In his deprecating attack on Sheriff Duke Schirard’s character, former County Commissioner Wally White (Letters, Herald, Oct. 2) complains about the sheriff’s command staff presenting their budget requests to the county commissioners. This is a demonstration of the trust Schirard has in his command staff to develop and present budgets for their divisions, not negligence of duty as White suggests. During his years as sheriff, Schirard has developed a competent and astute command staff; they each know what their division needs and Schirard trusts them to carry that forward to the commissioners.

White comments about “old domestic violence incidents” (that’s “old domestic violence incident reports,” Mr. White). He states that no citation was issued in response to either of these reports nor was Schirard summoned to court. Had he been, he would have had an opportunity to prove his innocence and this proof would be a matter of public record as are the incident reports. To this day, no proof of guilt has ever been produced. In re-reading White’s comments, it sounds like he’s pronouncing Schirard guilty of a crime solely on the basis of unsubstantiated reports; that White is, in effect, promoting the concept that a person is guilty until proven innocent. Don’t we live in the United States of America, where a person is always innocent until proven guilty?

Sean Smith must realize that his bid for sheriff is foundering, so he’s calling in his political allies and supporters – like White – to crank up the slander machine, drag up old gossip and put political spin on it in the hope of ruining Schirard’s reputation. Stooping to such levels of maliciousness clearly is a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that Smith is not the right candidate for the office of sheriff of La Plata County.

Billy J. Valencia

Ignacio