SAN JOSE — Newly elected Santa Clara County Sheriff Robert “Bob” Jonsen formally took his oath of workplace because the South Bay’s first new prime cop in 1 / 4 century throughout a proper ceremony Friday.
Jonsen was sworn in on the Board of Supervisors chambers, which was full of elected officers and regulation enforcement leaders from all through the area. Longtime Bay Space Rep. Anna Eshoo formally launched the brand new sheriff earlier than he gave the oath administered by Choose Theodore Zayner.
Jonsen stated after the swearing-in that he's “grateful for all of the assist that's going to be required to maneuver our sheriff’s workplace to the place it must be so we will serve these communities in essentially the most glorious trend of public security.”
Within the normal election final November, Jonsen, a former police chief in Palo Alto and Menlo Park who spent most of his profession with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division, edged out retired sheriff’s captain Kevin Jensen — who additionally ran in 2014 — by 1.6% of the ballots solid, or about 7,000 votes.
Jonsen is the twenty ninth sheriff within the county’s historical past, and claims lineage to the job by way of his great-uncle Jonathan Sweigert, who served because the South Bay’s sheriff from 1887 to 1891.
Jonsen has already been serving as sheriff for the reason that Board of Supervisors voted in December to put in him earlier than the beginning of the brand new 12 months slightly than appoint an interim sheriff for a matter of some weeks.
The decision for an interim appointment arose after Laurie Smith, who had held the workplace since 1998 and claimed the excellence of the state’s first girl sheriff, abruptly resigned Oct. 31 in an try and nullify her civil corruption trial that might have compelled her ouster. A civil jury in the end discovered her responsible anyway of abusing her authority in her issuance of concealed-carry weapons permits, evading gift-reporting legal guidelines and resisting civilian oversight.
Jonsen ran on a platform of bringing an out of doors perspective to reform the workplace, which had been weighed down over the previous decade by political scrutiny from an array of critics — typically on the county board and together with different elected leaders — that hung a cloud over Smith’s administration, notably with jail operations.
In his remarks Friday, Jonsen stated he envisions a jail surroundings that provides these in custody “the chance to graduate from incarceration slightly than simply being launched again into an surroundings which can invite recidivism,” and improves the jails’ psychological well being response.
Those that have lengthy clamored for management change within the sheriff’s workplace might need anticipated Jonsen to put in his personal handpicked commanders to assist him together with his transition into workplace. However that hasn’t occurred, and a lot of the top-of-the-office management underneath Smith stays in place.
That features Undersheriff Ken Binder, who took over the second-in-command function after the earlier undersheriff, Rick Sung, was indicted on bribery and corruption prices primarily based on lots of the similar allegations and investigations that led to Smith’s civil verdict.
Jonsen promoted Binder — who emceed Friday’s ceremony — as his everlasting undersheriff. Because it occurs, Binder’s brother Andrew was assistant chief underneath Jonsen in Palo Alto, and is now the police chief for that metropolis.
Away from the ceremony, when requested by this information group why a lot of the highest of the company stays, he stated, “Now that I’m attending to know folks and having conversations, I’m realizing their talent set, their strengths and weaknesses, I’m actually impressed with among the administration in place.”
Jonsen added that he'll search outdoors session on a strategic plan for the workplace, to “get someone to take a look at the group.” However relating to the minimal motion in management, he advised that the very prime of the company, his stepping in, was essentially the most wanted change.
“I believe the group was very prepared for change; they’re all very a lot in alignment with the route I need to head the group,” Jonsen stated. “If I … felt there was going to be resistance to the change and route I need to head, completely I'd have (modified commanders).”
The brand new sheriff emphasised that one of the crucial rapid modifications was to enter into a brand new information-sharing settlement with Michael Gennaco, co-founder of the OIR Group that serves because the county’s civilian law-enforcement watchdog. The topic of an information-sharing settlement was the supply of a years-long political dispute, and Smith was later discovered responsible of deliberately impeding negotiations to maintain from disclosing complete information for civilian oversight.
“He’s going to be very a lot a part of our staff,” Jonsen stated of Gennaco.
Again at his oath ceremony, Jonsen asserted once more his aspiration to reinvigorate the company and break free from the inertia of the previous 25 years.
“I didn’t run for sheriff to be a placeholder for the following 4 years. … I ran to not disguise behind the methods of the previous; I ran to seek out out the promise the longer term holds. To see what we will accomplish collectively.”
