Election 2026: Meet Flathead County Sherriff Candidate Evie Cahalen

Marion resident Evie Cahalen joins reporter Taylor Inman to discuss her campaign to unseat incumbent Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino in the upcoming June 2 Republican primary. Drawing on decades of law enforcement experience, Cahalen outlines her leadership philosophy, approach to community safety, and priorities for staffing, training, and accountability.

In this full interview, Cahalen shares her perspective on immigration policy, detention center planning, and building trust between law enforcement and the public—offering voters a comprehensive look at her vision for the sheriff’s office.

This is Part One of our Flathead County Sherriff Election coverage. Listen to our interview with Sherriff Brian Heino.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 1:25

All right, I'm here with Evie. She is running for Sheriff. Thanks for being with me, Evie. Thank you for having me. All right. Well, we're gonna run through some questions today. Um I wanted to start by getting to know you a little bit. Um can you tell me where you grew up? I sure can.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

I grew up in Connecticut. Um spent the first 18 years of my life there, went to college in Washington, D.C. at American University, where I got a degree in Administration of Justice. Two weeks after I graduated from college, I started in the police academy in Montgomery County, Maryland at 21 years old. I didn't have any time, I didn't have any break, went right into the police department right out of college. I was blessed to work in a department that offered so many opportunities to those of us that work there. I was never constrained by anything, by gender, by size, by any of those things. But I had so many opportunities. I started as a patrol officer. I worked in patrol for the first seven and a half years. In at that point, and probably still one of the most dangerous districts in Montgomery County, bordering Washington, D.C., one of the most dangerous areas of Washington, D.C. In the first six months in my career, I investigated homicides, armed robberies, burglaries, suicides, rapes. It was a very busy area, but it was a good place to learn how to be a good cop. And so I was challenged every day with the crimes that I was investigating, but it really gave me a lot of experience and background in how to deal with all different types of crimes. So from there, I had an opportunity to become a DAIRE officer and teach drug education, and I did that for four years. Really enjoy doing that, working with the children, working with the kids. You know, sometimes we forget just how crime impacts the youth in our community, and we need to help educate them and keep them away from the things that will hurt them. They're really the most vulnerable people in our community. And I from that moment on I realized how important it is just to protect them, to train them, to teach them how to protect themselves and keep themselves safe. Dare was a very big program at that time. I really enjoyed teaching that. I did that for almost four years, a little less than four years. Then I was offered a position as a public information officer in our department. So I had the opportunity to work with the media, which is why I like working with the media even today. I think it's a very important relationship that we have in law enforcement with our media. But again, another great opportunity to build those kinds of relationships that are critical in law enforcement. We have to be able to work with, talk with, and and have those relationships with our local media. So from there, I was promoted to corporal, took a test, got promoted, and I went back into patrol. And it was a very short time as corporal, as patrol corporal, because I then got promoted to sergeant only five months later. So it was a really short time as a corporal. I got promoted to sergeant and I worked a patrol shift. And I was also a training shift where we trained officers that were coming out of the academy, so it was a field training program shift. So I was a sergeant training sergeant, again, back in patrol, for about two and a half years. I took the lieutenant's test and he did very well on that. And I got promoted to lieutenant in only two and a half years. From that point on, I stayed in the district where I was a sergeant for about a year and a half as a patrol deputy district commander. And I was got a call on a Friday afternoon and asked if I would take over the Internal Affairs Division in our department. My initial response was, why me? Because you know internal affairs has a reputation. It's a place where not a lot