Adams County Sheriff Election
The Record Reporter put the following questions to Kenn Roller and Ryan Zollman, both candidates for Adams County Sheriff. Ryan Zollman currently serves as the Adams County Sheriff and has since 2012. Kenn Roller declared his candidacy for Sheriff and his name will be on the Republican Primary ballot on May 21st.
The following are the written questions that were submitted to both candidates. The numbers in their response correspond to these questions.
1. Please introduce yourself and share why you want to be the Adams County Sheriff.
2. What would your goals be for another term as Sheriff or what do you hope to accomplish in your first term as Sheriff?
3. How will you deal with the financial constraints within the Sheriff’s Office?
4. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and how would you approach solving it?
5. How would you recruit quality Deputies when the pay isn’t always competitive and housing is expensive and in short supply?
6. How do you build trust with the community that you police? How would you build back public trust after a critical incident with negative publicity?
7. How important is the Jail to the community? Should it close or stay open and why?
8. What was one example of poor judgment on your part when you were in a leadership position? How did rectify it and what did you learn?
Kenn Roller’s Responses
(1) My name is Kenn Roller. I have been married for over 36 years. I have two adult sons, the oldest is a disabled combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and 11 grandchildren. I am an active volunteer with the New Meadows Youth Baseball League, the Council Lion’s Club, and the Adams County Sheriff’s Foundation. I honorably retired as a highly decorated sergeant after 33+ years in law enforcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. I relocated to Adams County soon after retiring and built a house on property that i had purchased years earlier. I chose Adams County as my forever home because it was a rural community with great people and a place where a person’s freedoms and rights were still respected. I am running for Sheriff to provide Adams County residents with an alternative candidate to four more years of the same thing. I possess vast, real-world law enforcement experience, having worked in several different communities, both large and small. I have 22 years of supervisor/team leader experience at two law enforcement agencies, having worked within the Operations, the Training, the Tactical, the Administrative, and the Investigative sides of law enforcement. I have over 3000 hours of documented/certified training, and hundreds of additional hours of on-the-job training. Training is an area where the ACSO deputies need help, to no fault of their own. I feel the community needs and deserves a proven and experienced law enforcement leader who is not afraid to make decisions or stand by the decisions he makes, who is a true partner with the entire community, who will provide equal protection, under the law, and without favor, and who will work to find creative ways to staff, equip, mentor, lead, and train members of the Sheriff’s Office, while making the office more professional and more transparent to the community. Please visit my website for more: roller4sheriff.info.
(2) I would create community empowering “councils” to partner the Sheriff’s Office directly with the citizens. These include: a Citizens’ Advisory Council”, a “Clergy Council”, a “Ranchers’ Council”, a “Business Council”, and a “Youth Council”. These groups would meet regularly with the Sheriff to discuss their concerns and community problems, then work together to find suitable solutions. I believe direct interaction with the people will be instrumental in restoring public trust and making the community safer.
(3) I would find creative ways to deal with the financial constraints within the Sheriff’s Office, to include exploring available grants, accessing excess property programs, and researching the leasing of patrol vehicles, rather than purchasing them outright. If safety equipment for personnel is needed but not funded at the time, I would have no problem purchasing that equipment out of the Sheriff’s salary, if needed. In 2022, as a private citizen, I procured through professional contacts that I had, and donated over $31,000 worth of new safety and uniform equipment to all patrol deputies at ACSO, at no cost to the taxpayer. These items included: ballistic helmets, ballistic vests (body armor), gas masks, complete gun belts, cold weather jackets, uniform pants, handcuffs, and rain gear.
(4) Probably one of the biggest problems facing the ACSO is the need for on-going training and supervision in the field. With my extensive training background and resources, I would mandate daily training sessions on each shift, year around. I would bring in subject matter experts to present training to personnel and would ensure that every member exceeds the minimum mandatory training requirements. No patrol deputy would work in the field alone, unless and until they have completed a POST academy and a documented field training program. I would ensure that supervisors are qualified, experienced and demonstrate leadership skills, then I would ensure that they complete a certified supervisory training course, prior to filling a supervisory role.
(5) Recruitment is essential to the longevity of an agency. One of the most effective ways to recruit good people is to have an exceptional and professional working environment. Uniform appearance, sound policies, exceptional leadership, modern and working equipment are but a few of the things that an applicant is probably looking for. Competitive salary and benefit packages are important too. I would create a Cadet Program for interested youth aged 16-20, providing a path to long term career opportunities within the Sheriff’s Office. I would work with the County Commissioners to come up with creative ways to assist personnel with being able to afford housing within the county, and advocate for salary and benefit improvements wherever possible.
(6) Transparency is vital to earning and maintaining public trust. A Sheriff must be in partnership with the community and communicate with them directly and frequently - not just after an unfortunate incident has occurred. It is the Sheriff’s responsibility to earn and then maintain trust and to try and restore lost trust after a potentially divisive critical incident. Respect for law enforcement does not come automatically to anyone who pins on a badge.
(7) A county jail is very important to any community. Being a rural community, to use another jail in another county would be counter-productive, labor intensive and costly. I believe that maintaining our own county jail with highly trained professionals and qualified supervision is in the best interest of the community. I certainly do not and would not advocate closing our current county jail operations.
