Joey Kriete Interview
Unedited Candidate Interview for the 2026 Grant County Sheriff's Race
I interviewed all 3 candidates for the Grant County Sheriff’s race for 2026.
All 3 Candidates were asked the exact same 22 questions in the exact same order
They never saw each others answers
The answers have not been altered, edited, modified, editorialized, changed, or edited in any way by the staff, ownership, or affiliates of this publication.
For each I have posted the transcript, not a story, their words. (transcripts by AI)
For each I have posted the audio from the interview.
A picture with them to show we did this in person
A full list of the questions
Below the interviews I will post their posted bio from their candidate website, their sign and a link to their website and or FaceBook
The Interview Begins Here
Joey Kriete Interview Audio File
Joey Kriete Interview Grant County Sheriff’s Race 2026
Brent Dowlen: [00:00:00] Grant County Sheriff’s race candidate interview Joey Crete. Sheriff Crete, residents in more rural communities in Grant County often feel a little bit isolated from county level services.
What does a strong visible sheriff’s presence look like in our area specifically? That’s a good question to start things off, Grant.
So, um, you know,
Joey Kriete: as we were talking just, just a second ago, the, the majority of Grant County is rural Grant County. Like just like the 98848 area, um, it really is. That’s, that’s kind of the, of our 2,700 square miles, the majority of it is that exact setting. Um, the great thing about how we’ve been able to as a sheriff’s office, I, I can’t speak for the other county elected offices.
Um, I think the question was a little bit, uh, little bit broad talking about county, um, offices. Um, but I’ll talk obviously specifically about the sheriff’s office. Uh, one thing that we have done with the sheriff’s office when I was elected in 2023 and took office, my big, my big focus [00:01:00] was, uh, recruitment and, and getting more employees.
Um, when we were down, the 26 employees, we were down 10 of those being on patrol of the sheriff’s office. It takes a good, a, a big impact on the visibility of the office. When you’re 10 vehicles short of people driving around the patrol cars and patrolling areas, that’s, that’s a huge impact. Um, uh, so having, having the recruitment was, was the largest, the biggest priority at the time for me when I got elected to make sure we were getting people on road and getting those vacancies filled.
Uh, the, the other, the other challenge that presented itself as well was, um, that, that kind of perpetuated the problem is in 2024, the commissioners gave me 10 more new positions. So not only was I chasing 25 new positions to fill, but now I’m chasing 10 more, so 35 right out of the bat, or right off the bat.
It, it was challenging. Um, but we’ve done really well. Recruitment has been great. Um, I don’t offer signing bonuses. I think that that money is well invested into [00:02:00] the entire agency as a whole instead of any individual that comes over to the sheriff’s office. Um, and by having the recruitment and the people working, more people now working and out in the field, we start to see more coverage.
Our response time has gone down by nearly three minutes from 2022 before I took office till it is now. Um, so we’re out there. We’re out there driving around and, and we’re, we’re making sure that our, we’re being seen. We have more patrol deputies on duty now than we did in 2022 before I was elected. Um, so I think being seen is probably the biggest thing to make sure that people feel confident about the coverage that they have for the sheriff’s office.
Brent Dowlen: What is one area you think needs improvement or more attention?
Joey Kriete: Um, I think the one area that I, I think that will always need improvement and, and forgive me, I’m gonna probably say a couple different areas because I think they kind of overlap together is one, you have the opiate problem that we have now, the drug addiction piece that’s, that’s in the county and then quite frankly, all through the nation.[00:03:00]
But with that, it comes the impact of property crimes. It really does. Um, back when, when I was elected in 2023 that I, talking to the community, and not only when I campaigned in 2022, but throughout my, throughout my first term as sheriff with community, meetings with the community and talking with our rural farming community, the big thing was property crimes.
That was a big one. And the community actually helped me come up with a great idea of implementing a proactive team that specifically addressed our property crimes. And our crime reduction team has done that. We have, um, uh, uh, an area of the county that is, uh, really impacts, that impacts all of us as far as crimes go.
