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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm Mike Zillman. This week our guests on the show include Lieutenant Kenny Wagner, Deputy Ronnie Freshour, and Public Information Officer Ben Ryan, who joined us to talk about keeping kids safe walking and biking to school, neighbors watching out for neighbors, and also how the sheriff's office kept you informed about those recent fires during that time a couple of weeks ago. Catch it Monday at 12 noon and 5 p.m. or anytime on the Clay Radio Podcast channel. You can listen to ClayRadio.com on our website, on the app, Alexa, or even Apple CarPlay. CCSO Off the Cuff comes your way next here on your hometown station, Clay Radio. Hey Clay County, welcome back to Clay Radio. This is CCSO Off the Cuff. It's a collaboration between Community Radio Station Clay Radio and the Clay County Sheriff's Office. If you would like to let us know that you want to hear a particular topic on the program or any of the Clay Radio shows, simply drop us a line at ClayRadioOnline.com. Now we do have a full lineup of guests in the studios today, and so let's get right to it and introduce them to you. First off, we'll start with uh Lieutenant Ken Wagner. He's uh with Community Affairs uh in charge of patrol support and crossing guards as well. Lieutenant, thanks for uh being here once again.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Early part of May, so we're coming down to the end of the school year. We'll get to talk a little bit about uh the schools. He had that one, uh he had that stat ready uh ready to go, so that's uh that's pretty good. All right, so uh we'll get back to you on that. We also have uh Deputy Ronnie Freshhour from Community Affairs, and uh Ronnie's uh familiar face to uh folks here in the Clay County. I mean, born and bred, right? Yes, sir. Very good. Good to have you here with us as well, Deputy. And uh also uh we've got uh our PIO Ben Ryan here. Ben has been practicing uh in earnest the email address to uh let everybody know how to get a hold of us. Go ahead and uh do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Uh might as well get that out of the way early. As always, happy to be here at sheriff at claysheriff.com.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Send us an email if you need something. Very good. All right. So uh the uh folks here are with uh CCSO, of course, and uh we'll start with uh Lieutenant Wagner. And uh thus far, uh Lieutenant, how the how's the uh year been?

SPEAKER_03 2:38

It's been a phenomenal year. Um, you know, we have a lot of crossing guards, and I I have to put the plug in. I always need crossing guards, so I'm I'm still 10 positions short. Um, but we do have a hybrid program here at the Sheriff's Office, which both PSAs and crossing guards, which we'll touch on later on. Uh it's been a great year. Um we haven't seen any major incidents in in the 42 crossings at uh schools that we're at where we have crossings, so we've had a phenomenal year so far.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, and uh in terms of uh uh those uh requirements to be a crossing guard, anything specific that the average person would have trouble with in terms of the case. And uh is it required that they do a morning shift and an afternoon shift or it could be a combination of some some work.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

I have some crossing guards that work all three of the different schools because they're different schools lines high school, junior high, and uh elementary. I have some that just work just elementary schools, some that just work junior highs, some that just work in the morning. It's a myriad. However, I can get the uh get the hours, right? To have the 66 posts that we have per day covered, uh we get them covered.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

That's uh that's pretty good. All right. So uh uh we're uh doing well in in terms of uh the uh the school and having the uh resource officers there. How's that how's that aspect of the things going?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

I think it's been going very well since the transition that the sheriff's office being back. I think it's uh gone very well, you know, especially from coming from the sheriff's office to the the district and back to the sheriff's office watching it from uh from uh uh 30,000 feet. I think they've been doing a phenomenal job.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah. Uh and in terms of the resource officers, anything that you'd uh see that we we've got to look towards, uh, you know, I know we're doing a number of things uh in terms of working together. Uh we've got canines in there. Anything more like that coming along or not that I'm aware of.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Um it is in a different wheelhouse for me because it's under school safety and um uh I'm actually in community affairs. But but looking as an observer and and working uh in partnership with that branch of the agency, um I don't s foresee anything different coming other than constantly and continually improving.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yeah, well in terms of community affairs, uh let's uh talk a little bit about that because the Sheriff's Office has uh been uh recognized as uh being very much upfront and uh forward in terms of getting information to people. Community affairs, uh what kind of questions are you do you typically get when you're you're talking uh with uh the average citizen?