of police officers ever want to be. Because administrative investigations are different than criminal investigations, as you can imagine, completely different. And when you're investigating your own people, your fellow police officers, you have to ensure that what you are doing is absolutely top-notch, that you have the best skilled, trained investigators doing it, because you are dealing with your own officers. When I went into internal affairs, there were some concerns, some issues with the way that the division had been run. And I worked very hard to change the image of the Internal Affairs Division. It's not like the movies. A lot of people watch those movies that are out there where the internal affairs cops are, you know, beating down doors of fellow police officers and throwing them in handcuffs. Administrative investigations are not criminal investigations. We don't arrest police officers. We investigate allegations of misconduct in that position. And hopefully, we determine that the officers have not done anything wrong. If we determine that they have, then we address it appropriately. Sadly, there was a very serious allegation brought against an officer in our department of child abuse. That came to my attention to my office through our Family Crimes Division and Child Protective Services. Our criminal investigators picked up the investigation. Sadly, the allegations were true. The officer involved was actually assaulting his 13-year-old daughter. It was probably in all of my career, and all the things that I saw in my career, was one of the most devastating things to imagine a fellow police officer could do such a thing. So there are times when internal affairs and criminal investigations do cross, but that's not something that we do. But I learned a lot in that in that in that assignment. And it's kind of weird to say I enjoyed working there, but I did because I had an opportunity to really have a positive influence on the department. And what I found was cops do good work. Yeah, people complain sometimes. There's some minor allegations of misconduct, which if if they're investigated appropriately, it's handled appropriately. Law enforcement officers do a good job. They do. They commit their lives to a very dangerous job. I give them so much credit. I did it for 25 years. I know I risked my life when I went to work every single day, just as my fellow officers did. And they currently do. And I admire that. So while I was in internal affairs, I went back to school. I got my master's degree from Johns Hopkins University. I have a master's degree in police management, actually, because they have a program there specifically for law enforcement leaders. It was a cohort. For two years I went through that program with fellow law enforcement officers at the local, state, and federal level. It was a great program. And while I was there in that program, I also got promoted to captain. So I stayed in internal affairs for a period of time, then was transferred from there into our Family Crimes Division, which is the division in our department that investigates internet crimes against children, pedophiles, child abuse, domestic violence, even adult protective service type crimes as well. So it's a very broad-based investigation, trafficking of children, trafficking of adults. Very broad-based investigative area division. And from there, of course, I had gotten promoted, I completed my degree, my master's degree, and then I was promoted to commander, where I was assigned to our Germantown district, which back into patrol. So that's where I finished my career as a patrol commander. And like I said, you know, Taylor, there wasn't a day that I came to work that I didn't love my job. Law enforcement's been my passion. It always has been, it always will be. After I retired, I began working for, actually I worked for the National Sheriff's Association before I retired, traveling around the country doing the National Neighborhood Watch Program, bringing law enforcement and community members together. And then I had an opportunity to work for the State Department, U.S. State Department, where I was doing international training. I've traveled all over the world training law enforcement leaders, generals and national police forces, literally all over the world. So I've never retired. I've never retired from law.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I was going to say you had a very active retirement.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah, yeah, and that's why I say people laugh at me. They say, why don't you just retire? I don't want to retire. I love to work and I love my profession.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

