This commentary is by Bob Stannard of Manchester, an author, musician and former state legislator and lobbyist.
I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
I fought the law and the law won — The Clash
A couple of days before our new Bennington County sheriff was sworn in, there was yet another rather depressing story in VTDigger about the corrupt sheriffs in Vermont.
It was particularly disconcerting to see the picture of our outgoing sheriff, Chad Schmidt, twice as large as those of the other corrupt sheriffs. Apparently VTDigger must think that Schmidt is twice as bad as the other bad sheriffs. They might be right. Most of this story was dedicated to the former Bennington County sheriff.
“We’ve seen more and more over the last couple of years that sheriffs are not always doing the right thing,” said Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, a leading proponent of the proposals. “We need to create a system where, if a sheriff does the wrong thing, they can be held accountable.”
Holding Mr. Schmidt accountable should be job No, 1 for our incoming Bennington County sheriff, James Gulley Jr. The question is will he, or will he simply go about the business of running the sheriff’s office and let the past drift away? Over the past weeks I have raised questions with Mr. Gulley, but have yet to receive answers.
Here’s what I, and the people of Bennington County and Vermont, deserve to know:
— Was Schmidt committing crimes either by questionable booking or anything else?
— How was Schmidt able to get away with moving to Tennessee while being paid to police Bennington County for three years? Lt. Joel Howard told me that Schmidt had arranged a schedule that allowed him a week off each month — amounting to three months vacation annually. In a debate on GNAT-TV, both Mr. Gulley and Mr. Alexander said that this was not true and that Schmidt was away more than that. Just how often was Schmidt working in the office?
— Did Chad accept another position while in Tennessee?
— Were the 29 members of the department all covering for Schmidt?
— Whatever happened with the car wash deal? Who is washing the cruisers now? It was alleged that Mr. Schmidt was sexting one or more women. Is that true and if so who knew about it?
— What was the real reason that Mr. Schmidt felt compelled to move to another state and abandon his post here in Bennington County?
Giving Mr. Gulley the benefit of the doubt, he was just sworn in on Feb. 1 and may not have been privy to all of the information necessary to respond to these allegations, but he now is the new Bennington County sheriff. The police community is a tight-knit group. It’s difficult to believe that the staff was unaware of what was going on in our sheriff’s department and with Mr. Schmidt.
In a debate, both Mr. Gulley and Mr. Alexander disputed that Mr. Schmidt was taking off more than 100 days per year and working remotely from Tennessee while collecting roughly $400,000. They implied that he was away more than that. Don’t the taxpayers deserve to know exactly how much time Schmidt was not on the job and whether or not he was sexting and/or threatening people?
It’s great that we now have a new sheriff who appears to want to do the right thing. He’s stated that he wants to reinvest the 5% fee that the department collects on contracts back into the department, as opposed to pocketing these funds, as Mr. Schmidt opted to do so. That’s great news.
However, are the citizens and taxpayers of Bennington County going to be satisfied with simply moving on from the past with a “nothing to see here, folks, just move along” attitude?
The VTDigger story brought many of the failings of the law that regulates how our sheriff’s departments work, or perhaps better said, don’t work. It’s clear that constitutional changes must be made. Perhaps we may find that we owe a debt of gratitude to Chad Schmidt for exposing the failings of the governing statutes and ironically being an agent of change.
It’s not going to be good enough to just move forward without first cleaning up our past. We cannot make the necessary changes until we can thoroughly vet the corrupt actions of Mr. Schmidt and other scandal-ridden sheriffs throughout Vermont.
It’s important to note that there are many, many good men and women who serve as county sheriffs who are dedicated to doing the right thing and for that we should all be grateful. Nationwide we’re seeing more and more corruption with our police. Here in Vermont, we can do better; we deserve better.
We cannot expect to move forward until those who have abused their position are held accountable for their actions. Without doing so, we are doing nothing more than continuing the coverup that’s been going on for far too long. Will it take a good investigative reporter to delve into this morass and expose the truth, or will the new sheriff do it? That’s up to them. I’m just a columnist.
Voters voted for change. Without accountability, change will never come.
