Given two recent area crimes in the glare of the national media spotlight and a struggling economy impacting government budgets, Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor’s address during the Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce’s Public Affairs Forum on Thursday morning was hardly upbeat.

“Let’s stop sugarcoating these things,” Pastor said in reference to Josh Powell blowing up his Graham-area house on Feb. 5, killing himself and his two young sons, ages 5 and 7. “People make moral choices. He made a moral choice to murder his two children.”

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department was also involved in the initial response to the Jan. 1 shooting death of park ranger Margaret Anderson at Mount Rainier National Park.

“Our people showed skill, good judgment, compassion and courage,” he said of efforts to keep people safe and get them out of harm’s way while looking for an active shooter. “Our people were incredible.”

These and other well known crimes have earned Pierce County something of a reputation, Pastor noted.

“This is not a quiet little cow county,” he quipped.

Pastor said Ed Troyer, spokesman for the sheriff’s department, recently fielded a call from an ABC News producer who put the crime stories coming out of Pierce County on par with those coming out of major media markets such as New York and Los Angeles.

It didn’t get much better when it came to the anemic economy and how it’s affecting the sheriff’s department.

“The next couple of years are going to be difficult,” Pastor predicted.

He reported that over the past several years, the department is down 22 positions in law enforcement — a combination of authorized but unfilled positions and job cuts — and down 21 positions when it comes to corrections officers.

“We won’t do more with less,” he observed. “We can’t.”

Pastor was especially concerned with the possibility of further cuts in the areas of corrections and mental health.

“They land on my front porch,” he said, referencing dealing the mentally ill in a law enforcement capacity. “We have hard choices to make.”

For his part, Pastor has already made some of those budget-induced hard choices on an individual level.

For the last three years, he has returned his annual automatic salary increase — about $4,000 a year — and pays out of his own pocket when it comes to out-of-state travel sometimes required by his job.

Those policies might end up causing his wife to divorce him, he joked.

Looking to the future, Pastor forecast that in seven or eight years, Pierce County’s population would swell to more than 1 million.

“This is going to be a growing area,” he said, noting the quaint nature of Gig Harbor and the area’s scenic beauty. “We’ve got to be ready for it.”

Pastor’s speech ended on a hopeful note.

“I think we can get through it,” he said of the weak economy, which he thought would improve in about two years. “We are going to turn around.”

He continued: “We can’t do everything we want now, but we can be ready when the economy recovers.”

Getting ready for a better economy includes streamlining the department, improving data systems, working to get more resources and cooperating with municipal police departments like Gig Harbor, Pastor said.

Along those lines, the department is looking to upgrade its Marine Services Unit, which has fewer officers now than in the past, but still provides service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Pastor.

“We’re not doing enough,” he said.

Complicating matters is the fact the department wants a new saltwater patrol and rescue boat to replace its last one, The Reliance, which sank over the summer.

During a down economy, the possibility of purchasing a $730,000 boat — even though most of the cost would come from a $525,000 federal Homeland Security grant — is a touchy subject with the Pierce County Council.

Also on the department’s agenda is an improved communications system for the county. Plans call for the transition from the Law Enforcement Support Agency (LESA) to South Sound 9-1-1, a stronger regional communications infrastructure that includes equipment upgrades.

In November, Pierce County voters approved Proposition 1, a sales tax increase of one-tenth of 1 percent as the primary funding mechanism for the new communications system.

“It’s an incremental building of the system,” Pastor said. “Within four years, we will have a cross-talk system.”

Despite all of the difficulties facing the department now and in the future, Pastor was confident in the people under his charge, praising them often during his speech and noting the department is still able to do its main job: nabbing criminals.

“We catch an amazing number of high-level crooks,” he said.


Reporter Brett Davis can be reached at 253-853-9243 or by email at brett.davis@gateline.com. Follow him on Twitter, @gateway_brett.