The Missing Sheriff of Adair County
Charles Hartshorne has been the Sheriff of Adair County, Oklahoma for over ten years.
Adair County Commissioners have instructed the district attorney's office to contact Sheriff Hartshorne seeking his immediate resignation. If Hartshorne refuses, the County Commissioners will move ahead with impeachment.
In an impeachment process, a judge will appoint a temporary sheriff pending the impeachment hearing. When a sheriff resigns or is impeached, the County Commissioners appoint a permanent replacement.
Commentary and Opinion
Who among us would not benefit nicely from getting paid for two jobs while only working at one of them? And if the two jobs were in the private sector, it would be the business of no one other than the two employers and the person getting paid for a job they are not performing.
That is not the case with an elected official ignoring a job they swore an oath to perform and who is in fact out of the country and working in the private sector. Many law enforcement officers in Oklahoma 'moonlight' at a second job just to make ends meet. There is nothing wrong with their doing so. But those officers, unlike Sheriff Hartshorne, actually show up for work on a full-time basis to perform their duties and 'moonlight' on their off-duty time.
That Sheriff Hartshorne would make the claim that he was "always in contact with and overseeing the daily operations of my office" is ludicrous on its face and an insult to the taxpayers of Adair County, Oklahoma. That Undersheriff Tim McCollum acknowledges that he speaks with Hartshorne via telephone about every two days simply confirms this fact.
If Sheriff Hartshorne wants to make the 'big bucks' available to private contractors in Iraq, then more power to him and we wish him well in the effort. In order for him to devote himself to that effort he needs to resign from office immediately. Anything less is immoral in the least and possibly criminal, in that he is defrauding the taxpayers of Adair County by taking money he is not earning and not performing a duty he swore an oath to perform.
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