Well, how's it going everybody again Jeff Slakey here and it's time for our sheriff sit-down presented by our great friends at our community credit Union with Mason County Sheriff Ryan Spurling. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Jeff? My god outside here as we're recording in hood sport We're in the middle of the day But it looks like sunset with all the smoke from these fires you guys in the sheriff's office Have been very busy in this last few days. 

It really seems to have Exploded up there in the terms of the burnt acreage and the changing conditions Just before we sat down to record the sheriff's office changed the level one evacuation order in the dry Creek Cushman Ridge area to a level two order. So tell us what that means Well, it just it's a ready set go ready being level one set level two and immediate evacuation level three and we're just at the Set. Okay position, which is that number two position? Which means if you're in that area, you need to be ready to move immediately So the ready was kind of think about where your documents are Maybe get ready look for the backpack that you want to fill up this one the backpacks in the car You the gas is in the tank and you're kind of just waiting now to see what happens. 

How many homes or What kind of residential is up there is that is that kind of the main focus on this? Yeah, we have some cabins and of course, it's some pretty steep terrain up there There are quite a few cabins that you can only access by boat You know along that along that Cushman Ridge, huh? So we actually went up there in the last couple days and we went by every Residence we could get to to make sure it was posted make sure people know what level of evacuation we were at Up in the Dry Creek area as well. We did the same thing and we took a Couple different people up into the water to see close to the fire what the air operations were We actually shut down Lake Cushman Yeah so that the air operations could go and We anticipate that may be a few more days and then maybe we can open up the south end of the lake But what we're kind of going off of what the firefighters are saying they need to have the best effect on the fire We're weeks into this Bear Gulch fire specifically. There's three others that are else in the county but once again, we're weeks into this and teams have cycled out and we're into a new set of Crew that has come up. 

You may have seen I when I was coming up here I saw all the tents now at the Port of Shelton Yep there and I saw you were doing a kind of a briefing on line about this as well Yeah, this is on federal land. You know, you got a US Forest Service. You've got the federal park up there the National Park and you've got Tacoma power and you've got The tribe that has some interest in these areas as well and you've got local fire department up there You have a look in the sheriff's office. 

So there's a lot of entities that come together, but we have what's called I believe it's a level two team that just came in last night of 85 people that will run that from the federal government The previous two teams and they do two weeks at a time. I think we're level three state Type teams. Okay, so this has gotten bigger and because of the other fires They've kind of rolled them all into one big operation. 

We're so great. You have them in the area when I've been to the briefings It's very impressive What they brief on and how they do things and what they've done so far to prevent it from getting to structures as Of this recording here. The Bear Gulch fire is it just under 4,000 acres? Which was a big increase from just a couple days ago The Hama fire is at 66 and then additionally we're looking at the Browns Creek fire around 12 acres and the most Most current fire was that Vance trestle fire, which is about two acres. 

So not only is this Stretching all of the fire resources in the county thin but it's I'm sure stretching the sheriff's office then as well absolutely to have our resources we have our Public information officer up there because this is something that local people when a federal team comes in. They don't know the local Entities right and so if they have to fill out a form to try to get the tribe to approve to shut down The boat launch that the tribe the Skokomish tribe controls. Whereas we just call. 

Yeah, because we know yeah, and We just called the Lake Cushman management company and say can you help us out with this instead of having to go through channels? Because they don't know those people so we partner together to make sure our community is Service the best that we can using the federal resources But also the knowledge of the individuals who control things within our county How does and the reports are that these at least this one and the Hama fire and the Browns Creek are? human caused so explain to me a little about what either DNR does or how the fire crews in conjunction with you look into figuring out how to penalize Someone or find the people involved with this I heard stories about the Columbia River fire from many years ago a couple years ago right where they found the person who did it They were able to do an investigation and now The family is having to pay a restitution, you know monthly they have to do this This this is a huge strain not only on resources personnel wise But financial resources as well the state in the county already are strapped in not to mention people can't use the area right Lake Cushman Yeah, go to staircase. They you know vacations that were planned or impacting the tourism the restaurants. I mean, it's a whole ripple Yeah, absolutely And it's a combination of multiple things Obviously you have people that are trained on how to investigate fires in the origin or the start of that fire arson investigators that type of thing We are the ones at the sheriff's office that are able to charge criminally for reckless burning or reckless endangerment through Activities now, we do believe that these were all human started, but we don't have any indication that they were intentionally started Okay. 