Um, I don’t think either one of us are, are major drug dealers or serial killers as we sit here, okay? But the crimes that impact people are property theft, they’re, uh, wire theft, they’re, uh, theft of vehicles, [00:04:00] burglaries, they are all the various crimes that if, if they haven’t impacted you specifically, you know somebody that has been victimized by those types of crimes.
And we have this large area of a gap that was never addressed proactively. So we have now proactively addressed that property crime issue. That also does relate back to the opiate problem because people aren’t stealing parts to get rich. They’re feeding their habit is what they’re doing for the most part.
So not only have we addressed proactively with the crime reduction team that, that area of theft that we had in rural farming areas, but now we’re partnering not only with the prosecutor’s office, but with district court, they’ve got a community court or quasi drug court now that you want, if you wanna call it that.
It’s very structured. It is, it, it progresses into graduation points of the process, but we help them recruit people that would be great candidates for recovery through the drug court process. But I’ve also partnered with RENEW and RENEW has given us, uh, a designated crisis responder that’s assigned to the jail and [00:05:00] they’re doing between two to three, uh, detainments a week of people that have mental issues or drug addiction problems that we’re able to finally get them the resources that they need.
Um, having a jail, a new jail is gonna be fantastic, right? It really is. And throwing people in jail for crimes they commit is something that needs to be done. But if we’re not going to address the core problem that we have with these criminals in the community, it’s going to be a revolving door within the jail and the recidivism rate is going to be extremely high.
So my goal is not only is hold people accountable, but to try to find ways to attack the core problem that we have, and that, that is the addiction of drugs. So working with the prosecutor’s office in the district court that we have now, working with Renew, another nonprofit civic organization that’s actually driving around and, and giving people options to go to rehab, and they drive them there.
They take them to rehab, but we’re working with them as well to give them names of people in the community that might be good candidates for that as well. So I think it’s bigger than holding [00:06:00] people accountable and tossing me into jail, because like I said, if you’re not dealing with the core problem of the issue, you’re never going to fix the issue.
And I’m not saying that we’re, we’re, we’re going to solve it overnight by any means, but I think that we’ve done a good job moving forward and working and partnering with other entities and partners within the county to make sure that we have, we have resources for people that need the help. What is the biggest challenge you think you’ll face if reelected the sheriff?
Um, you know, I, I think that it’s a lot of challenges that continue. Um, I don’t know if it’s going to be any specific new challenges. Of course, I never know what the legislature is going to throw at us as far as law enforcement goes. That presents a new challenge every year, it seems like when the session is over.
Um, this year, I was probably more involved legislatively than I have been in my previous, uh, two, uh, three years, I guess, as, as sheriff. Um, I testified, uh, in front of the Senate, I’ve, I’ve written emails [00:07:00] and letters. Um, I’ve worked and partnered with, um, our Washington State Sheriff’s Association. I’m the vice president of the Washington, Washington State Sheriff’s, uh, and police chiefs organization in the state.
Uh, I’ve worked with the Western State Sheriff’s Association or National State Sheriff’s Association to get, to get help and get backing when, when 5974 Senate Bill 5974 was, was out there. Um, and we did. We made a difference. A- as you can see, a couple days ago, we got the injunction, uh, out of Thurston County, which was a big win.
And that’s, and that’s not necessarily a big win for sheriffs. It’s the biggest win for the voters because I don’t call that bill the sheriff’s accountability bill. That, that is the strip your rights away is voters bill is what it is. And our voters, the ones that put us in office, they should be the ones that, that remove us from office as well.
The, the, the right is with the voters, not with a, a board that is assigned by a state agency. Um, so I, I kind of went off on a tangent there, sorry. But legislatively presents a, a, a large problem as well. But I [00:08:00] think some of the other problems that we currently have, um, that we’re, that are kind of going to continue to be challenges with the, with the sheriff’s office is we’re still two people down on patrol.
