PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone announced that he would not seek a third term in a news conference on Monday. Penzone, a democrat who has been in office since 2016, said he would leave office in January in 2024.
Penzone says he has been trying to run his department with one hand tied behind his back.
He criticized federal court oversight that “depleted a considerable amount of resources in this office that could and should have been dedicated to public safety.”
Officials report that they are paying over $200,000 a month to a federal monitor that lives in North Carolina. Another $100,000 a year his being paid in rent for a federal monitor office but it was recently revealed that the office has been vacant forth last 3 years.
“The most recent decision where suddenly civilian investigators and professional standards, where I have to keep a minimum threshold, I don’t have the final say on who those investigators will be,” Penzone said. “A guy who sits in North Carolina and hasn’t been here in three years – his team does. But I’m the one responsible for the work they do and the outcomes they produce – because if they don’t produce a certain outcome – then this county and this community pays more taxpayer dollars.”
It will be up to the county Board of Supervisors to select an interim sheriff until a new one is elected according to Fox 10.
“But I do recognize this,” the sheriff said. “I’ll be damned if I do three terms under federal court oversight for a debt I never incurred and not be able to serve this community in the manner that I could if you took the other hand from being tied behind my back. Because the future without law enforcement doesn’t look good.”
