County schools, sheriff’s office expand SRO program

Saturday’s high-speed chase by Sequoyah County sheriff’s deputies that ended when Sallisaw Police Capt. John Weber crashed his cruiser head-on into the fleeing vehicle to prevent it from barreling through the heart of the annual Diamond Daze festival has been the talk of the town for the past week.

But as Undersheriff Charles House reported at Monday’s Sequoyah County Commissioners meeting, there are a lot of activities the sheriff’s office pursues that go virtually unnoticed. Not that he’s complaining. It’s just the nature of the beast.

What the sheriff’s office does is, to be sure, vital, but the department’s pursuits often take a back seat to high-profile action such as what climaxed just 130 feet from imminent carnage.

“Every county school that we service that has an SRO (School Resource Officer) program has elected to go five days a week,” House told the commissioners. “What that means for us is now we have five SROs.”

Surely a greater law enforcement presence in schools is a good thing. Staffing those schools, however, can be something of a challenge.

“It’s hard to find somebody that wants to hire on as an SRO. A lot of guys, they wanna hire on to chase bad guys. But the schools have made the commitment, so we’re gonna support that commitment and do what we can do to get somebody there to help protect the kids,” House reported.

Along those lines, the commissioners on Monday approved DARE agreements by and between the Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office and Moffett School.

And, as it turns out, sheriff’s deputies can also rival long-haul truckers.

“The DA’s office has kept us really busy,” House said of the sheriff’s office extradition of prisoners. “We’ve been to Galveston, Texas, twice. Been to Marietta, Georgia, twice. Been to Cincinnati, Georgia, twice. Been to Colorado twice. And next week we’re going to Idaho. The one in Idaho is a warrant on a domestic abuse, child abuse case. We have a commitment that we have to go to Idaho and pick this cat up.”

And the cross-country trips have taken their toll on, at least, department vehicles.

“In the last four months, I’m not exaggerating, we put over 50,000 miles on this transport vehicle. It just goes to show you how many miles … we’ve got 2021 trucks out there knocking on 100,000 miles already.”

The sheriff’s office has recently started tracking its cost savings by switching to in-house vehicle maintenance, and it appears to be paying dividends.

“We’re continuing to show savings on maintenance,” House reported. He also said the department replaced two transmissions in-house last week.

In additional citizen presentations, Sequoyah County Emergency Management Deputy Director Jonathan Teague provided the commissioners with information about COVID-19 and spring weather.

“Covid numbers are still falling statewide. We’re down to 725. Last week it was over 1,000. Still falling,” Teague said. The Covid national emergency ended Thursday, which Teague said “after that, all Covid funding’s gonna stop.”

But the potential for severe weather is not ending.

“We’re entering a very active weather pattern over the next 7 to 10 days,” Teague told the commissioners. “Remember, May’s our worst month. All those tornadoes that happened in central Oklahoma last month, there was a 30% chance that day. There were 18 tornadoes that day.”

In other county business, the commissioners opened three bids for contractors to provide ground work for the Rural Fire Tax Board fire training building.

Bids for the contract were:

• J&J Dozier $29,925

• Phillips Excavation $37,183

• J.W. Dillard $42,700

The Rural Fire Tax Board reviewed the bids Monday, and recommended awarding the contract to Phillips Excavation.

District 1 Commissioner Jim Rogers expressed concern about the deviation from not awarding the contract to the lowest bidder, and suggested it be reviewed by the state auditor.

“Statutes on the bid process is that you’re supposed to go with the lowest bid unless you have good reason not to,” Rogers said. Such reasons would be that the low bidder is not providing something that is needed, or a preference because of their performance in the past.”

The commissioners voted to table action of the bids.

The next meeting of the commissioners is 10 a.m. Monday at the Sequoyah County Courthouse.