Um, I think we’re two now down in corrections. So, um, re- recruitment is, has been very good, very good for us. We’ve been very good with recruitment and hiring people. So recruitment is, is not gonna be as challenging, but what will be challenging is still we’ll have the, well, I, I think we’re still gonna have the property crime issue.
Um, I don’t think we’re ever gonna completely solve that, but our goal is to become more aggressive with it and add more people to our crime reduction team to make sure that we are proactively aggressive on these omni thefts that are happening out in the community. We’re also going to continue partnering with resources for the opiate problems with renew.
Um, we’re actually on site. We just got another, another, uh, person added to the patrol staff now that is going to be a responder in the renewal side to provide resources like our DCR that we got within the jail. Um, [00:09:00] we’re gonna continue to build, um, in our wellness side of, of our agency. Um, I don’t necessarily see that so much of a challenge as, as a benefit.
Um, of course, I’m the kind of person that welcomes challenges that I, I like it because it forces us to think outside the box. Um, by thinking outside the box and interacting with community members and different people of the organization, the agency, not just administratively, but through our line staff, we’re able to get really good ideas and moving forward.
Uh, probably one of the biggest challenges coming up, which will start happening before the election is moving into the new jail. That’s, that’s a big move. I mean, not only do we have office staff to move up there, we have evidence and, and that is very key and critical that we get the evidence moved in the appropriate way to make sure every piece is accounted for and inventory.
It’s, it, it’s a big, big task to take on and not only that get the, get the inmates also moved up to the new facility. Um, the transition [00:10:00] for our correction staff is going to be challenging because it’s a brand new facility. They’re having to push reset and they’re working in a, in an environment that they’ve never worked in before.
This facility is built for, uh, for streamlined efficiency, um, which the current environment we’re in right now doesn’t really allow for that. Um, it’s designed for the needs that we have now and the needs we’ll have into the future. So some of those challenges will be an adjustment by our staff. Yeah.
Brent Dowlen: Response times can vary widely across Grant County. How would you work to ensure communities like Summit States, George, Desert Air City, Crescent Bar receive timely emergency response?
Joey Kriete: I touched on that a little bit, right, just a little bit ago. Um, you know, I think staffing’s probably the biggest key.
Again, you have to have people out here to respond to the calls. Um, I talked about since 2022, on all calls for service, we have reduced that by three minutes, uh, which is great. Uh, I expect that to go down even further once we get continuing backfill into our specialty [00:11:00] positions, as well as getting our people coming out of the academy onto their patrol shifts.
Um, there, the, um, growth of our community is growing very quickly. Uh, the growth of a sheriff’s office is not growing in relation to how the community’s growing. So what we have to do is we have to get creative. We have to do things differently, um, and think outside the box and, uh, communicate with our employees and with our community members to get ideas to do things differently.
I think we’ve done a very good job of that last three years. Uh, we’ve listened to the community on things and concerns that they have had, and it’s, and it’s made some improvements in the organization. Um, and some of those improvements have obviously been a recruitment where we’ve, we’ve added more staff to the road and we’ve been able to reduce those response times by nearly three minutes.
And three minutes may not seem like a long time until you actually sit down and you sit and wait three minutes out. And it’s, it’s a substantial period of time. There’s a lot of things that can happen in three minutes when you’re talking about different calls out here in the community. Um, I started [00:12:00] even, uh, breaking that down.
I tried to get it break down to different areas of the county as far as even the four- further rule looking into those areas, and it’s all pretty relative. Um, it’s still, we had a reduction between two and almost three minutes in all various areas of the county. So not only as a whole, it’s nearly three minutes, but in the various areas, it’s between two and three minutes of reduction of time as well.
So that, that’s a positive on my, on how I look at it, and it’s going to only get better as we move forward.
Brent Dowlen: What is your plan to recruit and retain deputies, especially to ensure consistent coverage for smaller communities like those in the 9848?
Joey Kriete: Yeah, so we, like I told you earlier, we, recruitment’s been very good for us.
