This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

We recently uncovered two letters written between Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder and Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown:

Dear Mike,

I haven't heard from you regarding my invitations to lunch. Your people keep calling my people and wanting some big group event. I know I've been acting like a spoiled child who refused to talk. I'm sorry. Let's just get together and talk this out.

I know you're mad at me for implementing the booking restrictions in the county jail. You've blamed me for the chaos outside The Road Home shelter! What am I supposed to do? I have more criminals than beds. But the booking restrictions aren't creating more criminals. That's just not true. Watch, I'll take those restrictions off and you'll see that the number of criminals remains the same. And we still won't have beds for them.

My headaches started the day the Legislature passed the Judicial Reinvestment Initiative. As you know, it reduced criminal penalties for drug users, thereby taking the drug offenders out of the state system and into mine! But the Legislature didn't do anything else — it didn't fund more beds, and it certainly didn't fund treatment centers. I literally cannot book more criminals than I have beds for.

You didn't like my 21-point plan. It was just a plan to start the conversation. I didn't see anyone else offering solutions. Yet I wasn't even asked to comment on this new three-prong initiative. But I still hope it helps.

Don't get me wrong, I support the JRI reforms. And I'm certainly thankful the Legislature finally funded more jail beds this past session. But it's temporary funding, and it's still not enough.

This isn't a choice between jail or treatment. To get to treatment they have to go through jail first, whether it's for five days or five months. And I need the beds to house them – catch before cure, as you know. We need more funding. I called for Medicaid funding. We didn't get it. I called for more jail beds. They closed Oxbow. Just so you know, I intend to call for tax increases. People don't want more taxes. But they don't want chaos downtown either.

Bottom line: Nothing is going to be solved until we can work together. Our mayors certainly don't get along. They can't even agree on who is making the decisions. The least we could do is put on our big boy pants and start talking.

Thanks for listening,

Jim

Dear Jim,

Call my Secretary.

Best,

Mike