Candidate Q&A: Joe Moses for sheriff.

As part of the 2022 election season, the Weekly asked candidates for several offices to answer questions about some of the issues by email. After a four-way primary in June, the top two candidates for sheriff have a two-way runoff in November. Joe Moses, a current captain in the Monterey County Sheriff's Office, races Tina Nieto, the police chief of Marina. 

Please describe your vision for the Monterey County Sheriffs Office. If elected, what will you be talking about four years from now?

I see the Sheriff’s Office as the lead law enforcement agency for Monterey County that focuses on the safety and security of our neighborhoods and communities. As the lead agency that has county-wide jurisdiction and influence, the Sheriff’s Office is in a unique position to build collaborative relationships, initiate an assessment of gaps in resources across the county, and lead with the mindset and attitude of support, trust, and professionalism; with a unified goal of making Monterey County a safer place to live, work, and visit.

Monterey County is a very diverse county with each community having different law enforcement needs. The Sheriff’s Office must be cognizant of these differences and be open to exploring with each community new avenues to meeting these needs. I will build a leadership team that is reflective of our diverse county and is focused on instilling ethical values and inclusion in delivering services to our communities.

Under my leadership we will have:

• An increase in our patrol staffing so that our patrol deputies will have time to get out of their cars and build relationships and trust with the communities they serve.
• An increase in school resource officer positions throughout the county to provide a safe learning environment for our children and build a relationship with our next generation that sees law enforcement as not just a badge and gun, but rather as one of the good people that is there to help them in times of need.
• A safer jail environment for our inmates and our staff with a focus on accountability and providing tools for those incarcerated to be successful members of our community once they are released.
• A successful behavioral health center that will provide those in mental health crisis with the counseling and medication they need to overcome their illness and receive access to the tools they need to be successful, which will lead to a reduction in homelessness and substance addiction.
• Community advisory boards throughout the county to allow for input from each of our diverse communities.

The Sheriff’s Office budget is $135 million, about 8 percent of the county budget. How do you deliver the services and not exceed the budget? Will you seek to limit overtime, or is that part of the budget plan?

The key to delivering services without exceeding the budget is to recruit and retain employees. We currently have a 10% vacancy rate in our workforce. I will concentrate on filling those vacancies with quality employees that are dedicated to serving our population.

By filling those vacancies, we will be able to dramatically reduce overtime. As with any agency that must provide 24-hour service, occasional overtime is necessary and must be built into the budget. However, being fully staffed means having enough personnel to account for vacations, sick leave, holidays, etc.

I will also direct my staff to look at alternative funding sources to support much needed projects such as re-entry and rehabilitative services, school resource officer programs, volunteer services, and special teams funding. There are many grant and private funding sources available for these and many more programs, we just need to do the homework and aggressively go after these funding sources. As an example, I have been able to fund programs like purchasing and upfitting the Sheriff’s Office airplane, establishing a Medication Assisted Treatment program in the jail, and began the conversion of the old jail into a behavioral health center without using any of the Sheriff’s Office budget or county general fund dollars.

How do you prioritize the competing needs for limited patrol deputies: cannabis, noise ordinance, and increasing crime? Where are the shortages of patrol, or where is the department too heavy? How can you help meet the public's expectation for service?

Law enforcement as an industry is suffering from personnel shortages. Monterey County Sheriff’s Office is no different, but there are things we can do to mitigate those shortages while we work on increasing our staffing numbers through more robust and targeted recruiting techniques. I have always advocated for working with individual communities to guide us in what their priorities are. I will form advisory committees throughout Monterey County to provide input on what needs to be prioritized and call upon our communities to help us keep Monterey County safe. We need to acknowledge that the law enforcement priorities are different for each of our diverse communities. Addressing agricultural theft is a high priority in South County while loud noise complaints are a big issue in North County. Each of these issues will be prioritized accordingly and can be addressed in different ways by our Sheriff’s Office.

We currently have a 10% vacancy rate in staffing across the board. These are fully funded and authorized positions that we simply have not filled. Through more efficient recruiting and hiring practice and streamlining our application process, we will be able to fill these vacancies and be able to better meet the public’s expectation for safety and security.

What role can you play as sheriff in reducing crime in Monterey County?

