By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
After serving four years as Buchanan County Presiding Commissioner, Lee Sawyer is stepping away from the office.
Sawyer says as he reflects on everything that's been done over his four years it feels good in some ways and nostalgic in others. Overall, though, he's grateful for the support he's received over his terms.
"I can say I've been very fortunate that the taxpayers have had confidence in me and what I've tried to do, and I've had a lot of really good support," Sawyer tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "And I would be remiss to not thank my wife Toni who has been such a great supporter of mine, and when you get ready to run for something like this you do need that support at home because they're going to be involved."
Sawyer, who decided to not run for re-election to the office, says he feels that in four years the county accomplished a lot
"I feel like we've got a lot of good things done and some of the real kinds of basic blocking and tackling things we got done," Sawyer says. "And then we had some big curveballs thrown at us with COVID and all kinds of things, so I'm really proud of our track record and what we've gotten done."
Sawyer says he feels great about how the county managed through a pandemic, the 2019 flood, and also through key issues like increasing law enforcement pay.
Sawyer says he's proud of the voters that helped increase a financial commitment to the Buchanan County Sheriff's Office.
"We really needed it, we did a study on kind of where we needed to be financially and we'd fallen behind, and we were having trouble keeping officers and there's multiple reasons for that and that's kind of a thing that's going on around the country," Sawyer explains. "But we knew that we had to be competitive regionally if we were going to attract and keep our top folks."
Also, through the commitment has been the increase in pay to St. Joseph police officers, as well as more scholarship opportunities at the Missouri Western Law Enforcement Academy.
Former St. Joseph Dentist Scott Nelson has been shadowing Sawyer since he was elected to succeed him in the November Election. He will take over as the Presiding Commissioner.