A New Chapter at the Sheriff's Office

Mike catches up with new Sheriff Ken Binder in studio. Sheriff Binder talks about his 27 years of broad experience in law enforcement and the importance of serving the public well.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to Open Mike, a look inside the County of San Mateo with your host, County Executive Mike Callagy.

Speaker: 0:13

Hi everyone, Mike Callagy here, the County Executive, back on Open Mike. And we are so excited because here you get the opportunity to see what really goes on inside San Mateo County government. And I've got to tell you, we've got an incredibly special guest with us here today, uh, Sheriff Ken Binder. We are lucky. You've been here a month, and we are lucky to get you on so quickly on Open Mike. So let's start by uh telling us a little bit about who Sheriff Binder is. Tell us about your career, tell us about who you are. I know the public really wants to get to know you. So here's a great opportunity for you to tell the public all about yourself.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Sure. Thank you so much, Mike. Uh first of all, it's an honor to be here uh to connect with you and really all of the great people of San Mateo County. I am honored to be the sheriff here, and I'm made for this role. I've been in law enforcement for 27 years. I've done everything as a deputy sheriff to the position of Sheriff now. I've got the experience, but more importantly, I've got the drive and the heart to make sure that public services are delivered in a way that is expected by the public, the way our deputies want to deliver that public safety services. I've been here a month now and I've met the men and women of the Sheriff's Office, and I'll tell you, they have a heart for public service. They want to do it the right way, and really they they've been hungry for leadership that supports them and and their job. And so that's what I'm here for, to make sure that the residents of San Mateo County receive top-notch, professional, compassionate police services.

Speaker: 1:57

Well, let's talk a little bit about your history. Now, you started out as a deputy sheriff in a neighboring county uh and you came up through the ranks. Let's talk a little bit about that because that really goes to uh to your your tool belt and all the experience that you have that you bring here with us, and maybe talk about one of your favorite assignments as you came up through the ranks. I know what mine was. I came from a background in law enforcement also. And for me, being a sergeant uh was an incredibly fun and rewarding job because I got to manage up, I got to manage down, I was still connected with the people. Tell me a little bit about your history and and uh some of the fun things that you did in your career.

Speaker 1: 2:35

I started off as a deputy sheriff working in the courts. At that time, I just really wanted to work the streets. I never actually planned to go into law enforcement. I studied business, ended up getting a business degree from my undergraduate. And I did a ride-along and I thought, well, hey, wait a minute. Here's a great way to help people. So I thought I'd try it. One of the favorite assignments I had was I was working at our detective bureau, and I spent about four years as a homicide detective, and uh it was a lot of work, but the reason I really enjoyed it was because, you know, that's the pinnacle of investigative work, and it's a way to make sure that those people that really did uh the worst of the crimes were held accountable, and it was a way to help people, the victims and their families. But I would also say the day-to-day operations being a deputy sheriff was my favorite because I liked being in a patrol car, driving around, talking to people, waving to little kids, responding to 911 calls, even though those are challenging, um just because it was an opportunity to help. So I had a long career of doing that, and uh I know what the job entails. So now as sheriff, when I'm making decisions, you know, I see the whole perspective to make sure I'm balancing those different stakeholders so that the whole package is what it's supposed to be.

Speaker: 4:03

You are truly made for this position, and and and I love that in you. I can see the enthusiasm, I can see your desire to help people, and and I just love that, sheriff. Um so let's talk a little bit about um what we've just gone through. Uh in my opinion, uh the the darkest time in the history of the sheriff's office, and we've come out of that with an incredible sheriff. Talk about moving forward. How do you rebuild things? How do you restart things? How do you uh ensure the public that we're headed in the right direction? Talk about some of the things you're doing, Sheriff.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Yes. Uh so the first thing we need to do is really re-establish trust, and that's trust with the community and trust within the organization itself. My goal for 2026 is to really continue to establish those connections within the community. We've been to events in Half Moon Bay, in North Fair Oaks, and uh, you know, Redwood City, um in Millbrae. We're my team and I are active, I've been active just to make sure I really reach out and make those community connections. Um, I want you know my roots to go deep. I'm committed for the long haul. I'm gonna be here. And then internally within the organization, you know, I've already I've been reaching out to various bureaus, I've been meeting with the leaders, and I've been meeting with the rank and file of the organization. And really what I found is we have an organization filled with very resilient people. So it has been a challenge uh in in the recent past, but they're strong. They've even during some of the rocky times, they've been committed to doing the job every day. And I recognize that, and really uh I'm here to to support them in the ways that I can and to build that trust with them as well as we move forward.

