Fisher Throws Party to Launch Sheriff's Campaign

Henderson County sheriff's candidate Don Fisher kicked off his campaign Saturday night with a party at the Opportunity House. The Republican candidate told a crowd of nearly 100 people about his desire to bring the concept of community policing to the office of sheriff.

"Community policing is not soft on crimes, folks. It's not letting people go with warnings," said Fisher, police chief for the town of Laurel Park. "It's not the Andy Griffith Show, but it's involving the community. That's something we need in Henderson County, community involvement in the Sheriff's Office."

Fisher said his idea for community policing involves law enforcement, residential areas, businesses, churches, nonprofits and schools "working together to make Henderson County a better place to live." He said accomplishing this goal will be hard work, but the first step will be a slight reorganization of the Sheriff's Office to put more deputies on patrol. Doing so, he said, will reduce response times and keep officers in the same areas so that "they can learn your community."

He added, "When that officer comes to work, for example to work in Etowah, he's in Etowah long enough to learn when the lights come on, should they be on at this business, who comes and goes, how things go, learn the school system, learn about the people in that community. By doing that, that's the first step. You've got to have an extremely strong investigative unit that works hand in hand with the patrol unit and hand in hand with the drug unit. Everybody's got to be working together on the same sheet of music."

Fisher also plans to rely on Henderson County's retired law enforcement officers to mentor younger officers to help solve crimes. Addressing the drug problem, the candidate said drugs are in the schools, and he vowed to fight it. He said he will put school resource officers in the schools who are trained in rapid deployment and drug investigations.

"We're going to have the best trained, best equipped school resource officers anywhere and run these drugs out of our schools," he said.

Fisher added he is a fiscal conservative who will spend tax dollars wisely and run the sheriff's office based on "what's needed and not what's wanted." He promised to be an accessible sheriff in the model of former Henderson County lawmen Ab Jackson and George Erwin. To update the public on happenings at the Sheriff's Office, Fisher said he would use Facebook and Twitter and issue monthly newsletters via e-mail.

Fisher's law enforcement career began at the Hendersonville Police Department in 1982. He moved to the Sheriff's Office in 1987, and in 1993 he became police chief of Laurel Park. Among Fisher's supporters is Jim Sparks, whose mother and brother, Connie and Ricky Sparks, were murdered in their Hendersonville home in 2007. Sparks said the first phone call he made after learning of the tragedy was to his friend of more than 30 years, Don Fisher.

"It was for a number of reasons," Sparks said. "Confidence in Don, trust in Don, and I knew he could help me. If he becomes the sheriff, which I feel certain that he will, he will be accessible. He's always been that way."

Fisher is running against current Sheriff Rick Davis in the May 4 primary. Since no Democrat filed for the office, the winner of the Republican primary will head to November's general election unopposed.

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