Former deputy endorses Vandenberg for sheriff

Editor:

Hello, my name is Tommy Oberman. I am a U.S. Army Veteran, a former Police Chief and a recently retired Deputy Sheriff with over 20 years combined experience. I would like to speak about the upcoming Sheriff’s election in Lee County. I was the first to laterally transfer to the Lee County Sheriff’s Department when Sheriff Weber was elected in 2016. I have always preferred the type of work County Deputies perform, and the room to roam the County. I always loved having the pleasure of meeting the citizens and speaking with them. I was thrilled to be back at a Sheriff’s Department and was excited to go to work for Sheriff Weber. I believed that this would be the Department to build on my talents and eventually finish building my retirement. The first four years working at the Lee County Sheriff’s Department was great. It was exactly what I had been looking for in my Law Enforcement career. There were many improvements in equipment, that had fallen far behind current standards. The camaraderie between Deputies was excellent. I was lucky enough to attend some excellent training schools, including NASRO (National Association of School Resource Officers), Desert Snow (Drug Interdiction School), Technical Traffic Crash Investigations (Investigations for Severe and Fatal Traffic Crash’s), and I received training and became the first member of the ISSDA Honor Guard, just to name a few. I applied and was chosen to be the first School Resource Officer in the history of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department, and the Central Lee School District. I was grateful to have all these opportunities, to say the least.
In 2021 the Back the Blue bill was passed into law. Things at the Sheriffs Office began to fall apart with the Deputies seeing less and less of Sheriff Weber. I had personal discussions with other Deputies referencing this issue and whether Weber had burnt himself out in his first term. Over the next two years things continued to spiral, and employees left for other opportunities regularly. From my time in the Law Enforcement community of Lee County, the Sheriff’s Department was a place with very little turnover. It was known to be a Department where you went to retire. Watching my friends and co-workers be unhappy was hard for me. Most of us put everything into this job, and just wanted support from our administration. This support was no longer there. In my experience, nothing kills morale quicker than micromanaging, bullying, and weak leadership. I experienced, or observed all three of these things during this time.
In 2023 I went through one of the hardest times in my life. I was forced to retire early due to medical conditions. I had no desire to retire yet, and was devastated. Unfortunately I received little to no support from the men in the administration. I did not even receive a phone call from Sheriff Weber to see how I was doing. I thought of these men as my friends and co-workers. This made it all the more difficult to get through this time. There are a lot of details that I will not get into in this letter as I feel it does no good at this point. The fact is, the working staff (Deputies, Corrections Officers, and Office Personnel) were there for me in this time of need. I will be forever grateful for the support, kind words, and a few hugs they gave to me. One of my biggest supporters was Elliott Vandenberg. I got to know Elliott from the first day he was on duty as a fellow Deputy Sheriff. I had the pleasure of working with him, and got to know him off duty. The more I’ve got to know Elliott, the more I trust him, his judgement and believe in him as a leader. I know him as a family man, a Christian, an honest and compassionate Law Enforcement Officer. When he told me that he felt called to run for Lee County Sheriff, I offered to help in any way that I could. As the campaign grew, I had the pleasure of being part of what I would describe as a movement in the majority of the Lee County Law Enforcement community. When these men and women tell you that Elliott will be a great Sheriff, they mean it. We know from the inside, the things that are wrong with the current Sheriff’s Administration, and so does Elliott. We have lived it, and we know it’s time for serious changes. Lee County is facing serious challenges currently. We need a consummate, educated, and honest professional leading the Sheriff’s Department. We don’t need empty promises, and politics as usual. We need a Sheriff that does what is right, no matter who the person is, or what their standing is in the community. The law is supposed to be blind to race, religion, sex, political party, or wealth. We need an honest, trustworthy, Sheriff that will do the heavy lifting, make decisions based on facts, and not who you are or what you can do for him. Trust your local Law Enforcement Officers judgement. We are asking for a better Sheriff to lead Lee County. Elliott Vandenberg is the man for the position, vote Vandenberg on November 5th!