Endorsement: Johnson for Kane County sheriff

The Nov. 3 ballot for Kane County sheriff features two candidates with deep, direct experience in police work.

Both have constructive ideas about organizing and managing the sheriff’s officers and support staff. Both have well-thought-out views on leadership, and records of success in managing teams through complex situations and challenging controversies. Both emphasize transparency and the importance of staff training, especially regarding mental health issues they may encounter in the course of their work.

In endorsing Democratic candidate Amy Johnson, the department’s current undersheriff, during the primary last spring for her party’s nomination, we cited her “deep knowledge of the sheriff’s office’s resources.”

In endorsing Rob Russell, a former Kane County coroner, for the Republican nomination, we praised his accomplishments in the office and an impressive “desire to find ways to innovate and be forward-thinking.”

The encouraging message in all this is that voters may rest assured the sheriff’s department will be in good hands whatever the outcome on Election Day. The difficulty is deciding whose hands they should be.

For our part, we ultimately settle on Johnson. With more than 20 years in this specific department, beginning as an intern, she has seen its inner workings from nearly every vantage point. She has essentially been running the department since retiring Sheriff Ron Hain began having health problems early in the year and disappeared from the public eye.

Russell raises legitimate concerns about the secrecy that surrounded Hain’s situation until he announced his retirement Oct. 1. We share many of his misgivings. But we also sense that Johnson tried to walk a difficult, narrow path between respecting Hain’s appeals to respect his privacy and the public’s need to know how the department is being run in his absence. We do not dispute that more information could have been released, but we’re not ready to suggest that whatever Johnson’s specific responsibilities or shortcomings in the case diminish her commitment to operating an open sheriff’s department or disqualify her from leading it.

Indeed, we are impressed with the commitments she has made to transparency regarding the office and to getting its budgeting in order. She has shown a remarkable dedication to service in the department throughout her career. She has earned the right to show what she can do running it. Johnson gets our endorsement.