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Um I do get questions about uh some of the laws relating to when they're in a school zone or what time school zones come on. I think the biggest thing that a lot of people probably don't realize, and it's a twofold answer, it's their cell phone use. You have to be 100% hands-free while you're in a school zone and also a work zone. So I do see that quite often. And I do, you know, wave at folks and give them the the hey, you're on the phone, put it down uh as they're driving by, and I'll get a thank you. And sometimes I get the number one, um, and it happens. You know, but uh you know, I I I do get that question often. I do get uh I get questions that usually come directly to me as what is the role of a crossing guard? Since I'm over them, and a lot of folks think that because they have a stop sign or the way that they appear, that they're actually traffic directors. They are not, they are basically a marked pedestrian with a stop sign to to bring awareness, to give that visual uh to motorists that there are people in the crosswalk, and that crossing that crossing guard will most likely have a small child in tow when uh when crossing. So that's what it is. They they don't uh direct any traffic, they don't enforce any laws, they're just that guide, that coach to uh get our children to and from school safely.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Well, that's an interesting point. I never never really thought of it in that regard. I mean they do control traffic only in the sense that they mark that they're crossing and you should watch out because I'm in the crosswalk and I've got a sign that's telling you that I'm here, uh, but they don't have the uh the ability to say, oh, you hold it and and start waving traffic around.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

That is correct. Whereas a PSA who also work as school crossing guards, they are a little bit different. They are the ones that are able to direct traffic. They can actually step out in the complete intersection and hold the whole intersection and allow children to cross from multiple directions. So they're a little bit different and they're easily recognized because they have that highlighter green uh shirt that they wear.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

From quite a ways away.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yes. And then they also have a they they do have a marked car that says public service aid and flashing yellow lights. So that's uh another awareness thing that you are approaching. In the school zone, there is flashing lights or signs, and then when there's a PSA that might be working that there they have lights that are visibility to to help warn motorists that you're in an active school zone.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

All right. So uh if uh you're coming to an intersection, plain clothes, somebody with a stop sign, they're a crossing guard and they have a different uh ability or responsibility than the uh the PSA, who we may be at a secondary uh crossing uh down the down the block.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Yes, the the the the crossing guard will have a traffic vest on that's also a green in color. They'll have the stop sign in their hand, they'll have either a a whistle in their mouth or they'll have the electronic whistle to uh provide a stimulus to drivers so that they know that they're there. And then of course the PSAs are completely uniformed.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Okay. All right. So uh that's a good uh good subtlety that people uh should understand.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

That's because I do I do hear from my crossing guards that sometimes people get mad, it's how come you're not allowing me to to cross, or how come you're not allowing me to they're not. They're just acting in the full capacity of just a a markered pedestrian is probably the best way to describe a crossing guard.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

That's uh something uh new that we learned here today, so that's uh that's a good thing. Always good to uh learn new things. For the most part, though, uh other than not having enough crossing guards, uh are we uh depending more on uh technology and those kind of things to to uh keep uh folks under control in the school zones.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

We do have some technology that we use. There's a couple places throughout the county. One is in Oakleaf at the uh roundabout. While there's no crossing guards because it's not in a um a marked school zone. However, there is a lot of traffic that goes there. There's them flashing lights that a pedestrian will come up and push the buttons and it'll it'll have amber flashing lights to warn that there's pedestrians. We also have one right there at uh as you're going on County Road 218 as you're going westbound, there is a crossing there because it's outside the school zone. You they push the button and that will alert drivers there's somebody about ready to cross. Since the change of last year, going into this school year, the 25-26 school year, when the busing restrictions changed, we have a lot more students that now walk to school or bike or anything like that. So we had to mold and change our some of our patterns in order to uh accommodate some of these where where folks are coming from, the parents or children or wherever, because they're you know that's something new because we don't know who what residents are there and who's ultimately going to walk and who's not gonna ride a bus, you know, because you have both special needs students, you have regular ed students, some get bus, some don't. So it just it there's so many things that we learn every day and then we listen to our community, whether it comes through our safer watch tips or an email to me or a call into our dispatch center, then we'll address that. And uh before we got on the radio, I was talking that we work collaboratively with the county and the um uh road department in signs and signal maintenance, which is a very good partnership, and they they work hand in hand with us in order to address concerns.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

And we do have a uh in Clay County a safety committee that uh works with uh those things, right? We do determination if there's a problem. How do we get uh you know the whole group together to figure a way to solve it?