Speaker: 5:56

Public safety is everything, right? I mean, it impacts the economy, it impacts our housing market, it impacts the way people uh feel uh and their ability to move around the county. You're the the man in charge of law enforcement throughout the county uh and policing throughout the county. You work with obviously all the 20 cities uh and towns that we have here and promote public safety. So, how are you rebuilding your team? Let's talk about uh your executive team uh and what some of your needs are that you're looking for in the future.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Yep. It is a team effort, and there's no one person that has all the answers, but uh it takes a leader to bring the uh proper stakeholders together, to bring the right personnel together. And so I am building that team internally. We've got Under Sheriff Chris Young is back. He is a person who has a very strong leadership background. He's honest and ethical, he has the respect of the rank and file. I have been committed and very upfront from the beginning of this whole process that I wanted to bring him in as part of my management team. We've got some openings in assistant sheriff. We're actually uh bringing back Ryan Monahan to fill one of those assistant sheriff roles. We're also gonna do uh some internal testing to fill the other two roles. It's really important that we have the right people in the right positions. You know, one of the commitments I made through the testing process was that we really want to make sure our jails are what they're supposed to be and what they need to be. We've got great people working in the jails. We need to make sure that leadership void is filled as well.

Speaker: 7:32

Let's stay on that same theme of the jail because uh high liability area uh for the county um is something that is so important to treat the the men and women who are incarcerated with dignity and respect and try to uh give them opportunities for rehabilitation and housing as they exit. Talk a little bit about your plan, about your ideas uh about the jail. What do you want to see our corrections facilities look like in this county?

Speaker 1: 7:58

I'm in the process of of doing an assessment, just figuring out how operations are running on a day basis, what opportunities are there. I want to make sure that there's programs so that people that come into our care for custody have an opportunity to better themselves. You know, I want to, if for those with addictions, we want to make sure there's opportunities for them to conquer their addictions and so that when they do come back out, we don't want to see people recidivate. It's not good for them, it's not good for the community. We really want to give people every opportunity to to try to make the best of the time while they're there. And we do that by providing opportunities. We do that by making sure that our deputy staff um treats them appropriately. And we also need to make sure that our deputies are equipped with uh just the ability in terms of training and um ability to interact professionally with folks.

Speaker: 8:55

Let's talk a little bit about the breadth and depth of the county. A lot of people don't understand the responsibility that the Sheriff's Department has from SFO to the coast to contract cities. It is mind-boggling at times uh the responsibility you have, Sheriff, uh, and the different uh aspects. I mean, even an Investigations Bureau and and Bomb Squad and K9 and all these different things that you've got going on. Why don't you tell the public a little bit about those things and some of your plans for the future?

Speaker 1: 9:23

That's one of the wonderful things about being in a sheriff's office. You know, it's a large and complex organization. My hope is to make the sheriff's office one of the jewels of the county. So we do patrol work from the coast all the way to the bay. You know, we've got um some areas of the community that are very affluent, we've got others that are not so much affluent, and we want to make sure that no one gets marginalized, no one gets neglected. Uh we are there along the coast, we're here in the unincorporated areas. We also have contract cities, and that's good for regional public safety. We have 20 municipalities within the county, a very large county, and it is a team effort. It's not just the sheriff, it's not just the chief of one of the cities, it's all of us working together to make sure that we're doing everything we can to provide community safety, to police appropriately, to hold criminals accountable. We want to make sure that our residents are safe and that we do it in a professional way while we do it.