It really has been. We’ve had, uh, we had some challenges when I was first elected. Like I said, we were down 35 people, right, as soon as I started the first year. Over the three years, we had 11 retirements. We’ve had 21 people resign. Um, the majority of those resigned and relocated to go to law enforcement, uh, from corrections to law [00:13:00] enforcement to be a police officer or different areas.
Most people moved out of the area because of their families or from out of the area. But the good news is around 80% or so actually that did leave, they, they loved the organization. They did. And of the new people that we’ve hired within the last three years, I’ve hired 70 new people. Of those 70 people, I have not had one signing bonus.
Um, I don’t offer them. I don’t. I want the people that come to work for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. I want them working here for the right reason. I don’t want them here chasing the next signing bonus and, uh, looking for the almighty dollar because, and I don’t use the word deserve very often, but I think our community deserves to have the best people working at the Grand County Sheriff’s Office they can get.
Um, and those people that are working here are coming here for the right reasons. Of those 70 hires that I’ve hired 30 n- about, I remember over 35, 39% have been lateral hires from, from other agencies they wanna come here. So what they’re doing is they’re coming and riding with our patrol deputies.
They’re [00:14:00] talking to our staff. They’re, they’re doing walkthroughs at the jail, talking to the correction staff, and they, they wanna be here. They wanna come work here and they like the culture that we have here. Um, and, and they’re applying and they’re getting hired. Of the replacements that I had in, on patrol when I was had to, had to, uh, replace the, the people.
Over half of the new hires and hired for patrol were lateral hires. So we’re, we’re getting a lot of lateral transfers that are coming from outside agencies, which is great. So recruitment has been very, very good for us. We do a lot of local recruitment. We go to a lot of job fairs. Uh, our social media presence is huge.
We have nearly 62,000 followers on Facebook. Uh, we partner with other resources around for, for even wider marketing. Um, recruitment’s been very good. That’s been very, or Brent has been very good. It’s, uh ... I, I, I’m expecting that we will be a full staff, um, uh, I’m going ... I’m, I think probably by the end of the year, then, uh, we’ll start asking for some more people.
So, [00:15:00] uh, I’m excited. Uh, like I said, recruitment’s been good and people are coming here for the right reasons. We’re hiring amazing people.
Brent Dowlen: How do you see the sheriff’s office working alongside local departments like Quincy, afraid of his lake to avoid overlap and strength coverage?
Joey Kriete: Yeah, it’s a great question.
I, I don’t ... I think that people, um, don’t, I don’t think people realize how closely that we do work with these, uh, our partnering municipal agencies. Um, the, the easy part for me, and most of them, I’ve been friends with them before I was colleagues with them, uh, which was, which was great. I mean, for instance, Moses Lake, the, the chief and I have been friends for well over 30 years.
Um, the relationship him and I have, um, as far as colleagues go, we ... I’ve been here for 33 years and, and so is the chief of most Lake Chief Sands. In our existence, we’ve never had the greatest relationship that we have now historically between our two agencies, ever. Um, Dave is a great partner. His agency does a fantastic job working with our deputies, [00:16:00] um, and, and I have a fantastic relationship with him.
Um, Chief Green of our Quincy, we, we were partners as well. Um, he, he’s, he’s a fantastic partner. We help him out give a chance and opportunity we get. Uh, he invests in our, our, our drug task force, our inner agency, our product enforcement team. Um, he’s a, he’s a great resource for us and we help him as well.
Um, we’ve had other municipal agencies, for instance, Warden, uh, Snow Blake, Grand Cooley, when they were short in their coverage and short in leadership, we stepped up, we helped them. We don’t want our municipal agencies not having pr- not being able to provide law enforcement services to their community.
So we step up and we step in, we provide deputies for them to make sure that their coverage is good. We, we don’t want them to, to not succeed in their cities and municipalities because I’m, I’m not, I’m not just a rule Grant County Sheriff. I am the Grant County Sheriff. That includes our municipal partners.
So I, I make sure that I’m a good partner with our municipalities because quite frankly, we could not do this alone and we have to have our municipal [00:17:00] partners out here in the community to do the job that we do because the biggest thing is our criminal element, they don’t know where the borders are, the city and the county borderlines, they don’t know that.