Since the Sheriff is responsible for law enforcement services throughout the entire County, they have a large impact on the crime rate. Only a small percentage of our population is responsible for the bulk of our crime. So, one of the places where the Sheriff has the largest impact on reducing crime is through the county jail. I believe that criminals need to be held accountable for their actions and while they are serving their time in the county jail, what can we do to provide them with the tools they need to be successful in our County.

Under my leadership, the programs we offer the incarcerated has increased from just a handful to 38 programs such as educational, vocational, mental health treatment, anger management courses, parenting courses, family reunification services, and substance abuse programs. And we don’t stop there. We now make sure that as people are being released from our facility, they are directly connected to services in our community such as the BRIDGE program, Door to Hope, Valley Health Services, Sun Street Centers, etc. When we are able to help people turn their life around, our crime rate goes down and our community becomes a safer place to live, work, and visit.

Enforcement is also a large part of reducing the crime rate. I will increase the number of patrol deputies on the street to help keep us safe. Our patrol deputies are currently going from call-to-call and don’t have time to get out of their patrol cars to interact with our communities. I envision our deputies visiting with the business owners and building relationships within the neighborhoods they serve. By having these positive interactions and by building relationships, our residents will feel comfortable reporting crime and suspicious activity, which will give us more opportunities to bring criminals to justice.

We have a very robust volunteer services division. We can use teams like the Sheriff’s Emergency Assistance Team which utilizes volunteers in citizen patrol cars to show a patrol presence in their neighborhoods and be the eyes and ears for our full-time staff. We also need to take the lead on programs such as Neighborhood Watch and community service officer programs to engage and activate our neighbors to keep an eye out for problems and help us identify and address those issues before they become bigger problems.

The jail is required by a settlement agreement to provide a certain standard of health and mental health services. Is the jail complying? What will you do if elected to change conditions at the jail, if anything?

Over the last 3 years, my staff and I have greatly improved the services we are required to provide at the jail. According to the court and our neutral monitors, we are now substantially compliant in 38 areas of the settlement agreement and continue to improve in moving towards substantial compliance in the rest of the settlement agreement.

In just the last year, the jail has become a safer place for our inmates and our staff. Comparing the last two fiscal years, we have reduced inmate on inmate assaults by 24%. We have reduced inmate on staff assaults by 37%. Our number of attempted suicides are down 30%. Our medical personnel staffing went from a critically low level to being nearly fully staffed. These reductions and improvements tell us that we are doing a much better job in providing services such as mental and medical health care as well as providing better programming and increasing our safety and security measures.

Many people have asked me how we made such progress in such a short amount of time. My answer is putting together action plans that establish realistic and attainable goals with buy-in from all our partners involved. It is a lot easier to take bites out of the apple rather than try to swallow it whole. We still have a ways to go to be at the level I envision and our community expects, but we have built the momentum we need to take us to that finish line. We need a Sheriff that understands the jail and understands the steps that are necessary to make sustainable changes in our operation; otherwise, we take several steps back.

How was Covid handled in the jail and what will you do differently, if elected?

The Covid response at the jail was handled very well. Under my leadership, I quickly drew upon my experience in disaster response and established an incident command team with an incident action plan.

As the newly promoted Captain of the jail when the Covid pandemic was spreading across our country, I realized that we would soon be affected by the pandemic. We developed plans and partnerships with our other stakeholders well before the virus hit the jail. The team we put together included all parts of corrections operations to include our vendors, Monterey County Courts, District Attorney’s Office, Public Defender’s Office, and the County Health Department. Thus, when the virus did invade the jail, we were able to quickly and efficiently mobilize our resources and our plans to do our best to prevent the spread of the virus throughout the jail and to care for those that were infected. Through this robust response and having already established the necessary relationships with the stakeholders, we were able to keep the virus from spreading throughout the jail and limited it to a few housing units while maintaining essential operations.

Some of the steps we took in response to the Covid pandemic included:

• A 14-day quarantine for all new intakes before they were placed in general housing. We worked with the State Fire Marshal and the contractor of the new jail expansion to allow us use of the new facility prior to completion to make space for this quarantine housing.
• Required masks for all inmates, staff, and essential visitors.
• Offered vaccines for those inmates that wished to be vaccinated. We also provided incentive packages to those inmates that decided to take the vaccine and offered information so that the inmates could make an informed decision.
• If someone was sick, we isolated them and had nursing staff check on them daily and provided advanced medical care for those that required increased care.
• We had daily briefings with the command team that included medical staff, county health department, Sheriff’s Office personnel, the courts, the District Attorney’s Office, and Public Defender’s Office. During these briefings we would identify gaps in our plan and would respond by establishing and completing action items. As an example, we found we were not communicating efficiently enough with the inmates. Our response was to have Sheriff’s Office command staff and medical staff go to each housing unit and give the inmates an overview of what we were doing and answer any of their questions.

