Vote Greene for Snohomish sheriff

SNOHOMISH County voters can confidently promote Bureau Chief Tom Greene to be their next county sheriff. He is the strongest choice to replace Rick Bart, who has served a three-term limit.

Greene is the functional equivalent of the department's chief administrative and financial officer. He is a member of Bart's senior management team, and 35 years of broad law-enforcement experience have prepared him for this next step. He knows a tough job from the road up through a variety of supervisory and command positions. Greene will be comfortable whether he is attending a roll-call briefing with patrol officers or in a meeting at the County Courthouse, or with legislators in Olympia.

Greene pledges to work on community education and crime prevention, the pursuit of repeat offenders, investment in law-enforcement technology, and the measurement of departmental performance.

Based on experience, leadership capacity and knowledge of the department, Greene is the best choice. He is simply not as well-known to voters as state Rep. John Lovick, of Mill Creek, a retired, 31-year veteran of the Washington State Patrol.

We have praised and endorsed Lovick's work in the Legislature and continue to admire his energy and skills as a politician. None of that is diminished by our assessment that in this race for this job, he is not the superior candidate.

Lovick is full of enthusiasm for the idea of being sheriff, but he does not have Greene's understanding of the department and corresponding vision for what needs to be done. For Lovick to succeed as sheriff, he would need someone very much like Greene at his side.

Snohomish County is ably represented by Lovick in state government, the perfect arena for his considerable talents.

The best choice to be Snohomish County sheriff is Tom Greene.