Island County Sheriff: Felici brought needed improvements

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 26, 2022

With the next election coming soon, I wanted to explain how Sheriff Rick Felici has been instrumental in both change and a successful future for the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

During the past three and a half years, the focus has been on leadership and developing the leaders of the department. Those leaders include everyone on the team, including our road patrol deputies.

As a recently retired sergeant of the criminal side of the office, I have an inside view of how well Sheriff Felici has handled this agency and wanted to share with you some of the accomplishments our agency has had with him at the helm.

Sheriff Felici has made decision making, all the way down to the field deputy, a priority on how to handle business.

The emphasis has been for the precinct supervisors to work with the deputies on the day-to-day operations. Most decisions made by Sheriff Felici and Chief Tingstad are with significant input that is received from the field through the supervisors talking with the deputies, and in some cases directly from the deputies themselves.

One of Felici’s accomplishments as adding additional positions to the roster. He also has increased the ability to add corrections deputies to the floor by adding new positions as control room operators inside the jail and several records staff members.

A yearly personnel review was implemented. The focus is to guide the deputies to perform above normal in areas that are most critical.

There has been the addition of embedded mental health and opioid outreach partners in collaboration with the Island County Health Department. And there has been the addition of less-lethal tools and training added to help aid in our work.

Our quarterly training has been significantly improved by investing in our in-house trainers to bring us the latest in field operations in terms of emergency vehicle operations, firearms, hands on tactics and use of less than lethal tools plus the legal updates that apply to these areas.

Sheriff Felici has improved the operations of the Island County Sheriff’s Office. Felici has the temperament, experience and vision to make sure that this office is the best it can be.

Laura Price

South Whidbey