Sheriff Jim Quattrone is running in the Nov. 8 election unopposed for another four year term.
The lack of an opponent speaks volumes about the success Quattrone attained in his first term as sheriff.
After a splintering of drug task forces, Quattrone said early in his first campaign that he wanted to bring more coordination between the Sheriff’s Office drug task force and those of area police departments. There were doubts whether the breaches between the departments were too big to bridge, and Quattrone proved those doubters wrong. There are still individual drug task forces but they operate with greater collaboration and, it appears, greater efficiency. And, for Jamestown-area residents, the coordination hasn’t come with a corresponding decrease in drug raids.
That coordination was a big achievement — but Quattrone has also built on efforts to link the Sheriff’s Office with service providers that can help those in the criminal justice system through addiction and mental health issues. And, the creation of an Unsolved Case Division has at least created a few new developments in homicide cases that have been unsolved for decades.
Quattrone will have many challenges in the next four years. Budgeting is going to be an issue as federal stimulus dollars dry up, and the budget will get even more difficult for the county if the country enters into a true economic recession. The Sheriff’s Office will continue to be a key cog in the county’s fight against addiction, something Quattrone discussed during a question-and-answer piece in The Post-Journal and OBSERVER recently. Those issues are just piled on top of the challenges of running a law enforcement agency in a state that has made things more difficult with Raise the Age law and bail reform statutes.
It isn’t going to be an easy second term for Quattrone, but in our opinion, the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office is in good and capable hands.