Letter: Experience is one thing Airola can’t buy

Saturday, Aug. 19, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.

Sheriff candidate Jerry Airola might as well pack his bags rather than waste any more money blanketing the airwaves with TV spots, bothering us with annoying phone calls and filling our mailboxes with cardboard.

Does he really think that in the November general election the people who voted for police officers Laurie Bisch and Bill Conger, who together garnered 31 percent of the votes for sheriff, are now going to support a wannabe cop and turn their backs on Undersheriff Doug Gillespie, a real cop with 25 years of service to the community?

The rising crime statistics, which Airola often quotes, are more a result of the influx of criminals and drugs into Clark County from California and south of the border than any deficiency in Metro. When you are one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, it's not just retirees from Des Moines, Iowa, moving in. Criminals and gangbangers come, too, as part of the package. Metro needs experienced leadership to deal with these problems, not a rookie.

Bruce Brown, Las Vegas