OUTGOING SHERIFF JUSTIN SMITH LOOKS BACK ON DECADES OF SERVICE
Incoming Sheriff John Feyen will take over LCSO early next year
The office of outgoing Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith is covered in a wash of memories.
Pictures, paintings, antiquestyle weapons and badges take up the wall space of the secondfloor Fort Collins office. Dotted on desks around the room are pins, commemorative coins and items he collected through his service.
In some of the shelves and drawers were stacks of letters and notes he received from citizens over the years, he said. Atop a set of cabinets you can see a large photo of Smith and his late father, taken when he graduated from the police academy.
“This is all part of a life story,” Smith said, smiling as he looked around the room, holding a mug emblazoned with Woody from “Toy Story” and the words “the sheriff’s here.”
Smith, who has served with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office since 1991 and as its most recent sheriff since 2010, is preparing to leave after serving three full terms. And while he looks back fondly on his time in the office, he is excited to see where incoming Sheriff John Feyen, who Smith endorsed in the election, takes the LCSO.
Smith said that he did not come from a line of police officers or law enforcement, but rather saw the profession as a calling, and one that he wanted to answer in Colorado after having worked in Estes Park previously. He said that when he was coming to the end of his college career, he sat down at his electric typewriter and wrote letters to county sheriff’s offices in Colorado trying to find the right place, eventually getting accepted at the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office.
He said that he finished his last final of college at Wichita State University on a Thursday and started work the next Monday morning in 1991, not even walking in his own graduation.
Smith said that he started his job in Estes Park, sent up the mountain in a Jeep Cherokee — a Jeep he said he would eventually bury in the snow.
For the next 19 years, Smith served in a number of positions at the office from deputy to investigator to sergeant and beyond until becoming sheriff in 2010. But from his time starting in Estes all the way tenure as sheriff, he said he learned a lot that would go on to help him.
The leaders of Hungary, Romania, Georgia and Azerbaijan finalized an agreement Saturday on an undersea electricity connector that could become a new power source for the European Union amid a crunch on energy supplies caused by the war in Ukraine.
The agreement involves a cable running beneath the Black Sea that would link Azerbaijan to Hungary via Georgia and Romania.
The deal comes as Hungary, which has lobbied heavily against EU sanctions on Russia for its war in Ukraine, is seeking additional sources for fossil fuels to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Azerbaijan plans to export electricity from offshore wind farms to Europe via Georgia, a cable beneath the Black Sea, and then to Romania and Hungary.
The office of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement Friday that the agreement between the four nations will provide the “financial and technical framework” for the undersea electricity cable project.
The project will aim to diversify energy supplies and increase regional energy security, the statement said.
On Friday, Romanian natural gas producer Romgaz also said it signed a contract with Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR to receive natural gas through the so-called southern gas corridor, with deliveries set to start on Jan. 1. Romgaz said it will serve its “strategic objectives” of diversifying natural gas sources.
“There were lessons along the way that empowered me, when we came to some very critical decision points, to have the experience and knowledge and hopefully the openness to see what needed to be done,” he said.
He said in 2009, when he was a major at the department, he decided that he wanted to run for the position of sheriff as Jim Alderden prepared to step away. And while he was unsure what would happen, Smith said that others were sure he would win.
One of these people, he said, was a state trooper he worked with during a night shift in 1992 at an incident scene. Smith said the trooper told him that that night the young deputy was “running his yap” about how someday he would be sheriff.
Smith said he didn’t remember saying it, but that it did sound like something he would say, “wise guy” that he was.
Smith said, though, the reason he was able to get to where he was and make the decision to run was because a line of people who had been by his side and had faith in the work he was doing throughout his career.
“It is an amazing story of opportunities and … people putting their trust in (me),” he said.
Despite a strong group running for office, with Smith facing several challengers in the campaign, he ultimately landed atop the other candidates, winning the seat with 51.75% of the total final vote.
He said that when he started as sheriff, he saw a few things that needed to be changed, including a needed strengthening with the community and defining of the mission of his office.
And Sheriff Smith would see no shortage of significant local events. From the High Park Fire of 2012 to the 2013 Big Thompson flood and, just a few years ago, the Cameron Peak Fire, Smith said he learned quickly the importance of delegating the best people in his office to help tackle whatever the problem is and to meet one goal every time: Serve the community.
“I never cease to be amazed by the staff … (and) their desire to serve people, to be flexible, to go to whatever ends it took,” he said. “When you had those things there was an energy that came off of a job that (needed) to be done. It is a mission like you can never imagine to know that your decisions are going to make such an impact on people.”
Now, with only a few weeks left in the sheriff’s seat, Smith said he was preparing to take a little time off and enjoy moments with his wife and family.
Though, with his passion for community safety, he wants to do something later on to support others in the profession, even if he isn’t sure exactly what comes next.
Looking back on his time, Smith said the connection between the community and the sheriff’s office is what makes or breaks a department like his. He said getting to know the community in order to serve it is a vital aspect of the profession — one he learned was of vital importance right away when he started in Estes Park.
And this community, one that works as good stewards for their community, is why he said the office has been able to do good things.
As he thinks about the future, though, Smith said he isn’t sad about what comes next, but excited to see how the sheriff’s office will change.
He pointed out a wooden plaque on the wall, carved with a story he wrote years ago as a tribute to the American sheriff, “The Story of the Sheriff’s Saddle.”
“The saddle sits empty of a rider, representing that the Office of Sheriff will have many occupants over time,” the plaque read. “You will notice that the stirrups on this saddle are adjustable, representing the need for adaptability to those whose boots will fill them over time.”
Smith, a self-proclaimed lover of history, said those words he wrote are the ones he and the office are living now. He said he is excited to see Feyen step into the role, and recognizes that the change in power is just another step in the lifetime of a sheriff.
And when looking at the goal he set out to achieve many years ago, to be responsible in helping make the county better and help those in it, he was positive on the work that had been done.
“I like to think we did that,” he said, smiling as he looked at the wooden plaque that, at the bottom, read “Sheriff Justin Smith — Larimer County.”