This letter is in response to Commissioner Peter Pfeifer’s letter a few weeks ago where he claimed there was no duplication of services with the Marshals Office. This is completely incorrect as the Sheriff’s Office does and always has patrolled county property (buildings, parks, etc.).

I can say this because I know some of the sheriff’s deputies. In addition to that, I have seen them patrolling these properties. No duplication of services, you say? Mr Pfeifer, do you not know that Georgia law (OCGA 36-9-8) specifically gives the sheriff of each county the authority and responsibility of protecting all county property? This is not a new law; it has been on the books for many years.

If the marshals were intended to be a police force, as our current board of commissioners now claim, why were they not called “police” to begin with? They are named “marshals” because their only intended purpose was to enforce county ordinances; i.e., building and zoning violations, animal leash law violations, etc.

The general public is not aware that the Marshals Office, in order to inflate their statistics, would assign a case number for each time their individual officers drove through each piece of county property during their shifts, even though there was no activity.

If a marshal received a telephone call from their spouse, asking them to bring home a gallon of milk when they got off work, that phone call received a case number. If a citizen stopped a marshal in a parking lot to ask for directions, that was assigned a case number. This was done to produce statistics to justify their existence.

This current Board of Commissioners will likely try to form a county police force from the Marshals Office, again duplicating services already performed by the Sheriff. But it will at a great expense to the taxpayers, as there will be salaries to pay for a chief, ranking support personnel and officers, vehicles, equipment and of course a new building.

W.A. Fleming
Fayetteville, Ga.