CLEVELAND, OH — Two unions representing more than 900 Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department employees are calling for changes that would once again allow voters to elect the county’s sheriff.
“Listen, we have gone through sheriffs in Cuyahoga County like the Browns have gone through quarterbacks,” said Colin Sikon with Laborers Local 860, which represents Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Deputies. “It’s terrible for morale.”
Currently, Cuyahoga is the only county in Ohio where the sheriff is not an elected position.
In 2009, following the county corruption scandals, voters chose to make the position appointed by the county executive.
But now Cuyahoga County council members are debating a proposed charter change that will allow voters to decide if they want to return to an elected sheriff.
Adam Chaloupka with the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents the county’s corrections and protective service officers as well as deputy lieutenants, believes the current system has led to power struggles and slows decision-making.
“Cuyahoga County is already a bureaucratic nightmare as it is,” said Chaloupka. “It is even harder when we don’t know how long a particular sheriff is going to be the sheriff and we don’t know how much authority the executive is going to give the sheriff.”
Supporters of an elected sheriff point out there have been 10 sheriffs in Cuyahoga County in the last 17 years.
Eight of them have come since 2018.
“You’re never going to get the department to move forward together and functioning well if the leadership is constantly changing,” said Sikon.
But union representatives insist that their support for allowing voters to choose is not an effort to get rid of current sheriff Harold Pretel.
In fact, Pretel recently told council he’s in favor of the change, believing it would give the sheriff the final say on how the department runs.
“When it comes to making a decision, whether it’s on a human resources issue, whether it’s a personnel issue or some other manner, there’s a big difference between recommending, which is basically asking, or approving going forward with the chosen course of action which is probably the best for the agency made by people who wear this uniform,” Pretel said.
But in a statement, the county executive’s office pointed to the fact residents overwhelmingly voted to make the sheriff’s position an appointed one.
“We believe this structure has been a successful model that enhances efficiency, strengthens public safety, and improves accountability, exactly as the voters intended," said a spokesperson in a statement.
County council is expected to decide whether to put the question before voters in the next few weeks.
