“It’s very hard to explain,” Puett said, “but I’m very appreciative for all the support and votes.”
In the three-way race for Sheriff, Puett, who is currently the undersheriff, won by a sizable margin, nearly doubling each of his opponents’ vote totals.
The Republican drew 17,503 votes, or 49.37 %. Democrat Ron Fisher won 8,959 votes (25,27%) while Independent Pat Grove took third with 8,948 (25.24%).
“It was surprising,” he said, “of course not being a very good politician, not knowing how all this stuff goes, yeah, it was surprising.”
On at least one issue, Puett agreed with his opponents, that the department needs more deputies patrolling out in the county.
“I absolutely agree that we could use some more deputies,” he said. “The issue, obviously, is resources to get that.”
“We’re going to look at everything from the top down, try to use technology, and streamline resources and those type of things, to hopefully develop some funding to put some deputies out on the road, and in investigative roles.”
He does not expect to implement any wholesale changes when he takes over the department.
“Absolutely not. I’ve been saying from the start ‘change with purpose.'”
“We’ll examine everything and see if there’s ways to improve things, and use technology or new practices to streamline certain activities, and if we can, and if we can save money, or make things move better and faster and serve the community better, then we’ll do that, and then reallocate those resources,” he said.
He also said he does not expect to make any big personnel changes in the Sheriff’s Department.
“Right now we’re going to have a transition team, and obviously we’re going to talk to every employee and we’re going to evaluate every position. Nobody will lose their jobs. There’s nothing like that. Everybody is a valuable asset,” Puett said.
“We have a great team. They work very hard.”