Snohomish County sheriff | Beidler and Greene

Snohomish County is growing at a furious pace, with another 300,000 residents expected by 2025. The headlong rush from rural to suburban to urban is well under way. Law enforcement must match the pace and demands of blistering change.

Rob Beidler and Tom Greene are the best choices to replace Sheriff Rick Bart, who has served a three-term limit. This election season is a search for a sheriff with the ideas and leadership to move the department ahead. Voters deserve better than the long-running soap opera between Bart and County Executive Aaron Reardon. Their bickering and petty clashes did nothing to improve the competency or functionality of the department.

We want Beidler and Greene to survive the primary so they can debate the future of the department in modern times.

Lt. Beidler is a high-energy veteran of street-level police work. He has advanced in rank through the sheriff's department, and held a variety of front-line supervisory roles and assumed management duties. He is broadly endorsed by deputies, police officers and firefighters throughout the county.

Bureau chief Greene is a behind-the-scenes administrator for the department, helping implement new programs and overseeing contract, facility and personnel issues for the sheriff's office. He is widely supported by police and fire chiefs around Snohomish County.

Both candidates began campaigning in spring 2005. The test for whomever survives the primary is to better define the problems and opportunities ahead. Expensive and morale-draining overtime is a big issue. Given the problems elsewhere in law enforcement, voters also need to hear how departmental discipline is handled.

A third candidate in the race is state Rep. John Lovick, a retired, 31-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol. He has been a candidate for two months, and cannot yet articulate why he wants to be sheriff.

We have proudly and consistently endorsed Lovick for the Legislature, but other than longevity, he cannot point to anything in his Patrol record that prepares him to be sheriff. As for the department, he talks vaguely of improved community outreach.

Lovick might advance on name familiarity. That is not enough.

Voters should send Rob Beidler and Tom Greene to the November general election. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Department needs fresh thinking and new ideas.