February 22, 2008
Dear Acting Sheriff
Anderson:
On February 7, 2008, the Board of
Directors of AOCDS met with you at your
request. One of the issues that you
discussed was the possibility of using
non-sworn employees in place of sworn
deputies in the Musick facility when the
planned facility expansion was complete. You
said you were in the preliminary stage of
having analysts begin to investigate the
issues such a plan would raise. You said
that additional staffing would not be needed
until the first phase of the expansion was
operational, in about four years.
But, the Los Angeles Times and Orange
County Register have reported that you are
intent on moving forward with the hiring of
non-sworn correction officers to replace
sworn deputy sheriffs in the immediate
future, as soon as six months from now. And,
it is our understanding that in a number of
Roll Calls, you have told deputies of your
plan to move forward with the hiring of
non-sworn correctional officers to replace
sworn deputies within the next six months.
As you can imagine, this has caused a great
deal of concern to our members.
Will you please give this Association and
its members the courtesy of telling us which
of your totally different versions of this
plan is accurate? Do you expect to implement
your plan in six months, or, as you told the
Board of AOCDS in a face-to-face meeting,
are you in the planning stage and expect
this change to be phased in over a number of
years in the future?
We look forward to your public response
to our question. Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Mark Nichols