And I see the through line with education in your career from the DARE stuff to when you're out doing like the national, you know, speaking opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I love to teach. Absolutely love to teach. I I I really always have. It's funny, even when I was in high school, I used to be in the musical productions and everything. I like a stage, I like an audience. So teaching just pretty much goes right into that. And I absolutely love offering my knowledge to other people. You know, that's another thing about having a profession and having a career, is you can keep it all to yourself or you can share it with others. Um and I also want to know how you got out to Montana. My husband and I have literally been traveling to Montana from the time we got married. We got married in 1989. We both ride Harley Davidson motorcycles and we took trips across the country. And I just I fell in love with Montana. The people, the environment. When we would vacation out here, and I would have to leave to go back home, I would cry. Oh no, yeah. I literally would cry. And I'm not a big crier, I'm not that person, but I would just kind of it was this overwhelming feeling in me that this is where I belong. Something inside of me in my heart said, You're here, this is where you belong.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Well, I know what you mean about when you left kind of that sad feeling. When I uh right before I moved here when we visited, I was like, I have this feeling like I'm gonna be back. You know. All right, we're gonna jump into some issue questions now. Um I wanted to ask you about um law enforcement and federal immigration. Um, how would your department engage with federal immigration authorities?

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Well, as you probably know, we do have a 287G agreement now, currently in effect, was signed the last time in January of 2020. And what that agreement allows is for detention and it also allows for warrant service. The requirements of that though, um, I'm not I'm not certain whether or not we have complied completely with those requirements. I have spoken to some individuals who work on the correctional side of things here, and they have a policy, and I don't know if it's a policy or just a practice, where if they encounter someone who is a non-U.S. citizen, that does not necessarily mean they're illegal, but a non-U.S. citizen, they email someone from ICE to tell them that they have this person in their custody. That's not the actual compliance with the policy that we have with the 287G. We actually have to have trained individuals within law enforcement in the Sheriff's Office to serve warrants. If that has not been done, that is something that I will ensure is done. Because if we're going to actually follow through on the commitment to this 287G agreement, we have to follow through on what we have signed off on. And I will work with ICE. I absolutely will work with ICE. Um people have constitutional rights, and I recognize that. The Constitution is what guides everything that we do in law enforcement, everything we do. So I will certainly abide by the Constitution and the rights of individuals that come into my custody, but I also do believe that there are individuals in our country, and we see it on the news all the time, where crimes are being committed by people who are not legally in this country, and I have an obligation to work with federal agents appropriately to protect my community. I don't have federal authority, okay? As a sheriff, I have local and state authority, and that's it. Authority on state laws. But by signing into these agreements, I do have some authority to assist federal agents when they come into this community, when they come into this county, and they are acting legally, that I can support and assist them. Most importantly, what I will do is I will protect the citizens of Flathead County. That's that is what I am supposed to do as sheriff. That is my number one obligation is to protect the citizens of Flathead County, to ensure that the crimes that are being that are happening here, that we are enforcing the laws to protect people. I will also protect federal law enforcement officers. If they come into this county to do a federal operation, I don't want them to get injured or hurt either. So my obligation as sheriff is to protect everyone in my community. Everyone.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah. Kind of jumping off of that, I mean, given the current climate, what would you tell to immigrants in our community to kind of give them reassurance about interacting with law enforcement?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

My grandparents were immigrants. My mother's father and my mother's mother were immigrants to this country. Immigration is important. That's what brings the diversity we have in this country. I have traveled all over the world, so I appreciate other people's cultures, other people's religions, ethnicity, all of those things. I would encourage people that are here in Flathead County, if they are immigrants, I want to have a relationship with you. Being an immigrant is not illegal. What is illegal is when someone crosses this border illegally, without the appropriate documentation, or without asylum, without those things. That's what makes them illegal. Just living in this community as an immigrant does not make you illegal. I want those people to reach out to me. I want to build relationships with everyone in my community. I don't want them to be afraid of me. I'm not going to go arrest somebody that's here in this country legally. I want to take care of my community. I want to protect my community from any threats that are out here. But people who are here legally and are not committing crimes, they have nothing to worry about.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So we got a new detention center in the works. Yes, we do. What do you think of the design that they've proposed and like what it's going to look like and the changes they're going to make? I think it's going to be wonderful. And it's absolutely needed.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

I've toured the current jail. So I know what it looks like. You probably have too. I brought many people in to tour the jail a couple of years ago. And to be honest with you, this is going to sound weird. I spent a lot of time in jails in my career on the good side. And what I saw there, I was absolutely flabbergasted, disgusted. I couldn't believe how bad it was. I c I could not believe the conditions that our correctional officers have to work in. I could not believe the conditions that our inmates have to live in. Because we have to be concerned with everybody that's in that jail. The safety of everyone in that jail. Correctional officers, inmates, anyone who visits, all of that is critically important. Even though there's a new jail being built, as sheriff, I still have to deal with the one that's there now. I still have to ensure that everything is being done to make it as safe as possible. The money is already there. It's already been budgeted. I'm not asking for more money to do any more work. But we just have to spend that money wisely to ensure that the current jail is kept up to par as much as it can be. Any repairs that need to be done have to be done. And I can't let that lapse. I have to spend time in the jail. I have to walk through the jail. I have to talk to correctional officers. I have to spend time with the people who are working in that environment so that I have a better understanding of what their needs are. But the bottom line is this: as sheriff, one of my primary responsibilities besides public safety is risk management. I have to be certain that I mitigate the possibility of any financial damages that could happen to this county. So as sheriff, I have to be the risk manager for the sheriff's office. I have to ensure that we are in compliance with laws, with standards, and policy, all of those things that control what we do every day.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And in regards to the new detention center, um, do you feel like they're gonna need more staff there? And if so, how do you plan to accommodate that?

