Top 10 stories of 2014, No. 2: New sheriff in town; deputy scores decisive win
Published 12:36 pm Monday, December 29, 2014
He came out swinging from the opening bell. And, the jabs seemed to stick.
Deputy Ron Krebs tapped into a vein of discontent with administration of the San Juan County Sheriff’s department and on the heels of a decisive victory in the Nov. 4 election earned a four-year term at the top of local law enforcement in what proved to be a most successful first-ever bid for public office.
A former U.S. Marine and eight-year veteran of the local force, Krebs championed a need for change in management and in leadership of the department in the run-up to the election. He vowed to establish better lines of communication within the department and with other public safety agencies, and with the public as well, and promised to boost what he characterized as sagging morale within the ranks of a rudderless but once-proud department.
In mid-September, the critique of the agency by the 47-year-old former president of the deputy sheriff’s guild appeared to materialize on the landscape, as he drew a near-unanimous endorsement of the guild and its 28 members.
In the end, the race wasn’t even close. The former EMT Rookie of the Year, in 2012, father of four and former Les Schwab senior manager garnered 64 percent of ballots cast in the November election.
The election results proved to be a 180-degree reversal of fortune for first-term incumbent Rob Nou.
In 2010, Nou, a 33-year law enforcement veteran who joined the department in 2008, became San Juan County’s first new sheriff in more than two decades, succeeding Bill Cumming, who retired that year after five consecutive terms in office, in a landslide election victory of his own. Nou collected 66 percent of votes cast in the 2010 sheriff’s race.
Krebs, in what will be his first tour of duty leading a local law enforcement agency, inherits a department of roughly 35 employees and yearly budget of $4.9 million. With the victory at the ballot box, he will also gain a sizeable pay raise in the years to come, as the sheriff earns $103,595 a year.