SPEAKER_03 10:17

We do, and that's what the Florida Department of Transportation we meet monthly through Zoom and we talk about all the different things. We even have uh folks that are in the uh the local bicycle clubs that come together and they talk about their concerns. So I think it's a holistic approach to what everybody does in our own county to come together and then address some of the issues that we do have and and resolve them as best we can.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, I know your challenge is that there's uh a lot more kids doing a lot more things to try to get to school, whether it's bikes or uh scooters or or all those things that uh you didn't have to worry about because some of them may have been on a bus at some point. So driving through four uh school zones every morning, I see kids just pop out of everywhere. Yeah, and more so than I've seen in the past.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

You brought up something that's a a strong concern for mine since we work a lot of traffic crash, because I'm in charge of the PSAs also. We have a lot of children who use their e-bikes, they use their e-scooters, and they're not really paying attention to what they're supposed to be doing. You you have dart outs and you have dart outs that uh have traffic crashes that result in that. And unfortunately, sometimes the child is at fault stopping when they're supposed to stop.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, I I I really truly think whether it's on the county level or even the state level, there's got to be something done with the e-bikes because I think it's getting to a critical mass. I said uh I saw about a half a dozen kids congregating in a parking lot of one of the uh restaurants down 220, and they were standing there, and I said, Well, that looks like trouble. And I I think it's there's six of them sitting there.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

I think there's also some community confusion about there's e-bikes, then there's e-motorcycles. E-bike has pedals and a certain wattage. I had just on my way here to meet with you, I saw a a young, it's probably probably a young adult, but he was on an e-motorcycle. You can't ride those on the sidewalks, you can't you can't ride those on the um the roadway. You have to be licensed, they have to be registered. They're strictly off-road because they have no pedals. So whether it has an uh internal combustion engine on a motorcycle or whether it has an electric motor, it's still a motorcycle.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Still a motorcycle.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Kind of like what I what I think about well, we have Teslas who don't have an internal combustion engine, but you gotta have a driver's license for them. So I want I want folks to also be very mindful because you have a lot of parents that are buying their kids that. And I see in that, especially around Fleming Island High School, some of these older kids riding these e-motorcycles, and it's illegal. And one thing I would caution very parents, there is a there is a statute that makes it criminal. If you allow an unauthorized person to operate a motor vehicle, you as the parent can be criminally responsible. It's a misdemeanor. So obviously that's not always my goal. I'd rather educate, but parents need to understand when they buy that type of equipment for their child, they need to understand the consequences should they do something like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

I still think that there's gonna have to be something done that that clarifies that and and puts it.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

I think there is some legislation working that's gonna ultimately pass down to counties. I think St. John's did something recently, and I'm sure it's on our BCC now that are looking at what to do. Because I I know if we're if we're receiving those messages, I'm sure our county commissioners are getting those same messages as well. So I I'm I'm sure it's not falling on deaf ears.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Well, even over at Fleming Island Plantation uh CDD meetings, we get those now. People are talking about the uh kids on on bikes, e-bikes, or whatever the case may be. They're they're uh you know all over the place. So uh that's something that's got to be uh sort of taken a look at, finalized or uh or made legal one way or the other what as to what it's gonna be. Agreed. All right, we've uh been talking with uh Lieutenant Ken Wagner here on CCSO off the cuff. We've got uh Deputy Fresh Hour waiting. He's been patient. I don't think I've ever seen him uh be quiet for 13 minutes. I don't think anyone's gonna join the company.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I like everybody that's here right now. There's a lot of good stuff that uh Lieutenant Wagner's talking about. Yeah, for sure. And very important. It crosses over into what I do with community fairs a lot. We get a lot of questions about the the school zones, the e-bikes, the e-motorcycles, and all that stuff too. So there's it's definitely not falling on deaf ears. We are hearing everybody that's having any kind of conversation or complaint about it. I I also did hear something about St. John's working on something that they've pushed out. And I did have a conversation with a representative for one of our Florida representatives that said that there's a bill in in progress right now for clarification on all that because it's just unknown territory.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah. Terrific. All right, well, hold those thoughts. We're gonna uh take a time out and uh we're gonna come back with uh Lieutenant Ken Wagner, Deputy Uh Ronnie Freshour. We got uh PIO Ben Ryan here. We've got the uh the group. It's a it's a trio. Yeah, it's a good trio. And I understand uh Lieutenant Wagner, we've got some stats from uh 2025 as well, right? I do. You got them handy.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

