Hughes, Greene make strong bids for sheriff; Greene gets nod

Randall Wellington became sher- iff of Mahoning County in 1999 at a dark time for the office. His predecessor, Phil Chance, was headed to jail, and Wellington brought to the office an integrity that had been absent.

Now, after more than a half-century in law enforcement, including 14 years as Youngstown’s police chief and nearly as long as sheriff, Wellington is retiring.

Three men with varying backgrounds in law enforcement are seeking to replace him.

Like Wellington, Jimmy Hughes is a former Youngstown police chief. He is 59 and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Youngstown State University and attended the University of Akron, the University of Virginia, the FBI Academy and Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command.

Jerry Greene, 45, is a former captain in the sheriff’s department who has been the director of support services since October. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice with a minor in business management from YSU and has attended the FBI National Academy, Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and Ohio Corrections Officer Training Academy.

Brian Goodin, 49, was a Beaver Township patrolman for seven years before joining the Poland Township Police Department in 1990; he was named chief in 2004. He attended the Ohio Peace Officers’ Training Academy and Police Executive Leadership College. Goodin declined an interview with the newspaper’s editorial board, saying he was seeking no endorsements.

Both Greene and Hughes sat for interviews that covered a wide range of topics and gave detailed responses to questions about their careers and their plans for the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department if elected. Neither is a perfect candidate, but both are strong candidates who would bring experience and a passion for law enforcement to the office.

Hughes

Hughes has a perception hurdle to overcome: Youngstown’s record for violent crime. There is no doubt that Youngstown has had more than its share of homicides under Hughes and many of his predecessors, but he notes that after taking over as chief he attacked the problem aggressively. And, indeed, the city had 32 and 39 homicides the first two years of his administration, but then dropped to 28 the third year and 22 or 23 each of the last three years. He credits that to cooperation with other agencies, especially the U.S. Attorney’s office, and his willingness to assign YPD officers to special patrols.

Hughes also said he was a firm disciplinarian; he did not tolerate dishonesty, and he suspended and fired police officers for misbehavior.

Hughes also said he “cut the brass” in his department as the ranks shrunk, something that he said has not been done at the sheriff’s office.

Greene

While Hughes has a strong background in municipal law enforcement, Greene has spent his entire career at the Sheriff’s Department, which he joined in 1989 as a deputy. He was promoted to sergeant in 2003 and captain in 2007.

He has a familiarity with every aspect of the department: patrol, security at the courthouse and operation of the jail. About 80 percent of the department’s manpower is assigned to jail duty, and the jail has produced most of the headlines for the department — good and bad — for the last decade.

Most recently Wellington’s refusal to provide video arraignments for Youngstown Municipal Court displayed an intransigence on the part of the sheriff and a disregard for providing a public service at the least cost. It is encouraging that Greene says he believes he could have found another way of working through the impasse, but discouraging in that he says he supports the sheriff’s taking a hard line.

Greene is a proponent of charging prisoners a $60 or $100 booking fee, which he believes could be pursued more efficiently than past “pay to stay” schemes and could bring in about $60,000. He also believes the county should pursue aggressively the collection of about $30,000 a month he believes the city owes the county for prisoners arrested under city ordinances and housed at the jail.

While we have often supported seeking an outsider to bring a new perspective to one public institution or another, we were impressed by Greene’s level of knowledge of operations at the sheriff’s department.

He says he recognizes the need to make some changes, and points to his recommendation some years ago to reduce the number of deputies assigned to security at the courthouse.

We’re hoping that if he is elected, he’ll demonstrate that kind of openness to finding a way of economizing, rather than his disappointing insistence that money could not be saved by reverting to a system similar to Trumbull County, where deputies are deputies and jailers are lower-paid corrections officers.

The Vindicator is endorsing Greene because he presented impressive experience and credentials, combined with an attitude that he sees serving as sheriff as a natural progression in his career, not the second phase of a lifetime in law enforcement.

Hughes, no doubt, could adapt to the job, but Greene has been preparing to be sheriff for years and is in the best position to find new ways of meeting the demands of the office he would hold and the department he would head.