So we don’t treat it that way in law enforcement. We, we have our cities, municipalities come help us in the county, and we come help them in the cities as well. So our relationship is very good with our municipal partners, for sure.
Brent Dowlen: Our area is growing data centers, agriculture, tourism, how should the sheriff’s office adapt to the growth around the strong area? It’s a
Joey Kriete: good question. So I, I’m actually a board member for the Economic Development Council for Grant County, um, which there are a lot of different disciplines within that board, a lot of them.
Uh, a lot of them have to do with the data centers, agriculture, real estate, um, industry out in the, in the areas of the rural county. Um, and we all bring a very vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to the development and growth of Grant [00:18:00] County. Um, anytime you have a growth in the data centers or agricultural community or e- or any other industry here, it brings in jobs, which brings in people, which brings families in, which means there needs to be better public service and public safety.
So there are different resources that are out there, and we just covered this that we had not too long ago, and realizing how many resources we have as a pool to the economic development council, and it’s fantastic. Uh, it, it, there are so many resources that are together, and, and I’m fortunate enough to be part of that board to understand what, what great things that, that development and the growth is bringing to the county, and having all those different professions in there to, uh, get their hands in it, we all understand where our place is, where we can help each other, and, and really be a positive impact to everybody involved.
Brent Dowlen: How will you build trust and maintain clear communications with the [00:19:00] communities that may not always feel directly connected to local leadership?
Joey Kriete: Yeah, the easiest way for us to establish our community has been through our social media. Um, we are very, very active in our social media. Uh, when I was elected, we only had a volunteer, uh, public information officer at the time.
Um, I felt like it was extremely important for us to dedicate a full-time employee to that, to, uh, make sure that we were transparent, sharing accurate and timely information with, with the community, and not just on a volunteer basis. It needed to be on a full-time basis, because that’s one of those things that community deserves.
So what we’ve established is our, our Facebook page, that is our media outlet. When we, when we have a media release, our public and our community sees the exact same thing that we release to the media. We don’t do a separate release to the media. If it’s not released on our Facebook page, we didn’t do a media release.
So the community sees exactly what really, what we release to the media, they get the same exact news. So they understand that when something may [00:20:00] be printed differently that, than we present, that the sheriff’s office didn’t put the twist on because we post it and we share it. And, and we wanna be that way.
The, the community should know what’s happening with their sheriff’s office because they’re a viable piece of our puzzle. Um, we, we need our community to do our job. We have to have them. Um, and we, we become very involved with the community and the transparency is very important to me. Sometimes we may overshare things on our Facebook page just for things that we’re doing activity-wise in the community, but I think it’s important.
We don’t want to share just all the doom and gloom that happens with the sheriff’s office. We like to share the, the fun things that we’re doing as well, whether it’s a job fair, whether it’s our deputies out playing basketball kids over at the, at the Larson Housing area or involved with the Boys and Girls Club or with our schools.
Um, those are all important pieces that I think that humanize the job of law enforcement to where sometimes that we lack, uh, as far as law enforcement professionals. And so I think that our media and our Facebook platform has really helped establish that, but able to show the [00:21:00] humanization of law enforcement and, and provide the community with a lot of transparent information that comes out of the sheriff’s office.
Brent Dowlen: What trends are you seeing in Grand County and what would you be your top enforcement priorities?
Joey Kriete: Our trends that we’re still seeing, uh, I feel like a broken record right when I’m talking about this, but, um, it still seems to be the opiate issue and, and as well as it relates to property thens and property thefts that happen in the county.
Um, we, we are seeing, uh, especially our incarceration rates right now, um, it, it’s a little bit skewed. I, I think that some of our violent crimes are also associated with that drug piece. Uh, but we have our continue ... Can you just read that question one more time? I wanna make sure I stay on task for you.
Sorry.
