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Candidates for sheriff in the Oct. 24 election — K.P. Gibson, left, and Keith Latiola — squared off in the Candidate Forum sponsored by the Crowley Chamber of Commerce and held Thursday night at The Grand Opera House.

Sheriff candidates square off

Chamber of Commerce hosts Forum

Howell Dennis, News Editor
Crowley Post-Signal

The Crowley Chamber of Commerce hosted its Candidate Forum at the Grand Opera House Thursday night.
Candidates for the offices of Acadia Parish Sheriff and all eight Acadia Parish Police Jury seats were on hand with the exception of District 5 incumbent Jimmie Pellerin, District 6 candidate Kem Arceneaux, District 7 candidate Pat Daigle and Board of Secondary Education District 7 candidate Mike Kreamer.
Bruce Conque, who also moderated last year’s forum at the Opera House, once again did a masterful job at keeping the candidates under their time limitations.
Holly Boffy, who is seeking reelection for the multi-parish Board of Secondary Education District 7 seat, was the first to speak.
“I’m proud to be able to stand here before you tonight as a candidate for reelection for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education,” she said. “I think that we’ve done some incredible things. We’ve seen some great success in that our graduation rates are increasing. We have the fastest growing increase on the ACT standard test in the nation.
“For a long time Louisiana was not near the top of the list for any of the good things in education.
“We have begun a ‘career pathways’ program that steers students either to college or into the work force upon graduation” she said. “I’m really proud of the achievements we’ve made but their can be hard times, too. This week was pretty tough for me until I read about two schools in Acadia Parish — South Crowley Elementary and Martin Petitjean Elementary — being chosen as Blue Ribbon schools. This is an incredible accomplishment for the children and the educators in this community.
“It’s things like this that keep me going and I am asking you for your support in the Oct. 24 election.”
Conque then introduced the candidates for Acadia Parish Sheriff, Crowley Chief of Police K.P. Gibson and Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Keith Latiola. Each was given a two minute opening statement and were then asked three questions that neither candidate knew of beforehand. Each then delivered a closing statement.
Latiola delivered his opening statement first.
“I’m a 35-year veteran of the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office. Training and qualifications are going to be vital to the next sheriff,” he said.
Latiola gave a list of some of the career accomplishments including being a graduate of the FBI’s National Academy, and being president of the Louisiana Homicide Investigations Association.
“I have worked my way through the ranks of the sheriff’s office beginning as a reserve deputy, moving into patrol, working in the narcotics investigations and now serving as chief deputy,” he said. “During this time I have become quite well-versed in how the sheriff’s office works. I can make sure that the divisions that I led remain solid and within their budgetary requirements. I would appreciate your vote on Oct. 24.”
Gibson then gave his statement.
“For the past 13 years I have served as chief of police for the city of Crowley and during this time we’ve made many changes,” he said. “We’ve seen our department grow to where we’ve made over $2 million worth of improvements in the areas of technology, equipment and fleet management.
“We’ve seen our department pay increase by over 60 percent during this time so our officers can support their families. We’ve moved many officers who were working inside the office into areas of enforcement. During this same time frame, we created our first ever narcotics unit. We have made over 4,000 narcotics arrests and seized 200,000 grams of various narcotics as well as over $400,000 of their money to fight the war against narcotics with their money, not yours.
“My number one goal as your sheriff will be the war on narcotics. Four deputies on patrol and two working narcotics will not cut it. The fight against narcotics is being led by the citizens of Acadia Parish. I’ve been traveling the parish listening to your concerns. As a sheriff I will continue to do so. I humbly ask for your vote in the upcoming election bringing new leadership to this position.”
The first question the candidates were asked was, “If elected, what will be your approach to minimizing the use and trafficking of illegal drugs in Acadia Parish?”.
Gibson responded first.
‘I think the numbers I just mentioned speak for themselves,” he replied. “We have to continue this fight. Of all the burglaries and thefts in Acadia Parish, narcotics relates to at least 70 percent of those crimes. So if we don’t take an aggressive approach to fighting narcotics we will continue to lose the battle.
“It’s a tough enough battle as it is with the limited jail space that we have but we have to keep fighting. Burglaries are on the rise, even in the daytime when we have two people working in many families. I’ve been aggressive with it for the last 12 years and I will continue to do so as your sheriff.”
Latiola followed.
“Having worked in narcotics and done undercover work all over this state — both at the state and local levels — I’m well aware of the drug problems we have in this parish,” he said. “I can appreciate statistics, but look at the violence we have in the city of Crowley. Narcotics are the problem for it. We need to combine our resources for it.
“We cannot go out there as one department against another. Whenever we run a search warrant for a residence, we’ll get a phone call the next day saying ‘we were working this case, y’all just got to them first.’ That’s where we have to to reduce the redundancy.
“My goal is to create a parishwide narcotics task force. Not only to unite the departments within the parish, but to let the citizens in the parish know they can trust us. And whenever we come to them and ask, ‘What are the problems in your neighborhoods?’, they can tell us.