Okay, and so there would be more accidental. We believe there may be fireworks involved or shooting of firearms You know where you get a ricochet So with that in mind like to remind people don't go out and go shooting right now when it's so dry I was in the military for a lot of years and we would go to Yakima Firing Center and we'd start fires all the Time because you'd be shooting on the ranges and one ricochet will cause a spark and if it's real dry It'll go so please don't be doing that right now and obviously fireworks, especially illegal fireworks are a big concern for us You know, they even talk about even even nowadays in this Weather conditions, you know, don't even mow your lawn after a certain, you know 10 in the morning Don't even go out and do that because that could kick up a spark spark as well Yeah, especially if you have like the big tractor Yeah mowing with a brush hog, those things will hit those rocks and they're hitting it so hard. It's sparking And you know, just like a chainsaw or some of the ORVs have spark arresters the motorcycle So what they're out in the woods, they have a spark arrester that prevents them from starting a fire. 

What's it look like up there? It looks like nighttime when we were up there just yesterday The clouds and the smoke when the wind shifted it and blew it back on the lake We sent some pictures out. It was just this orange ominous. Yeah thing and Mother Nature has a tremendous power I mean those fires people don't Understand the power of trees just exploding into flames and burning that fuel and it's on such a steep hillside right now It's you know, it's really tough to manage for these teams Additionally to they're still working through areas that have not fully recovered from the o6 Bear gulch fire, which which causes which caused I think initially to a big Hindrance and being able to effectively fight this thing. 

Well, this is on such steep angles. Yeah, there's nothing they can really do it's not like a crew can get up on this grade and and Create a fire break or they really even struggle to dump water on it because it's so steep The aircraft can't get close to it. Yeah coming in from the water grabbing the drops and getting it back up. 

I think from Lake Level up to the top 3,500 feet and it's not it doesn't take a long time to get up there super steep Yeah, let's move in to some other things that are going on in the sheriff's office I see a lot of posts that you guys make about new people coming in new worker new employees for the sheriff's office Promotions have been happening. There's been some other changes With that let's start kind of high level this week I was at the County Commission meeting and under sheriff Adams has been in the interim acting role of County administrator. Yes, but he has When the opening was posted I think there were six other candidates and he ultimately was selected as the new county administrator and so he has Effectively retired out of the sheriff's office and now he's a civilian persona non grata. 

Yeah, I remember you when I think the county will benefit Travis is such a smart Big picture guy. Yeah, great leader He will do a fantastic job and everybody in the county will benefit from him being over there um, what what is it like then to have someone who knows the Inner workings of the sheriff's office able to really be there and help support and Explain even more of what's going on there, you know He's been involved as an undersheriff for seven years So he works with the county works with the Board of County Commissioners and the other elected officials and the other Department heads and he said the biggest shock to him going over there as interim and now obviously full-time is How little other departments know what we do really even though we're part of the county and they're part of the count They have no idea what we do Wow. He says we're terrible at advertising how much work we actually do So him having that background is going to be very big to us plus at this point he can coach and mentor the sheriff's office to do a better job and It's all about serving our community yeah as a team and the better and the more the offices within the county work together the better the citizens benefit and the Deputy dracobly, he was chief criminal deputy Yeah, so he had stepped up into that interim role filling in Travis's spot But now he's going to be the undersheriff. 

I just promoted him to undersheriff officially as of today August 1st He is now our new undersheriff he has 35 years of law enforcement experience He's been in effectively every position of leadership all the way up the chain of command. He's very smart. He's been doing it a long time He will do a great job He's late in his career though So he said he's only got about a year and a half and he says I'll be there while you can train up the next Person as well and finish out. 

What does an undersheriff do? You know, the undersheriff effectively runs the agency At our house, so to speak you won't see the undersheriff out at scenes very right You won't see them coming out in the middle of the night doing these because they run everything in the background When I'm out in the community, he's back at the office. He interacts with the other offices. He interacts with the commissioners he does a lot of the briefing and he Oversees the chiefs we have a chief of the jail. 

Yeah, so the chief of the jail runs the jail operations We have a chief of patrol that runs a patrol division and the detectives and we have a civil chief that handles all of our civil stuff the undersheriff is the direct supervisor of those three chiefs and those chiefs usually are looking out for the interest of their division and Sometimes they're short-sighted on how it affects the other divisions The undersheriff's job is to give that holistic approach and say wait a minute How does it affect the other division if you want this or we want to move that direction? So he brings that unity together and then he advises me on a lot of that stuff and when I'm out doing other things He's running the house and very beneficial then For Jason to have been in every almost every position there in the sheriff's department. Absolutely that Big knowledge base is huge and he's really financially savvy One of the things the undersheriff does is he oversees with our financial manager? Okay, the finances so that we land that plane at the end of the year and we we use our finances wisely That's an interesting thing again to bring up when it comes to the sheriff's office. They have their own I mean, you're an elected official you have your own portion of the budget that kind of is encompassed by the whole county government but you have your own pile of money there that you have to work through and figure out what works best for the office and Protecting the 60,000 plus people that are here in the county Yeah, the you know, there's checks and balances within County government and balances of power So the County Commissioners determine our budget and then once they give us our budget we have a double bottom line So we have operations and wages and benefits. 

