AIKEN - Whoever wins Tuesday's election to become Aiken County's next sheriff will face an immediate tug-of-war between the hard reality of budget constraints and the high expectations of everyone from residents to small-town police chiefs.
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The winner will have two days before he has to take command, increasing the pressure placed upon the county's new top law enforcement official. Be it Aiken Public Safety Department Lt. Donald Butler, Democrat, or his co-worker Lt. Mike Hunt, Republican, the victor also will hear the loud ticking of a political clock that starts as soon as he takes office.
Lt. Butler says the sheriff will have three to six months to deliver on campaign promises. Otherwise, those high expectations will sour before a re-election battle that's only 17 months away.
"There ought to be pretty broad-ranging changes that are readily visible by that time," he said. "When you can't deliver, you've got to say why you can't do what you've promised to do."
That's why he has kept his campaign promises to a minimum, Lt. Butler said, limiting himself to promises that won't cost any additional money, including a proposal that landlords throughout the 1,500-square-mile county provide free rent to deputies to encourage them to move to every corner of the sheriff's far-flung jurisdiction.
"The only thing the sheriff has to do is make himself available to the people," Lt. Butler said. "It's not going to be a hard task to satisfy the people."
Accessibility also is a central campaign promise of Lt. Hunt, who is the prohibitive favorite in the heavily Republican county.
Lt. Hunt has an ambitious list of programs and promises he wants to act on - if elected, as he is always careful to say. His biggest promise to voters: putting more deputies on the road.
The GOP nominee, who has already assembled a senior staff, said he will deliver on that promise at 6 a.m. May 23.
On that day, the sheriff's office will double the number of deputies on each shift by changing the schedule to four 12-hour daily tours of duty. To get that number, Lt. Hunt said he would streamline the department's administrative staff and reshuffle jobs.
Lt. Hunt also said he will meet with Aiken County's police chiefs to address their primary complaint against the sheriff's office - the switch to an expensive, 800 megahertz radio system that leaves their officers out of the communications loop with deputies on patrol.
Veteran politicians privately say that Lt. Hunt will face a far more frugal budgetary attitude from the county council than he has been accustomed to with the freer-spending Aiken city council. He'll also have to mend fences broken by former Sheriff Howard Sellers.
Lt. Hunt is aware of the challenges ahead.
"I don't think we have a quick fix for anything," he said. "I don't think expectations are too high, and I don't think there are things beyond what we can accomplish."
Reach Jim Nesbitt at (803) 648-1394 or jim.nesbitt@augustachronicle.com.
