10/1/19

Rick Kelley

(Cleveland)- Captain Rick Kelley, White County Sheriff’s Office has announced that he will qualify as a candidate for Sheriff next year.  Kelley, who is 42 years old is a White County native raised in Cleveland.

Kelley’s father is the late Richard Kelley, who was the local Georgia Power manager in Cleveland for 30 years. My mother is Julie Kelley, who worked at United Community Bank in
Cleveland for close to 30 years.  He said,  me and my wife, Starla, have been married for over 14 years and have a 4-year-old son. I am a member of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice from the University of North Georgia College in 1999 and began his career at the White County Sheriff’s Office in 2003 working in the detention center, civil division, and the patrol division.

In 2006 Kelley joined the White County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team in which he is still active. In 2008 he was promoted to the Criminal Investigations Division at the Sheriff’s Office and moved up to a Sergeant position in 2012.

In 2016,  he was promoted to Captain over the Investigations Division, a position he currently holds. Kelley also earned two advanced certifications in Supervision and Management through the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

The following is a statement released by Kelley:

I am taking this opportunity to announce my decision to run for Sheriff of White County in 2020. I have had the privilege of working for Sheriff Walden for the past 16 years and hope I can follow in his footsteps continuing to serve our community.

I am blessed to be a White County native and would be honored to serve as your Sheriff. We have always had a wonderful community and I want to
make sure our community continues to be safe, not only for my family, but for everyone in the community.

This community and the Office of the Sheriff are very important to me personally. I’ve had opportunities to work for other law
enforcement agencies making more money, but I chose to remain at the White

County Sheriff’s Office because White County is, and has always been, my home. In the past two decades, White County has seen tremendous growth. Unfortunately, as the population grows, so too does the crime rate.

I have a strong personal desire to see that our community is a great place to live and I am fully committed to ensuring that our county remains a safe place to raise a family. I want to take a proactive and aggressive stance against the crime rate and drug problem we have in this county.

My plan is to implement a crime suppression unit. This unit will target problem areas within the county using aggressive and concentrated patrol techniques to help aid our investigators and our drug task force. I will be able to implement this unit using existing personnel. I would also like to add a K-9 dog to our patrol division to assist our deputies in being proactive in the detection of illicit drugs. I also intend to move the Sheriff’s Office toward more of a community-oriented style of policing.

Our community has been very supportive of the Sheriff’s Office in the past and I feel it is important to strengthen that bond between the community and law enforcement moving forward. I believe communication is the key to strengthening that bond. To accomplish this, I want to implement a citizen’s law enforcement academy at the Sheriff’s Office in order to help the community better understand how law enforcement works and help the community better understand some of the processes that law enforcement officers have to follow.

In addition, I would like to present educational seminars to the public. The seminars would focus on current issues that are being addressed by the Sheriff’s Office. The seminars will not only be held as a means of public education but will also give the Sheriff’s Office an opportunity to receive important feedback from the community.

I truly believe by working together, we can all achieve our goal of keeping White County a great place to live. I would ask for your vote and support in the 2020 Sheriff’s election.

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