On an operational level, one of the essential operations was keeping the court calendar running. Through our partnerships with County Health Department, Public Defenders Office, District Attorney’s Office, our medical provider, and the Courts; we were able to quickly adjust to video court and prevented a serious backlog of cases in the court system. By comparison, Santa Clara County had a backlog of approximately 40,000 cases. Our Public Defender Sue Chapman; District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni; and Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta have all commented on my leadership abilities to keep the courts running despite the impact of the pandemic.

The Court-appointed Covid-19 expert [a monitor, appointed pursuant to the Hernandez settlement] summed it up best in his report on our response to the CoVid-19 pandemic, "…Captain Moses, the command staff, and WellPath [the contractor providing healthcare services in the jail] should be commended for bringing the outbreak under control and keeping the virus under control in 2020 for almost a year after my first onsite inspection."

What other changes would you make at the jail?

I would change how we recruit and hire our deputies for the jail. Currently, we hire recruits and send them to the police academy before they are assigned to the jail. Most recruits that apply for the Sheriff’s Office want to work patrol. The academy is geared toward patrol, but we send these new graduates to the jail to work for several years before they have enough seniority to transfer to patrol. While these deputies do a good job working in corrections, they are not invested in their assignment and are often only biding time until they can transfer to their desired career path. I will test separately for patrol and corrections, thereby recruiting and hiring for those positions separately. Those that want a career path in corrections will be able to test directly for those positions. Those that desire a career path in patrol and investigations can test directly for those positions. In this way, we will build more job satisfaction and encourage our employees to be our best recruitment tool.

What is your philosophy behind issuing CCWs? Will you differ from Sheriff Bernal?

I will not change the current program we have in place now. Our law abiding and responsible residents have a right to carry a firearm. My focus is on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and those that are not responsible enough to carry a firearm.

Specifically for mental health, as this is an area of focus for you: What will you do if elected to expand mental health support for jail inmates? How will you pay for it? For Joe Moses: If you are not elected can you still advance these services?

Over the last 3 years, we have made great strides in expanding mental health services and support in the jail. I brought the Jail-Based Competency Treatment program to our Jail so that those that have severe mental health issues can get rapid and intensive treatment without waiting for bed space at the State Hospital. We have also started a Medication Assisted Treatment program inside the facility to give those that suffer from substance abuse the tools they need to overcome their addictions and transfer them to community-based care once released. We also just started an Early Access program to expand intensive services for those suffering from mental health issues before they even begin the court process. All these programs are being funded by sources outside of the county general fund.

Looking to the future, I have collaborated with County Behavioral Health, community-based organizations, and utilizing state funds to convert the old jail into a Behavioral Health Treatment Center. This is a much-needed resource that we need in Monterey County. There are simply not enough in-patient beds in Monterey County. The Behavioral Health Center will provide an avenue to give treatment for those in mental health crisis so they can get the tools they need to successfully transition back into their community.

The state and federal government are making huge amounts of money available for mental health treatment and for law enforcement response to those in mental health crisis. The Sheriff’s Office is currently accessing these funding sources and I will continue this trend. If we do not take advantage of these grant opportunities, other counties will. I will make sure our staff is taking full advantage of these funding sources to support the programs that are so desperately needed in our communities.

As Captain of Corrections Operations, I have advocated for and made progress in providing mental health services for our inmates. If I am elected as your next Sheriff, I will be able to expand these services beyond just the county jail. If I am not elected, I will continue advancing along the path that I have set in expanding mental health services for our inmates.

You have said you would like to have a better relationship with the local press and be more transparent than the retiring sheriff. What, specifically, will you do to increase transparency?

The basis of transparency is communication. The Sheriff’s Office must communicate with the public more effectively. One way to do this is through the media, both mainstream and social media. As Sheriff my statement will never be, “no comment.” If there are things I am not allowed to comment on, I will let you know why and when I might be able to comment.

