Wade Lieseke Ted Holmes Ray Mielzynski Jeanette Smith Advertisement

The race for the office of Nye County sheriff has generated, if nothing else, a steady stream of vivid letters by those strenuously supporting and opposing the primary candidates, who themselves are a vivid bunch.

Three men and one woman are working to replace Sheriff Tony DeMeo, with former Sheriff Wade Lieseke perhaps as the most prominent challenger.

Wade Lieseke wants to recover what he said was lost when Tony DeMeo was elected sheriff of Nye County in 2002.

In a word: service.

"This will be a campaign about what was lost to the citizens over the last three and a half years and how to find it again, without raising taxes," Lieseke said in his campaign literature.

"I think it's time to bring service back to the valley," he said at a campaign rally last Saturday. "You have 45 officers assigned to the valley; four more were just approved. You've added 19 officers since 2003. That's more than adequate to get prompt responses from officers if you schedule them properly."

Lieseke promised to partner with the county's communities through service-oriented policing. By that, he said, he means "prompt, professional and caring service with integrity, respect and fairness to you, the people of Nye County.

"I plan to get the people out of the offices and onto the street so that the mythical eight-minute, 23-second response time will actually become reality," said Lieseke.

"Don't you think it's embarrassing that there are citizen complaints that the Nevada Highway Patrol (recently) came in and wrote over 50 tickets in a three-and-a-half-hour period in a mile or mile-and-a-half area of Pahrump?" he said.

"What does that say about the sheriff's attitude toward traffic enforcement? You have to believe what (DeMeo) told The Pahrump Valley Mirror: 'It's not our job to write tickets,'" Lieseke added.

"What's really sad is that people have to complain loud and long to the NHP to get the much needed enforcement, because the current sheriff wouldn't do his job."

Regarding DeMeo's recent explanations (PVT July 28) about why Pahrump's homeless population could not be targeted for occupying Petrack Park, Lieseke said: "It's not the sheriff's job to decide which laws to have his officers enforce. Whether a town ordinance or a state law, you swear an oath to enforce them all."

He said the recent kidnapping and rape of a resident near the park was a direct result of DeMeo's attitude.

DeMeo himself requested enactment of Town Ordinance No. 42, which prohibits loitering and living in the park, said Lieseke.

"You have to leave the law's constitutionality to the appellate courts," he said. "You have a law until a competent court of jurisdiction tells you you can't." He said DeMeo's refusal to "target" the homeless amounts to arrogance.

DeMeo had said that more aggressive enforcement of laws against the small homeless group in Petrack Park would amount to profiling "a protected class" of citizens for selective law enforcement and would open the county to legal liabilities.

Among the things "Wade will do" if elected, Lieseke said, are the following:

Reduce response time to calls for service.

Put more officers on the streets.

Re-establish the crime scene investigation (CSI) unit.

Re-establish the traffic division.

Re-organize the detective division and establish an effective case management system.

Ted Holmes

Candidate Ted Holmes said he wants to be sheriff of Nye County because, "This is my home and I just don't feel we're as safe today. We need to correct that.

"There're a lot of things we can do," Holmes said. Having lived in Pahrump for the past four years, Holmes said he remembers when the incumbent Sheriff Tony DeMeo was voted in.

Holmes said he's been disappointed by DeMeo's performance in office.

"He didn't take care of some major things he said he would," charged Holmes, "like the reorganization of the department. You have a mentality here that goes back quite a few years. It's been going along as the status quo."

Holmes, who holds a bachelor's degree in education and is pursuing a master's in management, has spent most of his career in the military as a Navy SEAL involved in special warfare operations.

He was also involved for three years with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, which specializes in international counter-terrorism. During that time Holmes said he held positions "working with multi-million-dollar budgets and supervising large numbers of personnel."

He works at the Yucca Mountain Repository project site in security with top-secret clearance, a status he said "is a solid reflection on my reliability, integrity and honesty."

Holmes draws on his military experience in defining the direction he wants to take the Nye County Sheriff's Office. "In the military," Holmes said, "you are reassigned every three years, to keep you motivated with new assignments. It brings new blood into the game and re-energizes things with new ideas."

Retiring from the service in 1992, Holmes jumped into law enforcement, working for 11 years with the Riverside, Calif., Sheriff's Department, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the Banning, Calif., Police Department. He worked in various capacities in narcotics, as a patrol officer, homicide detective and SWAT specialist.

"There are more drugs and gangs coming into Pahrump," Holmes said, promising to "ruthlessly and aggressively pursue all illegal narcotics activities in Nye County." He also said he wants to "develop a zero tolerance for gangs and gang-related activities."

Other areas that Holmes said he wants to focus on include:

Re-establishing the sheriff reserve program using academy-trained graduates to augment regular deputies. Holmes claimed this would "save the county thousands of dollars a year."

Establishing a cold case detective bureau made up of retired detectives who would volunteer their time to assist the present "overloaded and understaffed detective bureau."

Assigning a detective to specially focus on crimes against senior citizens.

Adopting the methods of Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, such as chain-gang work details for both male and female inmates, 'tent city' jails and corrections policies such as issuing inmates pink underwear.

