New Trumbull sheriff focused on drug crimes, jail crowding, getting better
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
New Sheriff Paul Monroe gave a progress report to a packed banquet hall on his first 25 days in office.
“I thought we were going to have a rough transition with the employees, but I was pleasantly wrong,” he said during a meet-the-sheriff night Thursday at DiVieste’s Banquet Hall.
“The members of our jail staff, our corrections people, our clerks, our deputies, they are very eager to work for you. They are your employees,” he said. “They have brought us along and brought me and my staff up to speed very quickly.”
Monroe, former police chief in Howland, defeated longtime sheriff Tom Altiere in the Democratic primary last spring. He had no Republican opponent.
“I’ve learned a lot about the jail in the last 25 days,” he said. “Actually, I’m in the jail almost every day. The biggest thing I’ve learned about our jail is that it’s at capacity almost every day. The biggest reason our jail is at capacity, and we’re overpopulated, is the [Mahoning] Valley’s drug problem.
“Most of our prisoners are tied directly to some type of drug crime, whether it’s drug trafficking or they’re drug abusers and they are committing other, more serious felonies in our county, to support their own habit.”
His jail administrator is Dan Mason, who formerly worked for the Warren Police Department. His human-resources director is Paula Maas.
Monroe said tracking the drug trade in the county was one of his platform items, and it’s something he’s done before. “We’re going to do it again,” he said.
He’s talked with Capt. Jeff Orr, commander of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force, about changing the direction of TAG, which operates under the authority of the sheriffs of Trumbull and Ashtabula counties.
“These guys have been doing a good job. They are undermanned. But it’s going to be more enforcement for them. One thing I’ve said all along is I’m a policeman. I came here to enforce the law, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Monroe said.
“I’m going to be going out to all of the communities in Trumbull County, along with my chief deputy, Joe Dragovich, and Jeff Orr, and we’re going to solicit manpower help to do a better job for everybody. And we’ll be successful,” he added.
Arresting people on drug crimes will keep the jail population high, “but we have a plan for that,” he said of two prisoner programs.
One is a day-reporting program for nonviolent inmates in which they will work for the county “to lighten some of the burden of our county employees to get things done.” The work will involve cutting grass, picking up litter, shoveling snow and cleaning up dilapidated properties.
Another program will involve jail inmates in the final 30 to 60 days of their sentence who will pick up litter along the roadways under supervision.
Monroe and Maj. Jeff Palmer, who is in charge of deputies, have begun mapping out strategies “to have a better presence” in the northern and western parts of the county where deputies do most of their patrols.
Monroe said he’s been promoting a motto for the department: “We’re better today than we were yesterday, and we’ll be better tomorrow than we were today.”