Lee County Sheriff to seek seventh term as initial work underway on new Adult Detention Center
TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – Throughout the day, the trucks come, with load after load of dirt.
Site work is underway at the location for the new Lee County Adult Detention Center. And Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson is glad dirt is finally being moved.
“There is one thing everybody can say: procrastination costs money. I am glad we have people throughout the county, municipalities, people in the county, who finally came to an agreement that something has to be done,” Sheriff Johnson said.
Johnson has decided to run for a seventh term as Sheriff, in part, because he wants to see the project through.
‘”There is a lot of people here that started with me who can retire after another term, others here will be closer, they just extended PERS from 35 to 30. Another term would give them a few more years. They have been loyal and good to me, and I want to do my part,” Johnson said.
Johnson says he has seen a lot of changes in law enforcement, and he was reminded of that during last week’s graduation at the North Mississippi Law Enforcement Training Center.
‘I had on a sport coat, and that sport coat was my Dad’s, that he wore to my graduation in 1984 from Jackson Police Academy. I am on the Board of Standards and Curriculum, helped write curriculum that is taught. Crazy thing about it is, I don’t know anything taught today that was taught back then. Tickets are now electronic, entire facet of how officers do it has changed,” he said.
Sheriff Johnson says deputies, investigators, corrections officers and all staff deserve the latest and best technology and training and he hopes to be in office to lead the department for at least one more term.