"We need major changes to keep up," said Holmes. "We have to move on and look into the future for the problems we have locally and the threats facing us.

"You've got to have trained your rank and file," he said. "Deputies can only be motivated by proper leadership, and if you don't have it you're not going to have a good department."

Ray Mielzynski

Ray Mielzynski, the guy toting the American flag you see on street corners all over town, wants to put teeth into his beliefs by becoming sheriff of Nye County.

Ray "Flagman" "Mallow" Mielzynski says his credentials are the United States Constitution. His platform? "The Bill of Rights."

"People should not be complaisant about losing their freedoms," said Mielzynski as he took a break from standing with his flag on Basin Avenue earlier this week. "We have to stand up for freedom."

Mielzynski pledged, among other things, the following:

"Restore freedom to the people!"

"Only criminals go to jail, and they will go to jail."

"No revenue enhancement. No warning tickets on minor violations for first offenses."

"Deputies will be polite and non-threatening. No ridiculing of people arrested."

"No roadblocks. No searches without warrants ... No property seizures."

"No deals for criminals wanting to trade their property for a cushy plea bargain."

"Reverse current policy and restore coffee to Nye County inmates, many of whom are only charged and not convicted of any crime."

"No more 'them or us' attitude that is the current line of thinking in the sheriff's department."

"SWAT team to be dissolved. Officers to be trained to resolve stand-offs without a military (kill 'em) gung-ho mentality."

"The sheriff's department will be here to serve and protect. The people of Nye County will be the boss. The department will serve."

Meilzynski said he is qualified for the job by the very fact of his utter lack of any law enforcement qualifications.

"What I consider my best quality is that I have not been corrupted by the police mentality," he said. "No doubt if I was considered qualified, through police experience, I would maintain a 'them or us' attitude. I have no such malady. I am a citizen who sees abuse of power, outrageous behavior and a condescending attitude toward the people of Nye County, and since I am not part of this corrupt sickness, I am not corrupted by it nor afflicted by it. I will be the remedy for it.

"The Sheriff's Office is 'stacking,'" Mielzynski charged, "which people don't recognize. A cop arrests someone whom he is perturbed about. He decides to bust you and wants to teach you a lesson. You're booked on six charges. Bail is set accordingly. If you're arrested on Friday, you have to spend the whole weekend in jail until a judge can hear your case on Monday or Tuesday. They've accomplished punishing you without you ever being convicted."

Mielzynski is indignant about what he sees as a clear constitutional violation. "You can spend five days in jail. They throw everything and their brother at you. And this is only one (outrageous) policy they do out here.

"They also ignore legitimate complaints, and there's a danger to the people because nothing is being done (by the officers). I talk to the deputies to find out about everything. I sit in as an observer in the courtroom four or five times a week. I hear their stories over and over again. People are threatened by their neighbors and (the Sheriff's Office) don't do anything about it."

Mielzynski has a silver-bullet solution: "If you're arrested for one crime, that's what it's gonna be. You got to be straight with the public."

Mielzynski said he will make certain a deputy is present when the public administrator goes through the personal effects of someone who has passed away. Presently, the public administrator is not accompanied by a deputy and the system is open to abuse, he said.

If there's no will when a person dies, the public administrator gets a percentage of the decedent's property, Mielzynski said. "I believe the office is unconstitutional.

"People don't want to be robbed after they're dead," says Mielzynski solemnly. "This is important stuff."

Mielzynski made another point about money: "I'll take a dollar a year in salary," he said. "If they insist, the salary will be donated to feed the hungry in the name of Jesus."

Jeannette Smith

Jeanette and Robert Smith experienced a burglary of their house two weeks ago. It was the second time, they said. Tools, equipment and 20 new car and truck tires were stolen.

One of the thieves was brazen enough to show up later at their front door. Believing no one was home, as before, he was casually walking off with the couple's property that had been left outside on their porch when they discovered him.

"'I was told you were moving out of state,'" said the man nonchalantly. He then explained he had done some work for another man, who told him to pick up the Smith's porch belongings as payment for his work.

The experience has galvanized Jeanette Smith in her quest to become the next Nye County sheriff. "We don't have a criminologist," she said earlier this week. "I think we need that. Then some of these robberies would come to a head, if we could get something like that in here."

Other concerns and planks of Smith's platform include:

Traffic control: "If we had police officers in sight once in a while, people would be more alert and cautious in their driving," she said.

Community policing: "Police should be assigned to certain areas of the neighborhood so that people would be more at ease and apt to talk to them," she said.

Communication: "We need better communication between police and the union on the benefits for officers and their families," said Smith. "Right now, families are not covered."

Review board: "I think we need a panel from each district in Pahrump to monitor what goes on in the Sheriff's Office, to make sure everything is done right, like in Clark County."

Police reports: "When reports are made they should be clean, concise and neat," said Smith. "You're not always getting the true facts when you get a report."

Overall, Smith said, "I think the Sheriff's Office needs me. I can make it the best in the country."

Smith is also self-critical of her political performance thus far in her campaign to win the metal star. "I'm just not loud enough," she admitted. "I'm learning about this political stuff. You've got to be mean and ornery, more forceful."