Curry returns to command

Former Undersheriff Chuck Curry handily defeated Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan's bid for re-election Tuesday night, beating out the incumbent as well as longtime deputy sergeant Lance Norman in the hotly contested Republican primary.

Curry is the presumptive winner of the November general election as well because there were no candidates for sheriff in the other parties.

Curry earned 46.69 percent of the votes. Meehan came in second at 31.13 percent, while Norman finished third with 20.13 percent.

"I'm anxious to get at the job," Curry said late Tuesday night. "I'm certainly appreciative for the confidence of the voters in Flathead County and the confidence they've shown in me.

"I'm anxious to be up to the task," he added, saying he is very much looking forward to getting started, and said he plans to spend the next six months taking a close look at the Flathead County Sheriff's Office so as to formulate a clear idea of how to handle the issues that need to be addressed.

"I don't have anything bad to say about any of my opponents," he said.

Although Meehan, Curry and Norman did not do battle personally, there was considerable controversy as Meehan found himself under attack as a bad administrator by members of his own office. This spring, he lost a no-confidence vote by members of the deputies' union as well as the non-sworn employees' union.

During the campaign, Curry, 50, said he would make the Sheriff's Office more responsive to the wishes of the public and would emphasize openness and fairness, citing the style of his former boss, Sheriff Jim , who is now a Republican county commissioner.

Curry has also said he plans to reinstate some public safety programs, such as the marine division and the search-and-rescue coordinator position, and wants the Sheriff's Office to retake supervision of the Alcohol Enforcement Team, as well as expand community-based corrections programs. He proposes using new technology to monitor nonviolent offenders somewhere other than jail.

He also wants to put some of the administrators into those new programs, or back on patrol duty.

Curry served for 15 years as undersheriff under Dupont, during which he was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Sheriff's Office, the jail, the juvenile detention center and the 911 dispatch center, as well as budget and coroner duties. That's in addition to just over 10 years in the patrol division, which Curry said gave him insight into challenges deputies face in the field.

Meehan, 54, spent his 3 1/2 years as sheriff committed to being a responsible steward of taxpayer money, streamlining the budget by rearranging schedules for deputies and the animal wardens and hiring a second jail nurse; using federal grant money to fund child safety programs such as the Children's Advocacy Center, Internet Crimes Against Children and a Child Abduction Response Team as well as programs to help deputies better serve the community, such as a major crime scene unit and state-of-the-art equipment.

Meehan said he also implemented a work-release program in the jail and put warrants online, as well as placed a part-time volunteer reserve deputy acting as a School Resource Officer in the Evergreen School for the past two and a half years.

Meehan became undersheriff after Curry retired in 2005, and won election to the sheriff's job in 2006.