IN FIRST JOINT APPEARANCE, MEDFORD TAKES ISSUE WITH DUNCAN'S PLAN

ASHEVILLE -- Their first appearance of the campaign in the same room
gave Sheriff Bobby Medford the chance to respond to challenger Van
Duncan's plan for a reorganization of the Buncombe County Sheriff's
Department.

Medford said at a Leadership Asheville forum today he once
contemplated a version of Duncan's plan to get more deputies on
patrol by installing 12-hour shifts but abandoned it out of concern
that it would put officers at risk.

"At eight hours," the Republican sheriff said after the forum,
"attention span goes down, alertness. You wreck more cars, have more
officers injured."

His Democratic challenger says the change would actually improve the
safety of officers and county residents by providing enough manpower
to send two officers instead of one to potentially dangerous spots.

The candidates also debated the department's effectiveness in drug
enforcement. Drugs, the candidates agreed, loom as the biggest
problem the county faces in the coming years.

"There are drug houses and people selling drugs in neighborhoods
that 18 years ago were unheard of," Duncan said.

Duncan cited state statistics showing the department made 43 drug
arrests last year, compared to 911 for the Asheville Police Department.

But those numbers don't take into account the work of the eight
sheriff's deputies who make up the majority of the county's
drug-enforcement agency.

And Medford said the statistics were incorrect information from a
new state system that should not yet be used as a reference. He put
the total number of drug arrests at more than 600.

"You can't go on statistics which come from a computer somewhere
that don't have all the information," Medford said.