By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Both candidates for Wood County Sheriff want to keep local residents safe – but they have different ideas of how to achieve that goal.
Democrat Ruth Babel-Smith, a retired lieutenant with the sheriff’s office, who teaches at Owens Community College, is promising “public safety not politics.” She has her master’s degree in criminal justice administration and is pursuing her doctorate.
Republican incumbent Mark Wasylyshyn has held the job for 12 years and if re-elected he will be the longest serving sheriff in Wood County history. He serves on the board of directors of the National Sheriffs Association and if re-elected he will become the president of the Buckeye Sheriffs Association.
Wasylyshyn points to a well-operated, cost-effective county jail, and well-trained road deputies keeping the county safe.
But Babel-Smith is critical of both the jail and the road operations of the department. If elected, her first goal would be to conduct a task analysis of each area to make sure personnel are being put to use the best way possible.
She said too many road patrols are focused on areas that already have their own law enforcement coverage. That means residents in some southern areas of the county wait “upwards of 40 minutes for a deputy to respond.”
Babel-Smith thinks there may be a need for more staff, but definitely is a need to shuffle staff around to areas of greater needs. “People just don’t feel safe,” she said.
Reassigning staff would also help with staff morale, she said.
“I would like to work on picking up the morale. I want to create an environment where people want to stay,” she said, citing a lack of longevity in the sheriff’s office.
Longevity in staff is not lacking, according to Wasylyshyn. “I’m very proud of the deputies we have,” he said.
In addition to patrolling roads and responding to emergencies, the deputies perform community services like funeral escorts. The sheriff considers it his responsibility to do death notifications. “That’s the worst part of my job,” he said.
Wasylyshyn praised the work of staff conducting human trafficking sting operations. “We continue that battle,” he said, noting a recent case in which a 15 year old girl was returned to her family in Detroit.
Due to the success of the sting operations, the word has gotten out that this is not a safe county for human trafficking, he added. “People say they don’t want to meet in Wood County. That’s music to my ears,” he said.
Road and civil deputies also now carry Narcan to revive cases of opiate overdoses. Wasylyshyn disagrees with the mentality that people overdosing are “just druggies.”
“It’s somebody’s son. Somebody’s father,” he said.
Babel-Smith said the sheriff’s office needs to do more to stop the drugs coming to Wood County.
“Who’s bringing this heroin in to the county,” she said. Detectives need to be looking at how the drugs are getting here, “to cut off the inroads.”
Babel-Smith would like to talk with Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp about the Drug Abuse Resistance Training program operated there. And she objected to Wasylyshyn’s use of inmate commissary funds to buy a body scanner. “That’s money to be used for inmate education and rehabilitation programs.”
But Wasylyshyn said the body scanner makes the jail more safe for inmates, since new prisoners go through the scanner to identify any drugs hidden in body cavities. Three inmates have been found to have drugs so far, he said.
“We were one of the first in the state to have a body scanner,” Wasylyshyn said. “It’s going to have a major impact on not having contraband in the jail.”
He also mentioned the Vivitrol program which works to keep inmates clean when they leave jail.
Babel-Smith was critical of the sheriff for not increasing staff after adding more beds to the jail. She pointed to the recent beating of an inmate in the visitation area by another inmate. Though staff responded within seconds, the beating could have been stopped much faster if the area was adequately staffed, she said.
Babel-Smith said when she worked at the jail, she warned that the booking and medical areas of the jail needed to be redesigned before beds were added to the facility. However, that still hasn’t been done.
But Wasylyshyn said he is still working for the expansion of the booking and medical areas of the jail. “The jails across the country have become detox and mental health facilities,” he said.
The recent 75-bed expansion, which brought the total inmate beds to 224, “gave us the bed space we need for a growing county,” he said. “It made it much safer for officers and inmates. My duty as sheriff is to have a safe, clean, healthy environment in the jail.”
The expanded space, and elimination of “cubby holes,” has made the inmate areas easier to handle with the same number of staff. “I’m very comfortable with our staffing levels,” Wasylyshyn said.
The jail is now able to handle inmates from other areas, such as was done briefly with Toledo inmates. That agreement brought in about $100,000 for the extra inmates. Wasylyshyn noted other cost savings at the jail, such as having inmates grow a vegetable garden, saving $5,000; eliminating red meat from the menu unless it’s on sale, saving $80,000; and repeating the menu on a weekly rotation.
Wasylyshyn is proud of running a tight budget. “All money coming in, money going out, goes across my desk,” he said. “I’ve upset some of the vendors, but that’s OK.”
Babel-Smith is also critical of the sheriff’s handling of snow emergencies – feeling that he puts the public at risk by keeping the roads open in perilous conditions.
“I’ve had people tell me they were stranded on the roadside” and had to wait for hours because the roads were in such bad shape, she said. “This is people’s lives” and errors should be made on the side of caution.
“The sheriff has to realize people take this very seriously,” Babel-Smith said.
But Wasylyshyn said as long as the snow plows are out clearing the roads, then he is likely to keep the roads open. He favors allowing individuals to take personal responsibility to determine if their vehicle is sufficient to handle the weather.
Babel-Smith also accused the sheriff of operating under a “shroud of secrecy.”
“I believe in sharing of information. I believe in transparency,” she said. “The people deserve to know what’s going on in the sheriff’s office. This perpetual secrecy at the sheriff’s office is wrong.”
But Wasylyshyn said he makes an effort to be very accessible to the public and to the media. His office holds events for the public and he makes himself available to citizens who have concerns.
