Politics shouldn’t be part of Sheriff Fortney’s job

Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 30, 2020

I forgive Sheriff Adam Fortney for his public display of his personal persuasion regarding Covid-19 stay-at-home guidelines.

He was a good sheriff, but he works for the public and in that capacity, is accountable for the job duties assigned to him by the public. It does not matter that while in his official capacity he has these strong Republican convictions. He should hold them in check and do exactly what he was elected to do.

Now he has politicized not only his personal convictions and publicized them, but he has politicized his job functions. Had he been working for a top chef and stepped out of his box he would have been gone in the blink of an eye. Perhaps he now deserves that discipline. The County Council should brook no personal additions to the county job description of sheriff.

It is irrelevant what Sheriff Fortney thinks about these matters when it comes to his job. What matters is that his job must not be politicized.

Sheriff Fortney has used poor judgment mixing personal sentiment with his public office using his office as a bully pulpit for publicizing those convictions. I doubt that he ran them by his superiors for their approval before sticking his neck out. Worse, he raised another agenda, the misunderstanding of the Second Amendment for which he is woefully not alone in comprehending what the founding fathers intended.

Samuel Bess

Stanwood