So we have basically two budgets that they provide to us Then once they give it to us, it's ours to do what we feel is necessary The one thing, you know, we have about 19 million dollar budget, which isn't very big You look at the fire departments and they're so much larger, right? Right, you know yet we get so many more calls for service maybe not as long at a call for service that they do but so the tax structure is a little different but We get that money and we out of the 19 million almost I would say all but about four or five hundred thousand dollars is already obligated So I maybe have four to five hundred thousand dollars worth of operational discretionary money for new equipment for new Software for other things, but everything else is spoken for our yeah, you know dispatch we pay a large portion of mace comms Funds because we're largest user. Yeah, we have our RMS or Spillman our records management system And our CAD systems and we have to pay for those every year We have wages and benefits, which you know is a huge portion of any budget. Yeah Other promotions that you want to share. 

Yes, we Because criminal chief deputy Dracolby is now under Sheriff Dracolby. We had to promote a new chief criminal deputy and that was Sergeant former detective sergeant Jeff Rhodes is now our chief criminal. Oh, yeah And then the former corporal Michael sergeant who was corporal sergeant And the detectives is now sergeant sergeant, so it's easier to remember And then we also had another promotion of a new corporal within detectives and then to a new Canine. 

Oh, yes, we We did some research and we're thinking outside the box and we ruffled some feathers because we're not doing it the traditional way big concern the largest lawsuits against counties right now is overdoses and suicides in jails That's one of our biggest lawsuits who really risk pools, huh? And no matter what we do, it seems like they come up with a clever way of getting drugs into the jails We have a scanner that we purchased through a grant But now legislation was passed saying that it causes too much radiation exposure on repeat offenders So we have to turn the scanner down to where it's almost ineffective. Are these like body scanner TSA scan? Yes that type of thing because people will sure Smuggle in drugs in body cavities we have to use the scanners to discover that and They've passed legislation to prevent this, you know If repeat offenders from being exposed to too much, which I understand but that makes it almost ineffective so what we've done at this point is we've taken a Traditionally How what's the best way to say it a traditionally just a secretary type position and we've made it a handler of a contraband sniffing dog which is not a traditional police canine at all and it's almost like a contracted in tool that we use and this contraband dog is going to go into cells when there's no people there and sniff if they indicate on something then we'll bring in the commissioned officers, but we had to get it out of the way Get something done as soon as possible to limit some of the liability and those dogs are incredible what they can find You know, we walk into a room and we smell spaghetti. They walk into a room and they smell every ingredient spaghetti It's just incredible what they what they cue on and we're excited to be able to offer that We also have a drug dog out in the community that we've trained up that sniffs fentanyl and other drugs That's certified as a police canine. 

So we have both a Non-certified police Non-police canine and a police canine handled by a deputy out on the street I was gonna ask about the fentanyl part of it so they can they can identify that Yeah, and they can go into schools. They can go into any place, you know public places that type of thing Wow Huh? And again the lawsuits coming are more of The families of the people who overdosed who felt that under your supervision Not your specific, but the jails Right now we haven't been sued right an overdose We've been fortunate that we any we have had a couple overdoses But we were able to revive them with Narcan and get them medical aid and they survived there a lot of other jails throughout the state and prisons throughout the state have not been as Successful with that and they've had deaths a lot quite a few deaths and that's what and that's what the families I'm assuming it's families that are putting forth these lawsuits that it in your care. You should be taken care of Online reporting that's something we've talked about here For the last couple months that it had been getting on board and people are able to put these in not necessarily Major crimes that are happening. 

But if you see a lawnmower that's missing or things like that. How's that? Yeah, absolutely If if a crime is not in progress and you have no suspect information You can go to our website and soon as you under the county and you look under departments and you hook the sheriff's office Up in the upper left-hand corner. It's online reporting right there. 

Yeah, and you can go on to there You can fill out the information again if there's no suspect and it's not in progress because if those things are occurring you need to call the non-emergency or the 911 line and then you will have somebody process it much faster because a We've said so many times that we're running anywhere from 60 to 150 Yeah calls for service a day over a thousand square miles with five or six people So it may be hours if you had something stolen from your house Over the night and you don't know who did it and it's gone and you want to report it to your insurance You may be sitting at home and having to get off of work to sit there waiting for a deputy for four hours because they're covering in progress first whereas now you can go online get the information you need for insurance purposes and Provide all the information that you can so that we can start looking at patterns and getting ahead of the game Tell me a little bit about the next couple of months in the sheriff's office any more partnerships that you have coming on board how you're getting out and Explaining like we talked about maybe you have to do a little better job Explaining within the county what's going on in the sheriff's office, but getting out and just seeing people. I saw you at the bite of Shelton these are always great events. Yeah, I try to make it to a lot of the events I mean we had the fjord crossing. 