The Sheriff's Office just put out their uh annual um annual report, and I do have stuff that uh we're actively involved in.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

All right, we'll talk a little bit about that too, and find out what uh Deputy Fresh Hour does uh to keep himself busy, and and I'm sure that it's a long list. Uh stay with us. We're we're and we welcome you back here to uh CCSO Off the Cuff. Uh Mike Seller with a number of folks in the studio uh visiting with us today. And uh if you missed the first segment, make sure you uh catch one of the repeats of the program or even check it out on our uh podcast page at ClayRadio.com. All the uh shows that uh get run, uh regardless whether it's this one, the sports show, or whatever, the check out the uh on-demand uh podcast uh page at ClayRadio.com. Uh visiting today with Lieutenant Ken Wagner, uh also Deputy Ronnie Freshhour, who we'll talk to here in a little bit, and uh also PIO Ben Ryan. Uh thanks, Ben, for uh getting everybody together here on a on a Friday. We make it work. We make it work. Nineteen days of school left, according to Lieutenant. He does. And he knows when it gets started again in August, so that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

August 11th.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

All right, let's uh talk to Ronnie for just a bit. Ronnie here with uh Community Affairs. Uh give us an idea of uh some of the things that uh you're responsible for under the umbrella of community affairs.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

We are basically the quality assurance for the sheriff's office. So anything from complaints of situations from traffic to neighborhood disputes. Um I joke and say that we're the jack of all trades master of none. Uh if there is something for uh for us to handle, we usually kind of go outside of the box and have a little bit more time because we're not running call-to-calls for service. Um, but we also do a lot of neighborhood engagement stuff with whether it's our neighborhood engagement uh meetings that we do once a month or meet with CDDs and um HOAs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

They even do crossing guards.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

We do. Yeah. I am thankful when the crossing guards show up because that takes a lot of time out of the day.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, I can imagine that uh that uh becomes uh pretty hairy when you don't have a crossing guard show up and you sort of get what happens there? How do you fill that spot? Do you roll out a PSA into it or maybe yourself?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

I was at a crossing this morning, as a matter of fact, I was at Clay Hill Elementary because we had some people call out sick and time to run.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah. So it's all hands-on-deck, it is all hands-on-deck.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

It's kind of uh fire department. You gotta go put that fire out right away.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Well, I mean, the kid's safety is at uh at risk there. So you know you don't want to uh have uh elementary school kids trying to cross the the road on their own, especially in some cases. Some of these uh crossings are are pretty major roadways.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

They are and we work together. We're not gonna fill our community. We make sure everybody's taken care of.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Excellent. All right. And uh when you mentioned you you you're doing your monthly stuff, where does Sheriff's Net fall into that? Does that fall into under your uh community affairs?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, so that's our uh uh neighborhood engagement team, is what it's called. We used to meet independently with all the different HOAs, and they restructured the program because there's a lot of population in the county. So um instead of going every night to a HOA meeting, we designed a the net meetings which we bring the areas of Clay County that are geographically zoned for like Orange Park or Oakleaf, Middleburg. I have Fleming Island, Lake Asbury, and each zone meets once a month on the second Thursday of the month, and we'll talk. We usually have about two or three speakers that come out and they'll talk about current events on and then we'll get on the stats and um if I get any complaints of the neighborhoods that I need to focus on. So it's just uh another way of the community communicating with us.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah, it's a great way to uh know what's happening in in you know on the roads and in in in the backyards and all the other things that go on as as far as that's concerned. I know. Keeps the community informed. Yeah. As a commissioner, uh I would find out more about being what's going on when I was at those kind of meetings because people would approach you rather than pick up the phone and call you. Yep. And they'd say, I didn't want to bother you at the office. Well, that's you're supposed to bother me. Yep. That's why I'm here. Yeah, exactly. So uh I understand that that works out well. And you guys uh get applauded uh for for being out there and and getting that information uh at these uh various meetings. And I mean the sheriff is great about uh putting out the information and we're gonna talk to uh Lieutenant Wagner about the uh 2025 report uh in regards to that and hearing some of those stats. So that that's pretty good. Let me ask you this in terms of what you hear on the street, anything in common from from people, a common complaint, common question asked uh that uh you you're coming across these days?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

