Deschutes sheriff candidates William Bailey, Kent Vander Kamp square off at first campaign forum in Sunriver

SUNRIVER, Ore. (KTVZ) – The two men asking Deschutes County voters to elect them to succeed Shane Nelson as the next sheriff met for their first joint appearance of the early campaign season Monday evening, a forum that covered a lot of ground, issues and concerns, and with no fierce arguments but some pointed comments.

Connect Central Oregon and the Sunriver Republicans hosted the over 90-minute forum for Captain William Bailey and Detective Sergeant Kent Vander Kamp at the Sunriver Homeowners Aquatic & Recreation Center, or SHARC.

 If no other candidate files by the March 12 deadline, the race moves to the fall. If one or more do, then there’s a May primary vote, and if one gets over 50 percent, their name appears alone on the November general election ballot.

Nelson endorsed Bailey as his successor the day he announced last summer that he would not seek another term. So while he’s not the incumbent, Vander Kamp definitely tried to set a different tone in which he promised to rein in what he considers exorbitant spending.

Still, both men said they need to be able to work together when the race is over and a new sheriff is sworn in, and shook hands at the end.

Bailey noted his broad range of experience with the sheriff’s office, from six years working in the jail to years on the road in patrol and as a criminal and street crimes detective, then as public information officer for 3 ½ years.

Vander Kamp stressed his business background, coming to law enforcement as a second career, and said, “We need to run it more like a business.”

“We’ve increased our budget last budget year 27 percent,” Vander Kamp, leader of the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team, told the audience. “We need to live within our means, tighten up our belt.”

Vander Kamp said reserve funds should not be used to run the department, and they shouldn’t depend on millions in room-tax revenues. “More and more borrowing from your saving account is not the answer. It should be run as a business, not a fountain of cash from your tax dollars.”

Bailey said there’s a difference of opinion of how much reserve funds the agency should have on hand. Some say a nine-month reserve is “a good rainy-day fund,” while others say it’s taxpayer money and they only should have three or four months set aside.

“And then inflation happened, and we had to pay deputies a living wage to keep them,” when even a Bend dishwasher can earn $25 an hour.

“We have to max out our tax rates last year, like 80 of 87 taxing districts” in the area, Bailey said, still hopeful they can again lower the tax rates in the two sheriff’s districts from the maximum “in the next five years or so.” And he defended the use of overtime, calling it a necessity in public safety, which doesn’t get to chose when major crimes happen.

But Vander Kamp insisted, “The spending has been wasteful. I would cut the waste, balance that budget and get that levy back to where it needs to be.”

He said people in the department came to him and urged him to run, telling him, “’We don’t see we have a voice any more.’ This isn’t something I looked forward to doing.

“It is not all rainbows and flowers right now at the sheriff’s office,” Vander Kamp claimed, saying that’s why, as moderator Jim Fister noted, so many of the forum questions were submitted anonymously, and the “whistle-blower websites and the media attention” have come about.

Bailey said financially, despite the criticism and the challenges, “the office is on the right course.” And he said the county treasurer recently told commissioners the office is “going to roll $3.4 million savings into the sheriff’s office next year.”

Bailey also said good things are happening and that "it's not gloom and doom" at the sheriff's office, pointing out twice how one patrol team took into custody three murder suspects last year, with a K-9 team being the most serious level of force in doing so. “That’s because they are very well trained.”