Editorial: End Westmoreland County courthouse drama

Another day, another incident that proves Westmoreland County government has political problems that transcend party.

This one starts with Donald Trump and Mehmet Oz and ends with Westmoreland officials accusing each other of lies and deception. Just your typical Tuesday.

Sheriff James Albert, who was a Democrat until switching parties in 2020, was set to help maintain order at a political rally Friday at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds. Two days before the event, Albert said deputies couldn’t do that because of liability issues.

This would be enough to raise questions because an event that was expecting 20,000 people and featuring a major candidate for statewide office, as well as the immediate former president, would be a potential security issue, and lending a hand alongside the U.S. Secret Service does not seem out of place.

And apparently Albert agreed since he decided to send his deputies to the rally anyway. Eight, instead of the original dozen, worked an eight-hour shift with no overtime.

The sheriff said Tuesday he “received erroneous information” from council solicitor Melissa Guiddy and human resources director Alexis Bevan regarding liability and working on private property. However, he proceeded with a joint operation with the Secret Service and Latrobe police after speaking with the Pennsylvania Sheriff’s Association and the county’s insurer.

“I knew they were wrong. We’ve done this before, when Vice President (Mike) Pence campaigned in Greensburg and then for candidate (Joe) Biden (in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election),” Albert said, adding that too much power is held by unelected individuals such as Guiddy and Bevan.

The Republican-majority county commissioners fired back, saying Albert lied. The statement issued claimed commissioners were only told deputies did work the event after it was a moot point.

It is understandable that this would be a situation that concerned the commissioners. After all, less than two months ago, Albert’s predecessor, Jonathan Held, entered a guilty plea to misusing sheriff’s department staff for political purposes. Maybe that’s the kind of liability they were looking to avoid.

But the solution is not to have the commissioners and sheriff slap at each other. It’s having real conversations and putting all the cards on the table. Make it clear that everyone knows what’s going on and there won’t be accusations that someone is doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

It is easy to say there was no need for the deputies to work the event because nothing went wrong. If there was a security problem that could have been mitigated by their presence, that’s when the county might have to worry. Maybe it wouldn’t be a liability issue, but it could easily be a public opinion problem.

And while Albert’s office has been refreshingly free of drama compared to the revolving door of lawsuits and criminal charges filed against Held and his staff, this was an unnecessarily dramatic stunt that could — and should — have been handled better.