I can tell you that every neighborhood has speeders in it. Um that's probably the most consistent complaint that we have. Um more so it's uh we're getting less and less complaints on stuff that result in us not being around. I mean, we're we're still short-staffed, we're we're still trying to get people through FTO and stuff like that, but our numbers are better than where they were significantly even four years ago. Sheriff Cook has done an amazing job with developing our agency and growing our agency to meet the potential of the growth that we have with the county. So I'm very grateful to see it. It was crazy when I first started the agency and there were 18 people covering the entire county and patrol. And you know, I couldn't imagine even a decade before that where you had three to five people covering the entire county. That's a lot of area to cover. And we were short-staffed with the 18, and you know, our numbers have grown since then. So it's it's it's great to have that. Um, but we still get complaints about anything and everything, and we we handle them appropriately as they come in.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, I would I would say uh most of the the conversations that I had with with uh residents always revolved around uh speeding in the neighborhoods, and there's not a lot that people can do on a regular basis to I mean you can't station somebody with a radar gun in the neighborhood for you know twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. So uh you know you've got to do what you can in terms of uh manpower. But uh that is a that's a a problem, uh much like uh Lieutenant Wagner was talking about with the people still on the phone. They haven't figured out that that's uh against the law, you know, and you you shouldn't be doing that, but people still do it. Yeah, you know, so uh it makes it tough. Um in terms of uh your uh situation as far as what else do you do with with community affairs? When are you on the team that goes out and uh does uh festivals and fairs and and all the event stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

We're um we're the positive engagement with the county, not to say that there's less less positive, but um our our main focus is building that that relationship with the community and and providing that positive feedback, giving people comfort to be able to say, I need to talk to law enforcement about something, and this is a comfortable platform. What's very unique about my team, we are all at least ten years or more within service for the sheriff's office. So everybody, if they don't have the answer for something, they know who to reach out to. They have enough experience behind them to be able to handle things. Nobody on my team is a rookie, everybody's got got season with them.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Well, that's great, yeah. And obviously they they they're pretty familiar with the agency and and the county, so that makes it a little easier to uh to to try to root out the answer and and get it back to. the uh the resident what have you. Absolutely. Uh Lieutenant, you you want to throw out a couple of numbers here and uh give us an idea as to what's happening.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

I do encourage a lot of the uh our community members to go to our our web our website and uh the annual report was posted on that. And just in my wheelhouse alone it it's pretty staggering when you think about it because you know especially when you're on Blanding Boulevard and there's a crash like oh my gosh it seems like it's forever. There's there's crashes all the time. Well there's quite a few and in our in our annual report it talks about that there's where there were 4,359 total crashes within our county of the 644 square miles. And then 69 of those were involving motorcycles and unfortunately 149 of those involved pedestrians or a pedestrian on a bicycle so folks need to pay attention you know and and allot themselves an additional time when they get to work especially during the rush hour times in the morning and the afternoons and uh but uh the it that annual report showcases a lot of the different things that you know sometimes people just see us driving around or sitting in in a in a in in a parking lot but this annual report does takes a quick snapshot of what really goes on it goes all the way down to talking about how many calls response what the average response time was and it's very informative and I do encourage a lot of people to go out and look at that and they would be pretty amazed at what you what you see and versus what's actually statistically and and recorded is is pretty staggering how busy we are each and every day.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