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yes, is the answer to that. Of course, they're gonna need more staff. It's a bigger facility, so they're gonna need more staff. And again, that's gonna be something that has to be budgeted in the next couple of years. People get worried because you start talking about money, but you can't hire people without money to do so. So I will work with the commissioners over the next couple of years because that's where our money comes from. Besides coming from taxes, the commissioners make the decisions on how much money we're actually going to be allocated. And we have great commissioners, and I I already have a good relationship with all of our commissioners. So I'm absolutely certain without a doubt that we will work together collaboratively to ensure that the needs of that new jail are met efficiently and effectively within a budget that we can afford in this county. I'm a fiscal conservative, okay? I've been a Republican my whole life. I grew up in a very fiscally conservative family. And I can assure you of this: I care about where my tax dollars go, so I obviously care about where your tax dollars go. I want to be sure that the money is being spent the way it should be spent on the needs that we have to address without it being elaborate or exorbitant. I'm reviewing the sheriff's budget right now. I've been looking over it for the last couple of months, and I see areas where there could be possibly some movement of money. But again, this is all coming into the future, so when I am elected sheriff, I will immediately have to sit down and start discussing what the future plans are for staffing levels in this new jail. It can't be something that I can put off until the jail is built. I have to have those people trained, I have to have them hired. And as you know, it takes time to do all of that. Hiring somebody is doesn't just happen overnight. There's a process to that. Just like hiring more deputies, there's a process to that. From the day we actually send out the job announcement to the day we actually have people on the road or in the jail, you're looking at six months to a year. So I have to plan for that as well. My job is to be proactive, not to be reactive. I can't wait until the jail is built and then try to figure out how we're going to staff it. That'll part of be part of my process as soon as I'm elected sheriff.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

All right. On to recruitment and retainment for deputies. Across Montana, average staffing for sheriff offices is about one deputy per thousand civilians. Sheriff Haino told us recently in an interview that about we're about like six positions shy of meeting that standard. How do you plan to address that to get us up to adequate staffing levels?

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Staffing is always a problem. Retention is always a problem. The deputies that are looking for a job, money, and it the cost of living here is high. I can't believe how much it's changed in the years that I've been living here, how much it actually costs to just live in Flathead County. So that's a problem. Retention is a problem. And I understand that we've had deputies that have left to go into other police departments right here within Flathead County because they make more money there. Whenever you talk about giving people money, again, it's that issue. The hackles go up on people's necks and they say, well, we don't have the money, we don't have the tax base, we don't have the revenue, we can't give people raises. If you want to retain good people, you have to, they have to be able to afford to live. Otherwise, they're gonna leave. They're gonna go someplace else. So that again is another discussion that I'm going to have to have with the powers that be in the county. They have to understand that if we need to fill these positions, which we will eventually, because the county's growing. We can't keep working with the same numbers of law enforcement officers when numbers in the county are growing exponentially. Because with those numbers come an increase in crime. But now, since we don't have people knocking at the door, you know, and they're not throwing money at the sheriff's office to hire more people, another reason why we have to work with the community is to get them engaged in their own public safety. We have to be sure that we are providing our deputies and our correctional officers with the amount of money that they can afford to live here or they will leave. But we also have to provide them opportunities. Money is not the only incentive to keep people, all right? I have spoken with people who currently work inside the sheriff's office, who work in corrections. And what I hear is not always good. What I hear is that there's not a lot of accountability, that there's not a lot of career opportunities, that there's not a good career development process for people in the sheriff's office. So when you lack those things, people look for places where they will find them. My goal is to build those processes inside the sheriff's office, give people training, give people opportunities so that they can advance advance in their careers fairly. Like I said, money is not, money is really not even a motivator at all. I want to have correctional officers in this jail who love to come to work so much that they don't care about their days off. Okay, but that comes from support that they get from within. I had so many opportunities in my career, I want to provide those same opportunities to the people who work here. When you come to work, I bet you love your job. So if somebody said to you, I'm not gonna give you a raise this year, but I'm gonna give you some other opportunities to learn. You know, you might say, okay, that sounds good. I can do a lot of the training myself. As you know from my resume, I've trained everything from first-line supervisors all up through police to generals and national police forces, and everything in between. So again, I'll do that. I will provide them the training. I have a whole team of people from my former police department that are trained in narcotics, drug interdiction, surveillance, all of those things. They are all chomping at the bit for me to get elected to sheriff because they just want a free vacation in Montana. They'll give all that training for nothing. They'll come and live at my house. They can't wait to do it. And retention is critically important. Because if I lose people, as I said before, it takes a good year before you actually have somebody out on the street doing the job from the day you hire them through the academy, through FTO training, to actually being a functional law enforcement officer. So the goal is to keep them, not lose them, and then have to go through that whole process over again.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah. Takes a lot of time to train somebody. It takes a lot of time to train somebody. To go back to wages for a second, though, um, you talked about talking to the community, keeping them informed about why this is important to keeping deputies here. Um but achieving that goal, does that look like advocating eventually for like a mill levy? Does it look like talking to the commissioners? Yes, all of that. All of it.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

