As Retirement Nears, Sheriff Still a Force in County

In the basement of the sheriff’s headquarters, in a room at the end of a long corridor, retiring Sheriff Larry Carpenter talks about money and personnel matters with his four top deputies and his successor, Chief Deputy Bob Brooks.

With his head resting on one of his big, farmer’s hands, Carpenter gives his assessments on obscure line items in the county’s upcoming budget and spins out his takes on pending lawsuits and personnel problems.

It is the politically savvy side of the sheriff--who retires June 26 after 33 years in law enforcement--that few see.

His command of the smallest budget details and his understanding of how power is doled out at the county level somehow get lost behind the more public image of a burly small-town boy from Fillmore who grew up to be sheriff.

Carpenter still lives in Fillmore, three blocks from where he spent the first year of his life and a few miles from the horse ranch where he was raised.

He is still friends with the guy who was the catcher when he was a pitcher on his Little League baseball team. And he and his wife, Jeannie, his high school sweetheart, don’t plan on moving when he retires.

“Some people equate simplicity with ignorance,” Carpenter said of himself.

It’s a miscalculation that many have made over the years, said the sheriff, who has a master’s degree in public administration.

“It just allows me to get in closer for the kill.”

Although Carpenter has battled hypertension for years, he said he enjoys the stress that comes with his work.

“I actually perform better under stress,” he said. “It’s just my doctor that doesn’t like it.”

Part of the motivation for his retirement comes from a desire to spend more time with his wife of 33 years. The couple’s three children are grown and the pair are already planning several fishing trips, including to British Columbia and Alaska.

“Jeannie’s a fanatic about salmon fishing,” he said.

With his departure quickly approaching, Carpenter has begun to turn over many of his responsibilities to Brooks.

Still, he is no lame duck.

Even in his waning days as sheriff, Carpenter continues to be a force in the county. Candidates regularly seek his endorsement and advice, and the robust 51-year-old hints that he might one day seek a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

“I’ve thought about it,” Carpenter said. “I think the Board of Supervisors is far more important than people realize.”

For now, the sheriff is content to make the rounds with his deputies, showing up without notice at everything from traffic stops to high-profile homicides.

He might show up in the kitchen at the Main Jail and check the temperature of food, or visit the Todd Road Jail, or drop in on deputies in the Camarillo station.

“I’m not trying to meddle, I just want them to know that their job is important to me,” Carpenter said.

Throughout his career, which started when he was a 19-year-old street cop in Fillmore breaking up drunken brawls, Carpenter never really saw himself eventually becoming sheriff, he said.

“I just liked arresting criminals and helping people out,” he said. “That’s always been my motivation.”

Carpenter has spent 16 of his 33 years in law enforcement as a top administrator in the Sheriff’s Department and six years as sheriff.

When supervisors appointed him in 1992 to run the department without conducting a widespread search, they thought they had someone who would be grateful, if not beholden, to them.

But Carpenter quickly became an aggressive advocate for his department, which has 1,100 employees and an annual budget of more than $100 million.

He eventually teamed with Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury to wrest control of law enforcement budgets from the county Board of Supervisors.

The two men not only laid claim to new sales tax money available under Proposition 172--which brings in about $30 million a year--but also found a way to shield law enforcement agencies from future budget cuts.

When it looked as if supervisors might siphon off revenue generated by Proposition 172 for other purposes, Carpenter and Bradbury organized a petition drive to ensure the revenue would go exclusively to public safety.

Presented with 47,000 signatures, the Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 for an ordinance that not only guarantees the flow of sales tax revenue, but also precludes budget cuts.

“There are still people out there that have hard feelings and jealousy about how that panned out,” Carpenter said. “I think they don’t realize that [Proposition 172] freed up General Fund money to be used elsewhere.”

The sheriff and district attorney have said that Proposition 172 money is essential to maintaining the county’s reputation as one of the safest in the country.

“If there’s one thing I’d like to be remembered for, it’s the work we did on Prop. 172,” Carpenter said. “I would like that to be my legacy.”

Carpenter said that if anyone were to threaten to cut into the Sheriff’s Department’s share of the sales tax money, he would quickly become active in politics again.

“That’s the one thing that would bring me back, if that money was threatened,” Carpenter said. “My job is to see that the people’s intent for Prop. 172 funds is fulfilled. Whether that means I’ll be making phone calls or [running for] political office, I can’t say.”