And that that was done um through our unit uh from Carrie Fowler uh she does a great job on the annual report every year it does take a lot of time there's a lot of numbers um everything's you know logged fact checked all that stuff um but there's a lot that goes into it so uh yeah that is that is brand new out there so definitely would recommend people go ahead yeah big ups to Carrie she has done an amazing job with the annual report and worked very hard on it the um one thing I want to mention Lieutenant Wagner did say you could find it on our website our website is claysheriff.com not dot org you're gonna find a different agency together but claysheriff.com and it's gonna be one R2Fs you can find the annual report on that page there's there's a lot of Clay County sheriffs across the country well there's 18 clay counties i in in the the U.S.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

and of course we're the biggest one we're the best of course of course we're second to none yeah but uh there are there are a bunch of them that that's for sure so uh yeah I'm I'm sure that I do know it's people have dialed up the wrong uh uh website before and figured out that uh well I live yeah what when when I do shop with a cop uh around Christmas time I get through the uh through the website with the fraternal order of police I get a lot of and I see their addresses and it's in other states and I are you visiting Clay County Florida or are you in another oh I I made a mistake. So that that that clay comes quite quite quite often.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

I know uh Tasha over at the uh the fair has the same problem they have uh I think it's the one in Iowa that gives us the the biggest uh uh run for our money people go in there or come in here instead of going there vice versa that's pretty good. All right uh one of the things I wanted to talk about and we um we did mention and uh we'll uh talk uh just a touch here and then uh tease it for uh the next and last segment is the Clay Watch.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

All right so give us a brief uh description of what Clay Watch is and we'll talk more about it on the other side.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Clay Watch is a program designed around our more vulnerable population um specifically special needs. Maybe um we used to have an Elder Watch program and that's been incorporated into this. The biggest significant thing and I'll go into this a little bit more later on is it's not just something that anybody feels that they can sign up for you have to meet um certain requirements by the state um with medical documentation saying that you're eligible for the program. But it is the I'm so excited to talk to you about the program.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

It's very good all right we'll we'll get to that uh coming up we're visiting here on CCSO Off the cuff with Lieutenant Ken Wagner and also uh Deputy Ronnie Freshhour we got our PIO Ben Ryan here and uh you there and we'll come back to you uh coming up right after this here on CCSO Off the Cuff. And we welcome you back here to uh Clay Radio and CCSO Off the Cuff. My name's Mike Seller good to have you with us here today and of course uh as always if you uh want to drop us a line let us know what what you're thinking out there as you uh listen to uh programs here on Clay Radio uh Clay Radio Online at gmail dot com is the way to do that. Ben and what's the best way to contact the Sheriff's Office?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Sheriff at Claysheriff.com all those emails get read uh they are looked into um so if you got a topic that you want us to discuss question comment concern let us know.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

All right good deal and we're gonna talk to uh to Ben as to what the PIO office has been up to uh here is it just a little bit as well. And uh but first let's uh talk uh about the clay watch that's something that we uh teased with uh as we went off to break and uh it seems like everybody in the room is pretty excited about uh the way that works. Uh we've got Deputy Fresh Hour with us and so uh Ronnie tell us uh we we heard a little bit about clay watch but uh go go through some more of the steps as to what clay watch is involved.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I want to start off with a little bit of history. Um our sheriff when she came over to the county we were doing a neighborhood walk and we went up to one of the residents that was um was participating in the neighborhood walk and there was a special needs person that was at the residence and um there was some communication back and forth about the difficulty of communicating with law enforcement and after we left that house Sheriff Cook and I had had a couple of conversations about um a program that she had started initiating at her previous location when she was the chief out at Atlantic Beach and um so she met with the community fair section um and I have to give credit where credit is due. Retired Lieutenant Mike Lane um was my former lieutenant and he hit the ground running with this program. He did all the footwork did all the research and knocked it out of the park to get it started. I took the reins over after he retired um and I'm creating a lot of you know public interaction and stuff with it but um if it wasn't for those two this this program wouldn't uh uh kicked off as well as it did and I'm very grateful for that kind of leadership and and guidance too. So well and I have a very special vested interest in it too because I have a special needs little brother. So there's a place in my heart for this program and understanding my brother's profoundly mentally and physically handicapped. He's always going to be dependent but I grew up in the the community of um and lifestyle of what the special needs community is and you know for that to see the growth in that with this program is is very rewarding for me firsthand.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Tell us how it works.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

