and appear to “co-operate”. That is what has brought us to the place where we now have flop houses, filthy, illegal, and unlicenced “group homes”, fire-traps for housing, and crime-riddled streets.
If you want to address the issue of any legislation that would weaken our police protection, you need to contact Wray, Berger, and Crawford and tell them what you think. This is a bad idea and it needs to be nipped in the bud.