Monterey County holds meeting to get public input on sheriff’s oversight committee

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIF. (KION-TV)- Monterey County is looking to the public's input on the status of the Monterey County Sheriff's Office.

County supervisors wanted to give the public an opportunity to give their take on a specific concern. Does the sheriff's office need additional oversight?

This is to meet Assembly Bill 1185 which passed in 2020. This requires: "Existing law establishes the office of the sheriff in each county to preserve peace, and authorizes the sheriff to sponsor, supervise, or participate in any project of crime prevention, rehabilitation of persons previously convicted of crime, or the suppression of delinquency. Existing law requires a board of supervisors to supervise the official conduct of all county officers and ensure that they faithfully perform their duties."

"What we're doing is just collecting all the information and get it back to the board of supervisors. So the board of supervisors can decide on whether to proceed this way," said Glenn Church, a County Supervisor.

According to Glen, there are currently two people in the committee.

"It's an informal committee with me and supervisor Askew, and basically what we're charged with is just collecting information, to, to understand what the residents in this county would really want," said Church.

AB 1185 was passed in 2020, KION asked why its taking close to three years to implement it.

"Can't really answer. I know, a supervisor askew made a referral, which is basically a request to to look into this last year. And I've only been on the board for six or seven months. so when this came up, I'm very supportive of it," said Church.

During the meeting, County Supervisors Wendy Askew and Glenn Church watched over as the public gave their take on creating an oversight board.

This board would assist in making sure the sheriff's office is faithfully performing its duties.

Although the public sent a singular message in wanting the oversight board, due to past issues with the sheriff's office, Sheriff Tina Nieto was also in favor of creating one. If constructed properly.

"One size does not fit all when you're talking about transparency,” Nieto said. “And I know the past administration had a lot of issues. There was a huge demand from the public to say what's going on with the sheriff's office, and I share that sentiment."

Nieto also told the public that at some point the sheriff's office will be putting reports of misconduct onto their website so the public can be aware of what's going on.

While they can't provide too much detail with the reports, the public will be able to see what reports are coming in.

The county is also asking the public to fill out an online survey to give their additional thoughts on adding extra oversight.