Assistant Sheriff Rick Marshall congratulated Sheriff-elect Sharon Wehrly Tuesday evening, as Nye County prepared for the changing of the guard in the sheriff’s department.
Wehrly gave comments to the Pahrump Valley Times at her election night party at the Elks Lodge. Marshall commented the next day, acknowledging voters wanted change and also blamed the negative campaigning.
“She ran a good campaign and it paid off. The voters spoke loudly and she’s our next sheriff. I contacted her and congratulated her and told her that when she was ready to talk about the transition please let me know. We look forward to bringing her up to speed,” Marshall said.
Marshall, said the “Anybody but Rick” campaign hurt him in the general election.
“Any time negative campaigning is put on the way that they did it absolutely. But I also think people made it clear that they want somebody new in there. The Anybody But Rick campaign was full of lies, I’ll say that, I said that from day one and I’ll say that again,” he said.
David Boruchowitz, president of the Nye County Law Enforcement Association, was ecstatic sitting at the county courthouse as early vote totals showed Wehrly winning 68 percent of the vote. She went on to trounce Marshall 8,208 votes to 3,660 votes, a margin of 69.2 percent to 30.8 percent. Seventy-four percent of the NCLEA endorsed Wehrly.
“As the president of the Nye County Law Enforcement Association we’re greatly interested in who our sheriff is and having the history we’ve had with this administration we’re really looking forward to a solid relationship with Sharon Wehrly and we’re pleased to see she’s pulled through and our endorsement was well placed with her,” Boruchowitz said.
“We have no concerns relating to her experience and at this point our concern is just to get our administration and office running cohesively so we can serve the public and she definitely has that experience and capability to provide that kind of service to the people,” he said.
Sheriff Tony DeMeo, who hoped to hand the baton to his assistant sheriff, teed off on Boruchowitz’s comments implying there was a lack of cooperation between the administration and the union.
“What David Boruchowitz and the union wanted was control of the sheriff’s office, taking control of the sheriff’s office away from the elected people,” DeMeo said angrily.
“Brian Kunzi, he gave the union a lot of rights that basically encumbered the administration of the sheriff’s office to effectively run that office the way it was. We lost a lot of management rights,” DeMeo said. “The citizens of Nye County got hit with a big bill because of the deputies and the size of the contracts that were given to them. Brian Kunzi gave them benefits back they lost years ago.”
DeMeo said his predecessor Wade Lieseke Jr. was in office for three terms, before he lost in 2002. DeMeo said it was easier for him to transition to sheriff back then after supervising more people than the Nye County sheriff’s department had in his previous 25 years in law enforcement.
“I don’t want her to have a severe learning curve when she takes office Jan. 5, 2015, I want her to have as much input in the sheriff’s office as possible,” DeMeo said. “I believe Sharon Wehrly is going to have the responsibility and she knows the responsibilities to the people of Nye County to make sure the services are provided for everyone. To believe the union is going to be the puppet master behind the sheriff I don’t think it’s going to work that way with Sharon.”
DeMeo didn’t know how Wehrly would get approval to hire her chosen second in command, Brent Moody. During the campaign Wehrly said there would be funds after employees finished collecting their accrued leaves from the early retirement buyouts.
County Manager Pam Webster said Wehrly could use a couple of sources to fund Moody’s position. She could use funds for positions that have been budgeted that are currently vacant that are suitable for that position, like a lieutenant.
Otherwise, if Wehrly creates a new position like undersheriff, it could be funded from the proceeds of the sales tax increase because it wasn’t previously budgeted, she said.
Of course both moves would require approval of the Board of County Commissioners, Webster said.