Good communication is built on trust and I have built that trust with our local media throughout my career. A prime example of this is my communication with Royal Calkins [of news site Voices of Monterey Bay]. Royal and I have not seen eye-to-eye on many things during this election, but that has not deterred me from speaking with him and answering his questions. I have done this; despite some of my advisors cautioning me against it; because I truly believe that as a public figure, I cannot let criticism deter me from speaking to the public through all media sources.

To further this relationship with the public and the media, I plan on doing monthly broadcasts to answer questions from the public and keep our communities informed of the operations of the Sheriff’s Office. During my campaign, I have started a video series titled, “Just Ask Joe” to inform voters of my stance on issues that are important to them. I will continue this series, if elected, as an avenue to communicate and build trust with our residents.

There are at least five women in the Sheriff's Office who have said they experienced sexual harassment in the workplace and that supervisors did nothing to address it. What will you do to change this? When you say "create a culture" please share specifically what that means.

Harassment, sexual or otherwise, will not be tolerated in my administration.  As a manager of over 320 full time and contract staff, I can tell you that we do not have a culture of looking the other way when it comes to harassment of any kind amongst my staff. This is evidenced by the number of women in the Sheriff’s Office that have worked for me and are supportive of my campaign.

When I learned of the findings of the Civil Rights Office, I immediately made a strong statement against the actions of the upper administration, knowing very well that there would be some political ramifications. But that is how you create a culture. You lead by example and show that such behavior will not be tolerated at any level in the organization. I will create that culture by placing people with high moral and ethical values in positions of leadership throughout our chain of command.

I was asked the question of whether I would consider one of the offenders for a position in my administration. My answer was unequivocally no and that I had never considered him for a position because his values did not align with mine.  My opponent stated that she would need to read the report from the Civil Rights Office prior to making a decision on whether to keep the offender. In my view, that is not how you create a culture that does not tolerate sexual harassment.  To create the culture, you must be willing to lead and take a stand for what is right and what you believe in despite the potential ramifications. Only then will your subordinates know that they are supported, and that harassment will not be tolerated.

What will you do to help the department move past alleged nepotism and favoritism in promotions? Is there a change that should be made to the process that allows deputies a chance to move up in rank?

I do not see that favoritism and nepotism is widespread in the Sheriff’s Office; however, there are steps that we can take to keep these ‘ism’s from occurring. Many agencies are going to a better practice of utilizing promotional assessment centers where better and unbiased evaluation of a candidate’s qualifications is made by several individuals both within and outside of the agency. I have participated in many of these assessment centers as an evaluator both in Monterey County and throughout the State. My experience is that these workshops are a critical piece in keeping nepotism and favoritism out of the promotional process and will lead to us promoting the most qualified and experienced individuals for these positions.

I also see the current system of the Sheriff appointing their executive management team as a practice that encourages unhealthy practices of nepotism and favoritism. During campaigns for Sheriff, and this one is no exception, we see political favors and promises of appointment to the executive team being doled out to gain endorsements and support. This becomes a slippery slope of favoritism and nepotism. I have not made, nor will I make, any promises to any of my supporters or endorsers and I will wait until after the election to make decisions on who is best qualified to fill my executive management team ranks. We can very easily remove this practice by making the Chief Deputy positions permanent and not at the will of the Sheriff. If elected, I will work with County Human Resources and the Board of Supervisors to make the Chief Deputy position a permanent position that requires a promotional testing process.

What will you do to attract new deputies to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office?

I have several ideas we will implement to attract new deputies. First is to do a better job of marketing law enforcement as a great career.  

Second, we will market the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office as an attractive law enforcement agency to work for. I will hire someone with a degree in marketing that understands what appeals to the next generation of deputies and staff.  Using social media platforms and our local media outlets to advertise all of the positive things the Sheriff’s Office does on a daily basis is a great way to not only show the great things we are doing, but it also shows our profession in a positive light and will attract our new potential employees.

Thirdly, as I mentioned in a previous question, I would separate the hiring process for corrections and patrol to give our new deputies a more viable and desired career path. By hiring a person in the career path they desire will lead to more interested candidates, satisfaction in the workplace, and long-term better job performance. 

What should be the relationship between the Monterey County Sheriff's Office and ICE?

Current state laws dictate the relationship local and state law enforcement can have with ICE. My position is that we need to maintain a good working relationship with all of our local, state and federal partners. However, ICE should not be involved in the deportation of people who are in our community working and making a better life for themselves and their families. Violent, repeat offenders that continuously victimize our residents need to be removed from our community. ICE can be a tool that can be used in these instances to protect our residents.