Belknap County sheriff primary candidates await official result, while thinking forward

The race for Belknap County sheriff was one of the tightest — if not the tightest — race in the county's primary election this year. So far, as the votes are being confirmed, it appears that incumbent and first-term Sheriff Bill Wright was the victor, by a narrow margin of less than 200 votes over Mike MacFadzen, director of Belknap County Restorative Justice.

At the time of this writing, the official tally was 4,942 to 4,790, favoring Wright over MacFadzen.

“Well, I’m still watching the Channel 9 coverage with 88% reporting, they have me up by 110 votes. I’m assuming their numbers come from the secretary of state,” MacFadzen said in an interview Thursday. “However, my team's numbers have me down by 142 at the end of the day, but we didn’t get write-in or absentee yet. I’m sitting and waiting to see to get a certified result from the secretary of state website and it just says they’re upgrading the site.”

MacFadzen said he believed that it was more likely he was down by 142. If in fact MacFadzen is not successful once all the votes are in, it's not likely he'll campaign for the position again.

“Some of the allegations made on Facebook were so blatantly untrue and difficult on my family, we’ll make a decision on that,” MacFadzen said. “I don't know if I have it in me or my family to go through that for another 50 or 55 days. I haven’t made a decision yet. Once we get the certified decision, we'll know."

Wright stated that his campaign went very well, and that he was confident with the preliminary results.

“Any race like this where it's closely watched can be tight,” Wright said. “This was definitely a tight race.”

When asked if the recent shakeup to the candidates for county delegation would affect his future plans for the department, Wright said he didn't think so.

“I honestly believe that I present an honest and conservative budget,” Wright said. “Knowing that, I think we're going to provide the best services we can to the people and be stewards to our taxpayers. We’re going to continue business as we should be.”

This was Wright's first term as sheriff, and first time defending the position on the campaign trail.

“Being an incumbent, it's a little different,” Wright reflected. “I had an opportunity to learn about running the office as a department head. There were events and things I wanted to be involved in where either my budget didn't allow it, or the dynamics of the agency didn't allow it,” Wright continued, recalling the difficult time period for law enforcement and other services when he took office. “As a first-time sheriff, there were things I wasn't able to do, first because I took over during the pandemic, which had its own issues. Second was getting deputies onto the streets and providing more interaction. That was a challenge in and of itself.”

MacFadzen said he will stay at his current position as head of the restorative justice department as long as he is needed.

“I'll stay at the current position as long as they keep me funded and dirty politics don’t come into it to retaliate and shut my program down,” MacFadzen said. “I love helping people. I got into this business to help people and give back to the community from day one. As long as I can continue to be here and the county will allow me to be here, I'll stay.”

Wright also touted a commitment to staying on track and keeping his service running as smoothly as possible.

“We had two years of being a reactive department and now we're getting out there and being more progressive,” Wright said. “We've stabilized dispatch employment, we’ve stabilized court security. Operationally, we’re more efficient than ever before and our people are out here working hard. This job as sheriff is committed to selfless service. I’m committed to the people of Belknap County.”