A little after 11 pm on election night, County Sheriff candidate Col. Noah Robinson read the unofficial election results to his supporters — leading them to erupt into applause.
Unofficial results have him at about 5,000 votes over opponent Jeff Hales.
Robinson is a 22-year veteran of the sheriff’s office. He will take over as Sheriff in January. He said he’s already developed a plan for next year, which includes getting his leadership cabinet together. The jail construction project is a big issue to take on.
“And so I'm looking forward to weighing in on that, and helping direct that project and making sure that we're building it in such a manner that accommodates folks substance abuse and mental health needs, and to gear up for a vocational job training project, which we're going to accomplish as part of this jail build.”
He says as sheriff he’ll also implement a community policing model.
“I'm looking forward to rolling out the plan to assign deputies to individual neighborhoods, as opposed to the district model we have now.”
He says while he’s ready to hit the ground running , he’ll still take a slow and deliberate approach.
Robinson is a democrat, and one of the few with a victory this local midterm.
Republican candidate for Vanderburgh County Prosecuting Attorney Diana Moers has snagged 59 percent of the vote over Democratic opponent Jon Schaefer.
Moers will replace current county Attorney Nicholas Hermann, who did not receive the GOP nomination.
Moers says she’ll tackle both crime prevention and law enforcement. She says violent crime and drug prevention will be important focuses.
“We have a huge fentanyl problem dealing problem in Vanderburgh county right now,” she said. “So that's something we'll want to focus on as well. So starting with the most violent type of crimes and making sure that we have, you know, the training and resources for the deputy prosecutors to get convictions on those that are repeat offenders.”
Justin Elpers won his race and will keep the County Commission District 2 seat red, as Commissioner Jeff Hatfield did not seek reelection.
Republican Tim O'Brien was also elected State Representative in District 78 over Jason Salstrom.
