Candidates Shane Vance and Cecil Hobson discussed the future of the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Office at a forum last Thursday.
The forum was organized by the Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce.
In his opening statement, Hobson noted that he didn’t begin his career in law enforcement — he worked in construction for 15 years before deciding to take law-enforcement training.
“I know what I’m capable of, (and) I know what the deputies under me are capable of,” Hobson said in his opening statement. “I’d like to continue working for the county of Mitchell.”
In his opening statement, Vance spoke about his personal and professional experience with drugs — as an officer enforcing drug law, and as the child of addicts.
“I ran for sheriff in 2010,” Vance said. “I was young, had big aspirations, but lacked the wisdom. Now I feel like I have the wisdom to do the job.”
Each candidate was asked different questions, but they had the opportunity to offer rebuttals to just two of the other candidate’s answers.
Hobson was asked how he would strengthen collaboration with other agencies. In response, he said that the sheriff’s office already does a good job of collaborating with other counties as well as state and other agencies.
“We have a very good rapport, we work close with,” Hobson said. “For instance, Unicoi County (Tenn.) — there’s just been a recent state law that I helped present to pass through, that allows us to cooperate through out-of-state agencies, allows us to cross borders and work with them on special operations plans.”
The new law allows local law enforcement more leeway to pursue suspects into Tennessee.
Vance used one of his two rebuttal cards to respond to this, saying that it would be helpful to form an official multi-agency drug task force.
“Being a drug task force agent, you collaborate with every agency around you, and you form a task force to go after the drug dealers,” Vance said. “I would like to do that as a sheriff, and I know how to do that.”