Hello, my name is Thomas Mindar and I am a candidate for sheriff of Fayette County.

First, after much thought and prayer and with the overwhelming support of my colleagues at the department and friends here in the community, I have decided to honorably run for sheriff.

I have been working for the citizens of Fayette County for more than 12 years now. It has been an honor to have worked under Sheriff Randall Johnson and his command. I will strive to make a very smooth transition from our outgoing retiring sheriff.

While serving my county, I was promoted to specialist in my division, and currently have the privilege of serving on our S.W.A.T. team. Our S.W.A.T. team assists our highly state recognized Drug Task Force, which has taken in millions in drug seized forfeitures.

I also served four years in our country’s Army as an infantryman in both the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. I was deployed to Iraq and served in Operation Desert Storm.

I believe in a hands-on approach to law enforcement. By openly recognizing good leadership you will show others that their efforts are meaningful to the department. Like Sheriff Johnson, I will work closely with the public to reduce crime and create a partnership of excellence. By promoting public involvement we’ll all be better prepared to solve our county’s ever-changing public safety issues.

Although crime will always exist, we can lessen the frequency of it. I plan to create programs that will be comprised of the citizens of this county and the local law enforcement agencies. These programs will help us drastically reduce the amount of crime that seems to be taking root in our great county.

In order for you to make the best selection for the next sheriff of Fayette County, I believe strongly that you, the citizen, should know exactly what each candidate plans to do and how they are going to achieve their goals.

Some of the issues that I will address are as follows:

1. Will ensure that the Fayette County Drug Task Force will share all intelligence and drug forfeiture monies equally with our city police departments and mayors to help reduce the cost of public safety.

2. Qualify the Sheriff’s Department to take advantage of all federal grants available to identify and deport illegal aliens who are committing crime here in Fayette County.

3. Work with all the Fayette County Commissioners to determine a fair budget which provides maximum services to ensure our safety at the lowest possible cost to our citizens.

4. Create a correctional labor work force of non-threatening inmates to help clean up our county and city roadways, parks and public pathways.

5. Strive to protect our home and property values by maintaining a strong law enforcement presence here in our schools and neighborhood, to better eliminate gang and drug activity.

I feel that by reorganizing areas of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, we will free up much needed manpower and be able to assign more units to the road that will provide better coverage.

The most important part of policing is the Uniformed Patrol Division. Everybody knows that they are the first line of contact with our citizens.

By reorganizing the Jail Division, we can utilize inmates that are otherwise sitting around idle and only presenting themselves as a burden to our taxpayers, and put them to work picking up trash littering our county.

I would like to create a Police Athletic League. The P.A.L. is a program which would allow the Sheriff’s Department to bond with the community and give our children more athletic activities to participate in.

I would encourage and personally assist our law enforcement officers to create an environment where gang and drug activity won’t be able to flourish in our county. This would give our children and parents sports activities which would occupy their time and give them a place to congregate.

For example, we could place a north precinct in the new Kenwood Park and have a south precinct located in the city of Brooks. This would cut down on the response time of calls for law enforcement assistance throughout the county. This would also create a much needed presence which would act as a deterrent for criminals committing crime in the north and south areas of the county.

According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 287(g), which became effective Sept. 30, 1996, local law enforcement officers can be trained to identify and start deportation proceedings on illegal immigrants who violate the law. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can train our officers and supervise this function. Currently our department is not qualified to properly receive federal funding to aid and dispose of these types of criminals.

This is not to say that we are going to go into the community and search out all illegal aliens. When an illegal alien is arrested, only then can they be deported, if the county has been qualified by the government to do so. This will help reduce gang and drug activity which is slowly entering our great county. The training for this qualification is free and available.

As your sheriff, I pledge to take a proactive approach to ensure all deputies are trained to arrest all criminals, legal citizens or not. We must act quickly in order to protect our children, property and values here in Fayette County.

I pledge to aggressively attack criminal activity. As your sheriff, using the same budget that we currently have, I plan to create a crime suppression unit which will target high crime areas of the county. We will seek and arrest criminals that pose a threat to our community.

And when they are in our county jail, I will treat our inmates like prisoners, not guests. Our inmates will be required to work off their court issued punishment instead of watching T.V. and reading newspapers.

I will also work hard with our county judges, district attorney and state solicitor to effectively prosecute these offenders and take the fear out of our citizens and place it into the criminals, where it belongs.

I believe that an aggressive but fair stance is needed now before it is too late. We have to start planning and acting immediately for future criminal activity and stop reacting to crime after it is already here. Only planning ahead will stop what has already happened in the metro Atlanta counties.

Help me to help you protect your family and your way of life. Elect Thomas Mindar for Fayette County sheriff in 2008. I will be a proactive not reactive sheriff.

If you have any suggestions or would like to help in my campaign, please feel free to call or email me at 770-870-0572 or TMindar@hotmail.com. Thank you for your support.

Thomas Mindar

Fayette County, Ga.