From Mark's Desk

There’s a point in my life when I stopped assuming that silence meant nothing was wrong. I learned that silence often means everything is wrong you’re just not being told about it. Several years ago, I experienced firsthand what happens when communication breaks down between county offices and the people they serve. I had a situation involving embezzlement, thousands stolen, that moved into the hands of the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor. Months passed. Then years. The person who committed the act walked free, and the financial damage was never made right. And no matter how many times I reached out, no clear answers came back.

That’s when I started watching more closely. I saw the same thing happen again, this time to an area Booster Club. Same pattern. Same lack of follow-through. And the same silence that left citizens wondering what was actually happening behind closed doors.

When the public reaches out for information and gets none, it undermines trust. When crimes impact families, nonprofits, or neighbors, and communication with the community disappears, it leaves people feeling ignored and abandoned. And that’s when rumors start filling the silence. Not facts speculation.

And here’s the truth I’ve seen over and over again: Communication is the lifeline of every functioning system. When people stop talking, systems fail. In my career from EMS to catastrophic response to fraud investigation, I learned that 92% of failures can be traced back to two things:
lack of training and lack of communication. I’ve encountered billion-dollar cases, federal-level investigations, and massive emergency responses, and I can promise you one thing, money is rarely the problem. It’s communication. And communication is a leadership choice, not a budget line.

When scanners were silenced in our county and information about incidents stopped flowing to the public, it turned community awareness into guesswork. Instead of basic updates, simple, short messages that tell people what’s happening in their area, folks were left to gossip chains and speculation pages online. Meanwhile, officers and citizens alike became frustrated.

This community isn’t uninformed or incapable. It isn’t reckless or naive. We have smart people here. People who want to help, want to stay aware, and want to know when something is happening near their homes, their schools, or their businesses. They shouldn’t be kept in the dark when the fix is as simple as a two-sentence post saying what officers are responding to.

This community deserves clarity, honesty, and open channels between law enforcement and the people who live here. And I believe that when communication becomes a standard instead of an afterthought, everything else gets better. Training, morale, public confidence, agency performance and safety. Silence benefits nobody. Clarity helps everyone. That’s why I believe communication isn’t just important. It’s everything.