It’s time for change in the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, and Neil Kester, one of the four candidates for the open Augusta County sheriff position in the Nov. 3 general election, doesn’t feel that the necessary change can come from within.
“From back when I started in February going around getting signatures on my petitions, people were saying to me that we need new blood in the sheriff’s office, a new direction. The only way we’re going to get that is to go outside the sheriff’s office,” said Kester, who has 23 years of law enforcement experience, most recently in his ongoing 15-year stint as a senior conservation officer with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
His three opponents for the sheriff position – Derek Almarode, Todd Lloyd and Donald Smith – are all currently deputies in the sheriff’s office. Each of the three sells their experience in the office as a key to their candidacies, but to Kester, their experience can be a limitation.
“It’s the only agency they’ve ever worked for. It’s the only thing they know,” Kester said. “Each of those three, they’ve got their own little groups within the office that they favor. Whichever one gets elected, they’re going to promote from within their cliques, the good old boy system.
“I don’t bring that. I don’t have ties or affiliations with the sheriff’s office. No promises have been made to anybody down there. I can bring a new vision. I can bring a new direction.”
Kester is building his campaign around a promise to “build an elite agency,” starting by addressing the agency’s issues with accreditation. Sheriff Randy Fisher withdrew the sheriff’s office from the accreditation review process earlier this year after it was revealed that nearly $4,000 in cash had gone missing from the evidence room.
That matter is still under investigation, and Fisher pulled the sheriff’s office out from an ongoing accreditation review to allow the new sheriff to start over with a clean slate.
Kester has been critical of that move, saying accreditation is important “to getting the public’s trust back in the sheriff’s office.”
“Right now, the public’s perception is that professionalism in the sheriff’s office is gone,” Kester said. “Basically your deputies went from working within accepted, accredited policies and procedures to nothing. Getting this office back to being back within those standards is very important. As someone who works for a nationally accredited agency, I know how important this is. This is a sign of our professionalism.
“We can regain that sense of professionalism, and regain the public’s trust,” Kester said. “Granted, you’re going to have to do more. Accreditation alone isn’t enough. But it’s a building block that’s very important.”
Kester has struck a nerve with some with his promise to “clean house” if elected. His rivals have hit him on that promise, questioning how he can maintain the day-to-day operations of the sheriff’s office with the overhaul that he seems to have in the offing.
“The rumor going around is that I’m going to go in there and fire everyone. You can use the term clean house, but that doesn’t mean you fire everybody. When I say I’m going to clean house, I mean I’m going to get rid of the bad, keep the good, and bring in more good,” Kester said.
“Am I going to go in and fire everybody? No. I can’t do that. I can’t run the sheriff’s office by myself. And I don’t need to, because there are a lot of good deputies there. There are some that need a little bit of guidance, training to get them in the right direction, and they’ve got potential, too. There’s a lot to build on there.”
Kester will push to add more manpower to the sheriff’s office roster. His review of the staffing needs calls for the addition of 23 employees to the current 83-person office. Working within budget constraints, Kester plans to address the manpower shortfall by looking at adding part-time positions and building up the dormant reserves program.
A review of shift assignments can also allow for the better allocation of existing resources.
“Everything we do will be within budget guidelines,” Kester said. “I don’t want people to read this and think, Oh, great, he’s going to get in there and ask for a tax increase. We can’t do that. And that said, some of this we don’t have to implement right away. We can do this gradually over time.”
One enforcement focus for Kester is in the area of agricultural crime. Kester said a lot of agricultural crimes – involving livestock, equipment, property damage and the like – go unreported because agricultural crimes are not prioritized.
“We’ll start with one deputy, but I feel that we’ll need to build it over time, because as people understand that we’re taking these crimes seriously, they’ll start reporting more of the crimes that are already taking place,” Kester said.
“People in the agricultural community deserve having somebody come out and give them a little bit of time investigating their reports, taking them seriously, the same as anybody else in the community.”
Kester also wants to beef up the sheriff’s office focus on drug crimes.
“Drugs are a big issue here. There are a lot of drugs running up and down the two interstates and coming into our county, and a lot of drug money. The current approach is something I have questions about. It’s no longer a joint effort like it used to be, and that’s a concern for me,” said Kester, who wants to commit more resources toward regional drug enforcement operations.
“I think we’re more effective if we work together. Get Waynesboro, Staunton, the State Police, Augusta County, all working together, and that makes the effort to combat drugs more effective,” Kester said.
– Story by Chris Graham
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