Speaker: 10:28

You touched earlier on uh one of your favorite jobs as a young sheriff deputy on patrol was interacting with kids. And that's an area that you and I share. I loved uh this the same thing. Um reaching out to kids and letting them really understand who we are, and hopefully some of them aspire to to go into this profession. Uh tell us your plans around the the youth in this community. What what are some of the things that you hope to uh to relay to the young people uh in this county, especially in some of the areas where uh we do see uh gang activity uh and drug sales? Tell us a little bit about some of the work with the youth in the community.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Yeah, it's really important for the youth to to be able to look up to their local law enforcement, the police officers, the deputy sheriffs that are working in their areas. And so, you know, we do different things. We have school resource officers that are actually in the schools, um, and really their focus is building relationships with the youth, uh, to provide training and instruction in various areas of public safety, not only what we do, but what kids can do to be safe and to make good choices. And we've actually seen a lot of very um resilient kids come up in more difficult neighborhoods, but they made good choices because they had mentors. You know, they had mentors that were in law enforcement in their schools, they had people in their family. And uh those are the folks that we've a lot we have people in our sheriff's office that are deputy sheriffs that grew up in areas like that. And they really make the best deputies because they have a heart for people, they've seen what can happen in a neighborhood, uh, and yet they rose above it and they took a different path. One of my three main points for our patrol is community engagement. We're gonna we want to focus on public safety, community engagement, and organizational excellence. And so that community engagement piece is really every contact that our deputies have with the public is an opportunity to to mentor youth, uh, to be an ambassador for the county, for the sheriff's office, and for law enforcement in general. And you never know how you affect lives by interactions. You know, our deputies are contacting people every day and it can s become seem just normal and they don't think much of it. But for the public, they only have contact with law enforcement on average about once every seven years. So everything that the deputies say resonates and sticks with them. They remember that, even if the deputy moves on to the next contact and doesn't think much of it. So it's really important that everything we say is uh is what it needs to be so that we can make that positive impact on people.

Speaker: 13:14

So if I was young again, uh thinking about a career in law enforcement, I would definitely want to work for uh a sheriff like you. Um you you have certainly the right ethical makeup and and the right uh ambition for the community uh and uh and really a focus on public safety, which is very exciting. So the to the young men and women out there who are looking for a career in law enforcement, what do you want to say to them? Are you guys hiring your recruiting? Uh is this a is this gonna be the place to come work uh in the county?

Speaker 1: 13:45

We are hiring. Thank you for asking, Mike. Yes, and you know, uh having worked in uh all various areas of law enforcement, I will say there's no better place to work than the sheriff's office. Come work for the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. You can do it all. We have so many bureaus. We have, you know, we have patrol, we have the jails, we have the courts, we have a civil division that does, you know, helps people on the civil side with evictions, and we have uh detectives, we have a SWAT team, we have a bomb unit, we have an air unit. So that no matter what happens within the cities or in our unincorporated areas, we have the training, we have the equipment and tools to be able to come in and manage anything that happens. So it's an exciting career field. The sheriff's office is a place where you could work a different division every three to five years and go a whole career and not get bored.

Speaker: 14:39

There are so many different things that you can do in the sheriff's office and gain all of these uh expertise uh in different aspects uh of law enforcement. Certainly, your investigations bureau doing homicides and the serious crimes is very important too. Sheriff Bender, we are so lucky to have you in San Mateo County. Thank you so much for being my guest here today. Uh you are a wonderful representative uh of this office. I know that you are gonna do great things uh for this county and for this sheriff's office. And to all of you out there, I want to thank you for joining Open Mic and being uh here with us today. If there's anything that you'd like to hear in the future, please shoot me an email. Let me know what it is. Until then, stay safe, and then you can see.