“This is why we need to unite the departments. We want to go after the major suppliers. We don’t just want to prosecute the dealers on a local level. We want to go after the big fish. We can prosecute these people federally. Take down their little organizations. We need to fight this together.”
The second question Conque posed was, “What do you view as the sheriff’s department’s role in the local economy?”.
“Definitely reducing crime rate,” replied Latiola. “We have to be proactive as an agency we need to protect our municipalities by reducing crime as much as we can.
“There will be crime. But we have to fight it. Day after day after day. But never stop fighting.
“I’m a law enforcement officer. I’m not a politician. I’ve been on the streets. I’ve worked these divisions. I know how to give these men what they need to do their jobs. In doing so, we can get these people off the streets, reduce the crime and help businesses in our area.”
“I think when you look at crime throughout the parish the first thing we need to do is to put manpower in the place where it’s needed,” responded Gibson. “We have 600 miles of roadway. The service road is bringing in new businesses. They want to see a response time that is less than 45 minutes to an hour in the rural portions of this parish.
“I agree that we need to work together. But at this time, it’s different directions from different agencies. We have to stay on top of this. If we’re not proactive in solving the problem it’s only going to get worse. We’ve discussed handing out a business survey so that when a business opens we can go in and help them out with things such as setting up alarms, look at their businesses layouts. We go into businesses and help them with things like setting up their camera heights.
“Yes, we want to attract businesses and, through projects such as OneAcadia, we are moving forward. We don’t want to see our businesses leave just like we don’t want our children to when they get out of school. We have to continue to fight this problem. More manpower will make a safer Acadia Parish.”
The final question was, “If elected, what would your priority be regarding the Acadia Parish Jail System?”
“We have one part of our jail system right now that is not being utilized and it’s being determined by the police jury,” said Gibson. “Should we continue with this building or should we dissolve this bulding.
“I have a problem with losing jail space. We are seeing people who are incarcerated getting three days removed from their sentence for every one good day. We need to make sure that we are maintaining our housing. We need to be more responsible with our people who are incarcerated for lesser offenses and keep our hardened people locked up.
“We are housing DOC prisoners when we shouldn’t be shipping our parish’s prisoners off to other prisons and paying these DOC parishes and keeping that money in Acadia Parish.”
“I would like to see nonviolent offenders ... I would like to work with the judges to put them on a house arrest-type situation where they are monitored using an ankle monitoring system,” said Latiola. “(We need to) Make sure that they are gainfully employed; that they are under going drug and alcohol treatment when necessary; that they remain at home — that’s the way we reduce this.
“Those individuals that are going to be in jail for a long time, we just can’t lock them up and throw away the key because they’re going to be coming back. We have to put them in programs. We have to get inmates in the GED program. We also have other programs in place where they can get help for alcohol and drug dependency.
“We don’t want them coming through time and time again. The inmates that are coming through here are not the police jury’s problem. That’s the sheriff’s department’s problem. We have 250 inmates on a daily basis. We have to keep them safe from each other and safe from themselves. We aren’t giving three days off for every good day. We’re giving four for one. We don’t only have to keep them incarcerated but we have to work with them some way to give them the opportunity to succeed once they are released.”
Latiola was first with his closing statement.
“I would appreciate strong consideration when you are looking at the candidate’s qualifications,” he said. “There will be transparency in my office. You will know where your tax dollars are being spent. In your neighborhoods, your going to know what’s going on. We’re not going to hide the crime from the community.
“For your well-being as well as for your input, I will stop the redundancy in this office. We will get the most out of our workforce. I will be a working sheriff.
“I understand that I have administrative duties as well. I will be out there in the parish speaking with you, listening to your problems and addressing them. And, ladies and gentlemen, there will be no more ‘good old boy politics’. We will not play favorites. There will be no favors. We will not give jobs to family members into the sheriff’s office. None of this will happen under my administration.”
“I agree with a comment made earlier about working together and in unity,” said Gibson. “There has been talk about crime rates in Crowley just like every other municipality in our parish and our society.
“Months ago we didn’t think there would be a shooting in a Lafayette movie theatre. We saw these things happening all over the country but not here five months ago. And we need to work together. I’ve had only one meeting with our sheriff and my opponent in the last 12 years to address our concerns. It’s time for this to change. It’s time for us to address not only our problems not only as municipalities but as a parish as a whole.
“Look at it like a football team such as the Saints. When they need a new coach they don’t look inside the organization. They look for someone with new vision and ideas. They want to keep their fan base happy. Well our fan base is Acadia Parish. New vision will bring changes to Acadia Parish.”

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