Mike MacFadzen: County needs sheriff with good working relationship with local agencies

To The Daily Sun,

My name is Mike MacFadzen, and I am a Republican candidate for Belknap County Sheriff. This is the sixth in a series of letters outlining what I am going to do when elected sheriff.

First, I want to stress how working with the local agencies benefits the agencies and the taxpayer. Many of the federal grants are not available to agencies who have less than 20 sworn officers. These grants cover equipment, training, and other resources. This brings our federal tax dollars back to the local communities, provides us with better training and equipment, and wage payments with no impact on the local or county budgets. This can only happen when you have a sheriff who has a positive working relationship with the local agencies. When this happens the sheriff and the local agencies can together evaluate and determine the areas most needed across the county. This will allow us to get services going again that are currently not operational or only one or two departments are providing to the county.

Secondly, I am currently working with the Granite State Critical Incident Stress Management team, and will be attending training the end of September, to have a Belknap County team available for stress debriefings and peer to peer support for police, fire, EMS and dispatchers. We all know that currently it is very difficult to recruit people into public safety and the day-to-day stressors of the job is the number one reason for leaving. Most leave due to not having a way to effectively deal with these stressors. If we can help with retaining personnel that is a huge benefit for every community.

Those of you who have read my letters you will notice a common theme, teamwork. This is what Belknap needs in a sheriff.

Mike MacFadzen

Laconia