We had a bite of Shelton. We had Allen days We had the Great View Water Festival last week and we have What is it? The hood stock coming up with their Chuck. There's always so fast before you know it. 

Yes, we oyster fest is in October Those are always great community events And we try to make it out to those and be visible and the community really responds positively with that especially like oyster fest We're going to have a pretty good presence at oyster fest because that's a major event yeah, it's one of the largest shellfish festivals in the world and especially on the west coast and We want to make sure people are safe. They get a chance to interact and ask questions We're also you were talking about other partnerships or new things with what former under sheriff Adams has told us we're we're going to move towards doing a Bi-monthly briefing to the commissioners and to the rest of the county on some of the things we're up to just to share that information And do a better job of communicating what we're doing so that the different entities can work together better Does that help to then if you're talking with folks in? County government and then it just kind of starts spreading out that More and more people hear that. Oh now there is that new Drug dog in the jails or now there is a kind of Promoted a new promotion structure here where there's some new people that are running the different departments. 

How does that help the overall? Outreach mission of the sheriff's office. I think it helps it greatly You know and this is totally me talking for a second here My speculation is we are a society that has instant gratification when it comes to information Yeah, and without that information we fill in the blank with something else. Oh, yeah. 

Yeah, so that's how rumors get started That's how miscommunication happens So we want to do a better job of communicating what's going on so that there isn't a need to fill in the blank with Speculation or with a rumor that somebody had said and it's just better business Yeah getting that it's marketing right getting it out there as soon as you can So you can yeah like fill in fill in those blanks because people will They'll just kind of know I heard this or that and and nine times out of ten It's completely erroneous information that is not at all accurate. Yeah Yeah And it's super important to me to be out in the community to be able to answer questions because I think that's the job of an Elected official as well new school year. We'll be here before you know it. 

What's going on with dare dare? We're gonna have we got our Second dare officer trained up. Oh my that's cool. Nicholas Monteo who? Speaks conca ball in Spanish. 

Oh, that's gonna be probably starting off in the North Mason schools or other schools We have 13 different fifth grade classes. So our goal is to eventually get all of them Yeah, we're gonna start so we'll have two dare officers this year and we're also gonna do something a little different as we're going to We're in process of moving this way anyway of Looking at our corrections deputies to help with dare as well and get out of the jail and get involved in the community Sometimes they're kind of cubby holed in the jail and they don't get to do these type of things that interact with the community as much So that's one of the things that we were moving towards. Yeah, you know, I talked to Old friend of the station Kaleb, right and I go man You need to get out there and be part of the parades and things like that because you know people don't They don't they're not walking into the jail on a daily basis to see how things are going. 

There's it's a whole nother It's a world. It's its own city. Yeah, it really is it operates 24-7, you know You've got all the people to feed their clothes to laundry. 

Yeah, you have to give them mental health support You have to give them doctor or medical support. You have to give them exercise. You have to give them access to religious services and Entertainment and other things so it's there's a whole Entity of rules and regulations around jails and prisons and I remember over the years and I'm sure it's still true But like finding people to come work Specifically in the jail is difficult. 

We still struggle with that and we're nine positions down in our jail, right? Yeah, so getting getting folks out there to explain what they do and demystify it a little bit probably a good idea The nice thing about the jail which a lot of people don't understand is the patrol deputies will deal with people when they're in crisis Yeah, whether it be a mental health crisis or under the influence of something where you know A good majority of the people that we arrest those are the circumstances So we see them during those crisis times and we drop them off at the jail Now the jail is some of the few law enforcement that gets to see them when they've detoxed yeah, when they're out of that crisis and get to know them as a human being and as a person and Interact with them and The influence that our jailers have to be able to help and support and try to prevent these people from going back To that life when they get out is big and there's it's pretty rewarding for a lot of that You talk to these jailers and they're they're just amazed at what they're able to do in people's lives. That's great You know, it's not always successful obviously, right but you know, it's it's a good Voice to chat with and have have somebody there that's listening and you build that rapport over a day Week a month, whatever however long they're there Mason County Sheriff Ryan Spurling I do appreciate these conversations always and all the updates the sheriff's office has been putting out on these fires It's a continually changing situation and so Always check in on Mason County wad gov also follow the sheriff's office on Facebook and For bear Gulch specifically bear Gulch is on Facebook to their bear Gulch 2025 is the name of that page and Mason County all hazards. Yeah. 

Yeah em page. Yeah, and they usually get updates Right around 10 or 11 every day with new numbers and new efforts that are happening there. So I appreciate your time. 

Absolutely Thank you Jeff for you're everywhere. You talk about me being everywhere. You're all over the community, you know the community Well, I appreciate all you do now. 

Thank you so much