(8) Many years ago, as a new patrol sergeant, and adjusting to the new role, a vehicle pursuit was initiated by an officer whom I had previously been partners with. The pursuit appeared to be out of policy, but I hesitated to call for its termination, causing the Watch Commander to do so. I learned from this that the role of a supervisor and leader was to always make sound decisions based upon the information available and to treat all subordinates fairly and to hold them accountable to the same high standard of performance, whether I had a prior relationship with them or not.
Ryan Zollman’s Responses
(1) My Name is Ryan Zollman, I grew up in a small town - Enterprise, in Eastern Oregon. Growing up I used to look across the valley at the 7 Devils Mountains and tell my grandpa I was going to live on those mountains some day and hunt elk there. As I grew up, my love for the outdoors grew stronger and my dream couldn’t come true fast enough. I was a three-sport athlete in high school with my favorite sport being football that I was a three-year varsity starter and 2 time all state selection. I also participated in basketball and track. I found as I got older a strong passion for the FFA and agriculture as well as law enforcement. I took many ag classes and even started my own small business in the show hog market. I learned so much from FFA as a member of judging teams and competing in public speaking competitions as well as showing and judging livestock. My time with the FFA was a big part of who I would become. I also pursued my interest in law enforcement. My senior year of high school I took a remote college level law enforcement class and also did a job shadow program with the Oregon State Police.
I then went on to college and chose law enforcement for my future. I attended Treasure Valley Community College and graduated with an associates degree in criminal justice. During my time at TVCC I also worked nights as a campus security officer. During the school year I worked in Council for the USFS as a fisheries tech and on the fire crew.
After I graduated, two of my biggest dreams came true. First, I was blessed to have the opportunity to marry my best friend, the girl of my dreams, Anna Rose. My second: moved to Council, Idaho near the 7 Devils, her hometown. Anna worked at the Assessor’s office and I worked another season on the fire crew.
In the fall of 2002 I was hired as a school resource deputy for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. Anna and I have been blessed with three wonderful children. My career with ACSO has taken me to so many great places and given me the opportunity to serve a wonderful and loving community. I have had the opportunity to be a K9 handler and field-training officer and so much more.
Anna and I have had the privilege to serve the community in many ways; we have been the youth leaders for our church for over 20 years, I have coached from the grade school level to the varsity level and different times when help was needed. I served as the FFA alumni president for over 10 years and helped start the Horns and Harvest event the past 6 years. We enjoy raising our family in a great place and enjoy making it the best for others to do so as well.
In the spring of 2018 we unfortunately found out how much love and care is in our great county when our 11-year-old son lost his life in a horse riding accident. The love and compassion that was shown to our family during those horrific days that we had to push through was amazing. God blessed us in ways unimaginable by this community and the surrounding community. I will forever have an unexplainable love and passion to serve and be a part of so many that came to my family in the worst possible time of anyone’s life.
I have had a passion to serve this community since I started here in 2002 and that has not ever gone away. I have faithfully and with great honor served as your county Sheriff since January of 2012 and hope to do so for years to come.
(2) My goal for the next 4 years as Sheriff is to serve as an excellent example to Adams county deputies as well as all deputies around how to support and care for a community we serve. I want to form stronger bonds with our community as well as our government partners. I want to continue to update the deputies needed equipment.
(3) I will continue to work with the Board of County Commissioners to improve and increase the budget as needed while continuing to be as conservative as possible.
(4) The growth in our community is faster than our emergency services can keep up with. We are one of the top recreation counties in the state. During the peak travel and outdoor recreation season we are stretched very thin on our resources. I will continue to build the staffing numbers we need to safely and effectively protect and serve both the residents and visitors in Adams County.
(5) We will continue to recruit deputies from similar agencies to ours and bring on new talent from the job fairs at local colleges. I want to create a work environment where our staff feels they are a part of the best family type work environment in the state.
(6) We build trust by being part of the community, being involved in the day to day workings at all levels and as a part of the community we build trust. Letting the community see us on and off duty being part of the community is the best trust building we can do. I regularly encourage the deputies to be involved in all parts of the community as their time allows. In a critical incident we will continue to be as forth coming and transparent with information as we can. In big cases, we have incident critical information that can not be disclosed but we will get out what information we can. We will also continue to regularly update as we get new information.
(7) The Adams County jail is very important to this community. The jail on its own provides 9 jobs to citizens. We also use almost all local resources to support the jail. We use the local medical staff, the local grocery store and several local businesses for other necessary tasks. The jail also helps with budget needs. This past year we will bring in close to $450,000 in revenue from housing state inmates.
(8) When I started in my position as Sheriff I was not as quick to release information as I needed to be. We live in an area that has limited ways to quickly disseminate information. I have become much more aware of the issue and implemented some quick information tools. In my time as Sheriff, I have the Sheriff’s office using social media to put out information, most of the county departments use our page to put out information to the public. We implemented Alert Sense; this is basically a reverse 911 program that we can send information to the public in the case of an emergency. We have used this service several times over the past years.
