Tulare County sheriff candidates respond to poll

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Voters in Tulare County will soon head to the polls to decide who should be their next sheriff.

Acting Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and retired deputy Dave Whaley are competing for the spot. With the June primary just three weeks away both candidates for Tulare County Sheriff are gearing up their campaigns and responding to the latest poll numbers for the race.

Campaign signs are up on nearly every busy intersection of Tulare County -- with incumbent Acting Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and retired deputy Dave Whaley looking to take the title of "top cop." The former colleagues are competing for the seat left vacant by Bill Wittman.

Wittman served as sheriff for 22 years before retiring for health reasons. He appointed Boudreaux as his replacement and has endorsed him in the election.

Boudreaux says he'd like to modernize the sheriff's department and civilianize some positions to save money and put more deputies out on patrol. Boudreaux is currently in Washington, D.C. for the National Peace Officers Memorial ceremony and spoke to us by phone.

"We have been doing a multitude of changes within the sheriff's dept all positive, innovative changes and we're excited about what the future holds for us," said Boudreaux.

Whaley says right now the department is divided and says he can bring everyone together.

"The incumbents or the good ol' boys want to keep that going and I don't think that's good for Tulare County," said Whaley. "I think it's time for a change and time for new faces."

In a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for Action News Mike Boudreaux leads the race with 49% of the vote. Dave Whaley trails with 32%. With the rest saying they haven't made up their minds.

"I'm encouraged by it because actually there's almost 20% of citizens that haven't decided who to vote for yet," said Whaley. "We're just now getting our message out."

A major source of contention during the campaign has been an accusation by Whaley, that Boudreaux's campaign gun raffle was illegal. According to SurveyUSA most people hadn't heard of the raffle issue, with 58% saying it wasn't a factor in who they'd vote for.

Whaley said, "There is no doubt about that the raffle is a misdemeanor it's in the penal code and I don't think that the acting sheriff should be able to break the law."

Boudreaux added, "We recently received a letter from the fair political practice commission which indicates we in fact violated no political practice."

Of the 850 people polled most of them are registered to vote and about half of them were determined by SurveyUSA as likely to go out and vote on Election Day.