No need to change: Anderson for sheriff

We know Dee Anderson.

After 15 years, we know what kind of office he runs as Tarrant County sheriff and what to expect from the Kennedale Republican: a no-nonsense county jail operation that leaves most police work to cities.

We don’t know Bill Waybourn at all. For 31 years, he has been police chief and chief of public safety in Dalworthington Gardens, a tiny Arlington suburb with fewer residents than the Tarrant County Jail.

We know Waybourn has built a reputation for innovative DWI enforcement in a city where police mostly work traffic and speed zones. But he is also known for filing a questionable workers’ comp claim over a 2013 accident during a private handgun lesson.

We don’t know whether he would expect to file the same kind of claim if injured teaching handgun lessons during a term as county sheriff, or what he means when he says the detention agency should take on more of a law enforcement role.

Waybourn comes with recommendations from many police labor organizations, Gov. Rick Perry, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams and Mansfield Mayor David Cook. He says he can build employee morale and slow the office’s perpetually high turnover rate. But his experience remains small-town.

Anderson followed two sheriffs who promised to be “tough on crime.” But they were tougher on taxpayers, running agencies that were expensive and redundant.

He is a low-profile public official, so much so that he probably waited too long to let staff and the public know he would be running for another term.

But he has taken public roles in deputies’ raids on rural eight-liner gambling halls, and in the 2013 DWI arrest and investigation of then-juvenile delinquent drunken driver Ethan Couch.

Notably, his endorsements include two of the officials who work with him most closely, County Judge Glen Whitley and District Attorney Sharen Wilson.

Waybourn is a popular and flamboyant figure in his part of the county, but we don’t know what kind of sheriff’s office he would run.

For 15 years, we’ve known what we get from Anderson, and there is no reason to change.

The Star-Telegram Editorial Board recommends Dee Anderson in the Republican primary runoff for Tarrant County sheriff.

This story was originally published May 13, 2016 at 6:00 PM with the headline "No need to change: Anderson for sheriff."