Webster County Sheriff Seeking Re-Election

Current Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener has may it official, he will seek re-election as the county sheriff.

Sheriff Fleener released the following statement:

“I am excited to announce that I am running for re-election as Webster County Sheriff in November of 2024. It seems as though the past three years have gone by quickly during my first term as Sheriff, but I am extremely proud of the accomplishments we have made as a department. 2024 will be my 35^th year in law enforcement, my 29^th with the Sheriff’s Office. I still believe that experience matters, and those years of service are important for making good decisions while leading our department through the good and bad times. Leadership is important for our department, and that always starts with leaning on experience.

With the support of our Webster County Board of Supervisors, we have been able to improve our equipment for our patrol division, improved our working hours to provide the best service to our citizens, and to allow our deputies adequate time off to spend with families. We have been able to increase our wages for our sworn deputies, correctional officers and our dispatchers to be competitive with the surrounding counties, that allows us to retain and recruit people to join our dedicated team. We have also increased our sworn staff from 19 to 21 deputies, and are now providing fulltime patrol service to the communities of Otho and Dayton. In July of 2022 we took over the operational duties of the Webster Count Dispatch center from IXP ( a New Jersey based company), and have been working to make improvements in customer service as they field calls from our citizens, over 71,000 calls in 2023.

While campaigning for this position, two of my main priorities as Sheriff were to increase training for our sworn staff, and increase our budget for training when requested. The other was to implement security in the Webster County Courthouse as a safety precaution.

Currently we have yearly departmental trainings that cover the state mandated topics to maintain certification, but also include force on force active shooter training, officer survival and de-escalation training.

With the support of the Board of Supervisors, in August 2021 the Sheriff’s Office began providing security at the Webster County Courthouse to ensure the safety of the county employees that work there and for all those conducting business in this building. The wages of these employees is shared with the State of Iowa to help with cutting these cost.

In addition, this past year I worked closely with Fort Dodge Community Foundation to secure a Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative Grant in the amount of $200,000 dollars, to create programs and community oriented crime reduction programs in an effort to reduce crime in Webster County.

Working with the Federal Military Surplus Equipment Grant program, (aka 10-33 program), I was able to secure an armored vehicle that is used by our Special Emergency Response Team in high risk incidents in our community, at no cost to tax payers.  This vehicle is used as a lifesaving tool to keep officers safe and can also be used in search and rescue incidents.

We have also partnered with our Webster County Emergency Manager to help created a new droned team and have three certified pilots on our staff.”