So um there's a couple ways that you can sign up for it. Everything is through Claysheriff.com there's a tab underneath it that goes to Clay Watch and you can sign up either online through our online registry or you can go to any one of the substations and fill out the paperwork. We have two types of generation some people are technologically advanced and they're very comfortable with the computer some people are of of the stone age and they need the you know the brick and spike to be able to fill out the paperwork and stuff. But if you go to any one of our substations they'll either reach out to us if you need help filling out the paperwork. But everything is pretty much just fill in the blank kind of stuff for it. I plugged in a little bit earlier about the the requirements for the program you do have to have medical documentation that specifically state that you're eligible for the program um that it meets some requirement that we need to follow through with it. But what happens is basically once you sign up for it, you fill out the paperwork, it comes to our desk one of the community fairs deputies gets assigned to it we physically go out to the residents and it's not just hey I'm here I'm filling out this paperwork you're part of this program. We sit down with the family we learn the family we bridge that gap between that community and law enforcement to be able to give FaceTime and value to that program. We sit down and we meet not just the family but also the person that's going to be involved with it. Some of them might have communication or social skills or lack thereof that you know they can't speak for themselves so they depend on other people to do that. So we bridge that gap and that formulates uh information to our database. Now the program is completely voluntary so it's not anything that anybody's forced to do the whole purpose of it is building that that relationship with our community specifically our vulnerable population that makes them or provides a foundation that gives them more comfort in communicating with law enforcement. Now once we go out and we meet with the people within the community that are going to be a part of that program we provide them with decals. And what what's significant about the decals as a law enforcement officer when I respond to something and I'm used to a system of if I give a command you're gonna pay attention to the command and if you don't pay attention to the command there might be something else going on. The decal can either be put on a vehicle or it can be put on a residence. So as I'm approaching a scene or a traffic stop or whatever I have if it's not going the way that I would normally expect it to go I see that and that helps me understand that there might be more to the story that's going on that I need to pay attention to and especially if they have something like that they're in our system that we can pull up and we can understand maybe that's bridging the gap of communication and we can slow things down a little bit so it might just not be somebody compliant not complying with us. There there's they want to but they just don't have the capability of doing that. The other side of that is if we have a special needs or vulnerable person that goes missing and somebody calls the sheriff's office dispatch has the ability to build a call for us to go to it takes away a significant amount of time of trying to gather information for the people that are involved with this. When we get calls for service for somebody who might be autistic or there's some kind of security or safety issue of them missing time is so important. And by bridging the the the gap of that time for this clay watch program it also sends all that information to our laptops as we're responding to a call we can get everything from a photo of the individual that's missing all of their demographics as far as what we need to see and that cuts out significant amount of time from a deputy responding out trying to gather all that information sending it to our dispatch center and then relaying it out to us so that by chance we might actually come across that person and have a picture of them and see them on the way to the call from what I've been told time is is of the essence when you're in that situation right in terms of trying to find that person before they either injure themselves or get into some kind of a bad situation. So that's terrific and so how does somebody who do they uh contact if somebody's listening today do they call the the main office or who who did they reach out for Claysheriff.com is where you sign up for it but if you have any questions at all you can call our nonmer for the sheriff's office 9045295900 and reach out to our dispatch center. They'll get a hold of one of us so if anybody has any more questions me or my team would be absolutely willing to um and happy to answer any questions that anybody has.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Terrific all right well I'm glad that we were able to uh to talk a little bit about that and and get that information out um and uh Ben I'll offer that to you if you guys want to uh put together some kind of a PSA or whatever we'll be glad to record it here and uh put it up and just run it uh you know through the uh the course of our programming in uh morning afternoon night whatever the case may be no no we yeah we appreciate it um you know obviously in our unit that's kind of what we're all about is whether it's PSAs some good stuff letting the public know what's going on we just try to you know flood the feed really and just and be everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