All of that. Yeah. I mean it's not just a one stop shop. Okay, it's all of that. But again, if my deputies are out there doing their job, doing the job that they're getting that they're hired to do, that they're trained to do, and they're doing a really good job. When I stop hearing from community members how dissatisfied they are from with service, which I hear now, which is one of my motivators for running for sheriff, people that I know in the community that I've known for years living here, they know what I did for a living. And I've had people come to me over, oh my gosh, over the last 20 years, say, you know what, the quality of service is just not that good. I had a conversation last night with some people up in Marion and they were telling me about some crime that's going on up there. I said, so did you call 911? Well, no, I'm not gonna call 911 because they're not gonna come and investigate it. That's not what should happen. That's our job is to investigate crime. I don't care how minor it is, that's our job. You know, you can only answer one call at a time. One call at a time. So you answer those calls, you investigate it fully. I don't want to hear anymore from community members that they're getting poor service from our deputies. I don't blame the deputies. It's leadership. Everything flows from the top. If they see me come to work every day and I'm doing my job and I'm there from seven in the morning till seven o'clock at night, if I'm showing up at three o'clock in the morning just to make sure that everybody's okay, that they're doing their job and everybody's good, they're gonna, that's an example that I am setting for my people that work for me. And that's what I did in my career and that's what I will do here.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Um well, you already talked a little bit about training. Um I want to ask a couple like a couple specific areas about training. Um we have a lot of um officers responding to domestic uh disputes here. Um how do you train deputies on responding to those kinds of incidents?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Well, as you probably know, they're one of the most dangerous calls of service that an officer gets. Okay. Domestic violence and traffic stops, two of the most dangerous things, because in both of those situations, you really don't know what you're walking into. So there's training opportunities available at the state level for that. But again, it's really just you can do video training, you can do online training. There's so many opportunities for training now. Mostly what it is is just awareness. People, deputies need to understand and be aware of the dangers in those situations, okay? Everything that we do in law enforcement, there's a certain level of danger and risk too. But training deputies, for example, to not walk up to the front door of a house when you've received a domestic violence call, because you don't know what's on the other side of that door. There could be somebody standing there with a gun. The reason why domestic violence is so dangerous, and I have handled many domestic violence incidents, crimes in my life, calls in my life, and also investigated domestic violence. When you show up at a house and there's an argument going on between domestic partners, spouses, whatever it is, when law enforcement starts intervening, oftentimes what happens is the victim, the person who called 911, is now angry because law enforcement is there. Because I love that person. That person didn't mean to hurt me. And so it's a very convoluted, very complicated, and very dangerous place to be for a law enforcement officer. So again, we just have to continuously teach them to be aware at all times, understand the environment that you're going into. If you have a fight with your own spouse, you don't hate them, but you're just mad at them. And that unfortunately sometimes is what happens in these domestic violence cases. When we see physical injuries to a person, we can actually make a physical arrest. So it does remove that individual from the situation, at least temporarily. But domestic violence is very dangerous. Traffic stops are another one. We had an officer in our police department uh several years back that suspicious vehicle on the side of the road, he walked up to the car, he got the license of registration, when he turned around to walk back to his cruiser. There was a person in the passenger seat of the car, back rear passenger seat that had a gun, turned around and shot him right in the back. Paralyzed for the rest of his life, and sadly he passed away a few years ago because of his injuries. Awareness is critical. I teach situational awareness to the community, to my community, I've taught it for years. You have to teach it to your officers too. They have to be aware all the time of what the situation is they're going to and what the unknowns are. Traffic stop. Most people think a traffic stop is just a simple thing. What we know is the person has violated the law. They've run a red light, they've run a stop sign, they're speeding. What they don't know is that we don't know that they just robbed the bank down the street, and we haven't gotten the call yet. So they think we're stopping them because they just robbed the bank. We're stopping them because they ran a red light.

unknown 27:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

So there's a disconnect. So how an officer, how a deputy approaches a vehicle in all situations, because you don't know what is in that car until you get up to it and you start talking to the violator. And even then, in the case of our officer, he didn't even know then.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Yeah. Oh, that's so sad. Another um tricky situation that we have uh deputies responding to a lot here is uh mental health crises. Um kind of in a similar vein, could you tell me how you would approach training for for that?

