Race for Deschutes County Sheriff Heats Up ▶ [With Video]

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Photos courtesy of candidates

The contentious race for the next Deschutes County Sheriff is well underway, with two longtime officers squaring off in November amid a department, plagued by years of unrest, lawsuits and allegations of discrimination against top brass.

Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp is running against Capt. William Bailey for the open seat. Both have a long history in the department and each declared his intent to run last fall following Sheriff Shane Nelson's retirement announcement. Bailey quickly received an endorsement from Nelson while Vander Kamp positioned himself in opposition to the current administration.

Bailey maintains that while he appreciates the support of Nelson, he's running his own campaign, and if elected, would bring new ideas and leadership to the department's highest position.

"Sheriff Nelson has been a great mentor, but he and I are not the same person," Bailey wrote in an email to Source Weekly. "I have my own experiences, ideas and plans that I will bring as Sheriff. I made it clear when I decided to run that I would take the agency in a different direction."

Vander Kamp, who leads field operations for the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team, filed a tort claim notice last week of his intent to sue for alleged election interference. His tort notice is one of four such notices the office has recently received.

However, questions about Vander Kamp's ethics have also been lobbed from Bailey supporters. Among them is concern about how Vander Kamp has worked full-time for DCSO while running a 30-year-old, multi-state mortgage and real estate company, Oracle Funding Corp. Vander Kamp, who is listed as president and owner of the company and whose wife, Rachel Vander Kamp, is listed as the operations manager by the Better Business Bureau, said he stepped down from the day-to-day operations years ago. On June 27, the campaign's website announced that Vander Kamp would no longer take on new clients, though the company would continue operations. "My opponent was spreading information that I was heavily distracted," Vander Kamp said when asked why he made the announcement in June. He said he wanted to make it clear that he was focused solely on his position at DCSO and the election.

Against this backdrop, the Source Weekly held a roundtable style interview with the two candidates last Friday. The full interview is on the Source Weekly's YouTube page. On many issues, the two candidates were aligned.

Homelessness and Fire Safety

Vander Kamp said he sees homelessness as the biggest issue.

"I think China Hat road is the highest potential danger. Fire danger, deaths, stabbing, shootings. Everything is going on out there. That needs to stop," Vander Kamp said, adding that he would also like to see more support for mental health services.

"I would agree," Bailey said, "Homelessness and fire risk in conjunction with each other. We saw a couple of fires this past summer – and summer is not over – with two near misses of fires to the east side of La Pine and the Mile Marker 132 Fire."

Bailey is captain of the office's patrol division, overseeing all patrol operations for DCSO. He said he works closely with the U.S. Forest Service to tackle the problem, specifically around China Hat. Among the changes he said he's made are adding deputies to proactively patrol the area over summer and handing out hundreds of fire extinguishers and safety information to people there.

Deflection

With the passage of House Bill 4002 in March, the state legislature overturned part of Measure 110 and recriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs, while encouraging law enforcement to deflect drug users from the criminal justice system and toward treatment centers without criminal charges. The new law went into effect Sept. 1. Roll-out statewide has varied widely, with some counties setting up robust support systems and others not participating. Both candidates said they view Deschutes County as far ahead of others with program implementation.

While it's still in the early days, Bailey said he's confident in the office's ability to lead the program. "We operate the jail. We have a direct connection to those that [sic] are suffering from addictions and an opportunity to connect with them while they may be in our jail," he said.

Vander Kamp said he would like to see the issue tackled more robustly and connect people they help with housing services as well.

"It's really hard to become and stay sober without stable housing," he said. "And I'm working with Shepherd's House and Lighthouse [a low-barrier shelter in Bend] and a few other organizations, with their ideas because you can put somebody into a deflection program, but if they don't have that stability foundation for living they're not going to succeed."

WATCH: Our interview with candidates Vander Kamp and Bailey:

DCSO runs the only jail in the county but suffers from low staffing levels of deputies and medical staff, according to Vander Kamp and Bailey.

"Deputies tell me that they are frustrated with 24-hour access to medical care for inmates and proper staffing," Vander Kamp said, adding that he would like to see registered nurses and behavior health experts available 24-hours a day to inmates, along with higher pay for those positions to ensure quality candidates.

"Lot of people point to the recent contract at St. Charles where nurses were paid significantly more than they were a couple years ago, and with that, they lost nursing staff back to the hospital," he said. "They feel like they were replaced with less-trained medical people."

In addition, Vander Kamp said patrol and corrections are understaffed and have unhealthy shift schedules, working a combination of overnight and day shifts each week.

Bailey said that he agrees staffing is an issue at the jail and in the sheriff's office broadly. "Staffing is a concern; that is not for lack of trying and hiring," he said. "That's why, two years ago, I helped create and promote a recruiting team that's now out at military bases and college campuses and any job fairs locally and outside the area, really driving towards showing people who we are, what opportunities we have."

Bailey also pointed to recent changes like a new food vendor within the jail for officers who can't leave for meals and a new monthly reporting system to flag when an officer has had repeat traumatic incidents or high-volume calls and could use more support.

November and After

When asked about the continued allegations of retaliation and discontent that plagues DCSO, Vander Kamp and Bailey each said they were the right choice for unifying the department.

"I think it's very important that people feel inspired and they feel safe and really fulfilled at work," Vander Kamp said. "I think that's the key to success. The first goal is to rebuild that trust and connect with our staff and make sure that they're heard and they have the tools that they need."

"Elections and sheriff's offices are very divisive. They have been for years. This is...I can say is probably the worst, maybe because I'm looking at it from a different perspective, but I will have to say this is probably the worst I've ever seen."

Vander Kamp pointed to a "wiki-leaks" type website that posts legal notices and inside claims from law enforcement as an example of how serious things have gotten. (DCSO Follies, the website in question, has a Facebook page with posts going back to October 15, 2023– the sites' authors remain anonymous.)

"First off, I am saddened as well by these things," Bailey said regarding the allegations of retaliation and corruption at DCSO. "I want to be clear though that when Kent talks about 'these people,' he does not talk about the entire agency because there are just as many people that are happy."

"What has fundamentally broken down in our office is communication," Bailey said. "Because if you talk, it will get used against you in some other manner, and so people are afraid to talk." Bailey said he and others have been a target o the DCSO Follies page, and he sees the posts as harassing and intimidating to himself and the staff, as well as inaccurate. He also thinks the timing of the allegations is political.

Vander Kamp disagreed, saying that many of what's out there are known facts.

"To say that it's a website full of lies, I think that's foolish at best," Vander Kamp said, adding that the reason people are coming to him is because, "they don't trust the current administration, including my opponent."

Despite the intensity of the race, each candidate said that win or lose, they would work together after Nov. 5 and continue the work of DCSO.