We want to make sure that our community has a way to know what we do in any aspect so whether that's social media in person uh through TV the radio you know we just we want to be everywhere well and I and I think we I think I think that's understandable for sure and I think we are everywhere to be honest. I think we're doing good. And I'll make the same offer to uh Lieutenant Wagner if he wants to put like a little PSA help wanted thing for uh crossing guards or something I think it'd be a perfect opportunity you know with uh the audience that we have to uh maybe uh get get a couple of folks to uh to uh look into it at least maybe get that out before August 11th August 11th 2026 jeez I wonder what that date is well I'll I'll have to look uh to see what and you know you already heard him talk about it so much but we do have we really do have some incredible PSAs and uh crossing guards I mean they do they do an awesome job awesome job it's a good way to good way to help the community and and um I know that they make they make good connections with the kids the kids absolutely love it um you know I mean there's we have crossing guards who have been there for 33 years.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

This will be her 33 years old out there at Wilkinson Elementary Miss White.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Wow Miss White is that's something yeah she she absolutely loves it. So the stories that are behind it too are just awesome.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Yeah well let's let's work on that and then we'll we'll come up with a game plan for uh for putting something together.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Alright so Ben you you're uh with the PIO group uh you guys did a great job in terms of uh sending information up from the uh the wildfires down south and uh yeah sergeant did a did a great job I mean obviously that was a really uh uh massive thing I mean massive news story rightfully so um for about a week long I know obviously out in uh in Georgia I believe they're still dealing with it um so that's definitely definitely difficult but Sergeant Lanier did a great job and you know really good just command all around from uh forestry Clay County fire rescue us um working together letting the public know what's going on you know all the burn bands everything like that um so we try to you know we tried I believe we did our best to uh keep the community informed on what's going on with that so especially when it got to uh the evacuations and uh moving people out of their homes because the fire was uh was uh threatening them yeah that I mean some of the videos that were coming through you know it was like someone in their backyard and you see the fire starting to create it it's scary scary stuff. Well you you saw how major it was when you started to see the big uh tanker airplanes come in and drop in the uh retardant and all that kind of stuff uh you know that's uh one of those things usually not to have a repeat of nineteen ninety eight yeah but it's also you usually see it on TV it's happening somewhere else and you you take it for granted that uh you know it couldn't happen here and there it was and uh it was a pretty serious uh situation so yeah yeah yeah I mean especially when you see those planes and kind of it's it's it's quite fascinating how the how they work exactly and uh you know we had our marine unit out there um kind of keeping that area secure for when they had to uh pick up some water it was it was really cool. But yeah we we've definitely been busy between that and uh all the content that we've been putting out um we are pushing out some new YouTube series that's coming out soon that we're calling on the ride uh where because we're doing more ride alongs and we're you know doing some long form content for YouTube we're doing short form for all the other social media platforms like Facebook Instagram X all that stuff so yeah we've we've definitely been busy and uh I I really think that the public's enjoying it because that's what we've been wanting to do is kind of pull back the curtains let people know what's going on when we're doing you know uh daily tasks uh I think I think people really enjoy seeing what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

All right so uh we've run out of time here uh for uh this edition of CCSO off the cuff uh Lieutenant Ken Wagner thank you very much for appreciate you uh you've already been doing uh school duty this morning and uh you're off to do what whatever else is required so we appreciate you taking some time to to help us out with that thank you for allowing me to just share a little bit of it. Best of luck in your next uh 11 days or 18 days whatever 18 days 19 days I was counting and uh Deputy Fresh Hour Ronnie thanks so much we appreciate uh what you do out there you're uh uh you know a great uh face of the agency uh out in the community and I know people love uh uh to talk to you and uh find out what's going on so thank you so much thanks again thank you for being here as well uh and uh Ben uh as always we've just chasing everybody down we appreciate all the hard work uh that you put in all right so uh that's it for this edition of CCSO off the cuff. We hope to see you again. Remember the uh program runs on uh Mondays at uh both noon and five PM and then it goes to to uh podcast as well as repeats so uh you'll have an opportunity to to uh look it up uh whenever you get a chance to do so. In the meantime this is Mike Sullivan go out and make it a great day. We'll talk to you again uh the next time here on Clay Radio