SPEAKER_02 28:21

It's a whole different avenue in law enforcement. Um first of all, most people suffering from mental health issues, they come in contact with law enforcement because people who are responsible for them don't know what else to do, so they call 911. Or they get involved in incidents and they're not really even aware of what it is that they're doing because of their mental health issues. People with mental health issues don't necessarily belong in jail. When they're put in jail, they don't necessarily get the treatment that they need, the programs that they need, and they take up space for people that we absolutely need to have in jail. There needs to be programs in place where we can divert individuals with mental health issues out of the correctional system, out of the criminal justice system, and into programs that will benefit them better. There are programs that exist here at the county level, social services, but we in law enforcement have to work with them. We have to have crisis response teams, people that are trained to work with social workers and mental health advocates in our community. Because bottom line is when law enforcement go into a situation, they don't know, they don't necessarily know that the individual they're encountering has a mental health issue. But if that person is violent, if that person has a weapon, if that person is confrontational and dangerous, law enforcement's going to look at it from a law enforcement standpoint, a criminal standpoint, not a mental health standpoint. So it is imperative that our deputies and that our law enforcement officers have training in recognizing mental health issues. But sadly, the bottom line is if it comes down to a criminal act, a threatening act, an officer's gonna have to take their appropriate action as a law enforcement officer. And sometimes people get injured because of that. We're expected to be a lot of things in law enforcement. We're expected to be mental health practitioners, social workers, babysitters, and I'm not necess necessarily talking about for kids. We've been babysitters for adults for a long time, too. Law enforcement officers are expected to be a lot of things. But what their primary job is, is to enforce the law and to protect the community. And sadly, sometimes things happen when we're trying to do that. And there's always the Monday morning quarterbacker who says, but that person had a mental health issue. How did that person get injured or killed by that cop? Didn't they know that this person had a mental health issue? When an officer is threatened or when the community is threatened, they have to take the appropriate action in law enforcement. So we do have to work, we need training in that. We need training in recognizing these conditions that are out there. But again, we still have to do our job.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Yep.

unknown 31:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

We're lucky to have uh the crisis intervention people. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Thank goodness for that.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Just a couple more questions for you, Evie. Um how did it feel to get the GOP endorsement?

SPEAKER_02 31:24

I was absolutely honored to get that endorsement. That's an enormous honor to have. I know many of those people, but that's not why I got the endorsement. Because when I went inside in that betting interview and I talked to them, I told them the same things I told you today. They saw my passion for this career. They saw how I feel about taking care of this community, bringing my knowledge and expertise to this community. It's not a threat to this community, it's an asset to this community. What I know, what I have done, what I bring here will improve public safety, will make your life better every single day. I will be focusing on the things that people are concerned about here. I will focus on drugs. I will arrest people who are driving drunk. They heard me. They heard what I had to say. I spent an hour and a half in that interview with them. I brought a copy of my resume and gave it to each one of the members of that vetting committee so they could see what my background was. But they asked me questions very similar to what you have asked me today, and I answered those questions honestly and from the heart. What I do is from the heart. I may not be from the Flathead, but I can assure you everything I do is from my heart. That's why I do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah. Well, just to wrap us up here, is there anything else you'd like to let voters know ahead of the primary? Well, I've said a lot of here a lot here today.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I've said a lot out in the community. I've talked to a lot of people. I just want people to know that I am committed to Flathead County. I am committed to public service here, and I'm committed to public safety here. That's my primary job as sheriff is to protect people in this community. I will do everything in my power to do that. I've done that my entire life. Public service has been my life. Actually, since I was 16 when I became an EMT, and I have continued to work in public service since I was literally 16 years old. I have the skills, I have the ability, I have the knowledge, the education, and all of those things. But more than any of those things, what I have is the commitment to making this community the safest community that it can possibly be, to making the Flathead County Sheriff's Office the most professional law enforcement agency in the state of Montana, if not even beyond those borders. I have the people there who have the skills to do that. I will work with them every day. I will work with the community every day. And I promise, I absolutely promise, that I will be a 24-hour sheriff. I will not be a nine to five sheriff. I will not have Saturdays and Sundays off. I will be there for my community when they need me, wherever they need me, with whatever they need me for. People will have my phone number, my cell phone number. The community will have. If someone needs me, they can call me. If they have a problem, then they need to tell me. If there's an issue with one of my deputies or anyone else that works for me, I want them to call me personally and tell me that so that I can address it appropriately. Because all I want to do is make sure that the people that work for me are doing the best job they can do, as professional as they can do it, to have the skills, the ability, the training that they need to be the best they can be. I want to build their careers as well. I want people to feel like I do when they come to work, that they love what they're doing. I'll be that sheriff for this county, for the people who work at the sheriff's office, and for everyone in the state of Montana, I will be that sheriff.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

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