Brent Dowlen: What trends are you seeing in Grand County and what would you be your top enforcement priorities? The
Joey Kriete: trends, that’s what I was missing. So the trends, like I said, is, uh, still evolves around the, uh, revolves around the opiate issue and, and the property [00:22:00] theft. Um, those are the major things that are affecting the majority of our communities.
We’re always gonna have our major crimes unit that are gonna investigating our serious, serious, uh, crimes against persons, our drug task force that are very busy, uh, working large narcotics cases, but, um, now that we’re proactive with the specialized unit and, and committed to that, then I, I think that we’re in a position now to expand that growth of our proactive unit to continue to battle that, that, that trend, that is that, that theft and that property crime thing that affected the majority of our people in our community.
Um, like I said, the, the, the, the big players of being moved of, of serial killers and major drug dealers, those are the minority of people within the county. We are still addressing those issues, but now with our proactive team that we have, we’re able to address proactively a lot of crimes that are happening within the county that we’re able to effectively address.[00:23:00]
Brent Dowlen: What role should the sheriff’s office play in working with schools and youth programs and the communities for issues before they start?
Joey Kriete: Yeah. So youth is very important. Um, the investment in our youth, I think is a, is a long, a long-term game, a long-term investment. Um, us as parents, I, I think, I think that we realize that we have a very small window as far as the impact and the guidance that we have with our kids.
If you’re looking at the lifespan of a, of a person, let’s just say 80 years, okay? If you put it in perspective, the, the piece and the percentage that we have on the investment of our kids to give them guidance and to make sure that they’re on the right path in life is a very small window, probably only about the first 12 to 15 years of their life.
After that, their, their, their peers take over being guidance for them, it may be teachers, it may be bad influences, [00:24:00] whoever they choose to be around, could be coaches, it could be other parents that are out in the community of their friends, but there comes a time in our kids’ lives that they just kind of don’t think our parents are very cool anymore, you know what I mean?
And so at that point, I, I think that our investment into our youth needs to be done at an earlier age, into the grade school age, early middle school years, um, to get that long-term investment down the road, because I think that our kids need to see the positive influence that law enforcement does have in their lives.
Um, we don’t want them to see law enforcement just when we have to go there to deal with issues they may have with their parents. We want to have a positive impact on the kids. Um, our school resource officers are great, but I, I really do love the SRO program that we have in our schools. Um, our municipal agencies do a great job with that.
But as far as influencing kids and helping them make the right decision, we need to start earlier with that, and we’ve done that in partnering right now with the program we have with Moses Lake, the [00:25:00] Safe Streets Unit right now, Safe Streets program, um, that we invest our time a lot with the Boys and Girls Club, and working with the Mosul Police Department to make sure we are investing time into younger kids that may be in troubled areas of the county.
And we want to make sure that we are a positive influence on them. And they know when they see deputy so and so out in the community and they stop just to shoot basketball with them, then that’s fun. That’s what they, that’s what they want to see. So we’re sending our deputies over there to go play dodgeball and, and kickball and sit down with them and, and answer questions and just have a great day with them.
So I think it’s extremely important investing in our youth when they’re young and in that, like I said, that late grade school to early middle school years, so we can start and maintain that positive impact that we can have with kids as they grow older in the community.
Brent Dowlen: How will you ensure transparency in the Sheriff’s o- sheriff’s office and keep residents informed about decisions incidents and priorities?
Joey Kriete: Yeah, I kind of touched on this automatic already with our social media presence. That, that really seems to [00:26:00] be our best way to communicate. Um, we, it really is. We, with, with our social media, like I said, I think we have probably approaching 62,000 followers right now on Facebook.
Um, that is the easiest way that we have found to send out our message as far as the sheriff’s office goes and our transparency. Um, we, we initially started becoming, uh, multiple, becoming on, on multiple platforms trying to get it out there, social media, Twitter at the time, Instagram, but then we realized, you know, we’re, we’re becoming, we’re be- we’re becoming familiar with all these platforms, but we’re not becoming an expert on any of them.
So we put our focus on Facebook. That was our largest following. That’s where everybody seems to do most, most of their activity was on Facebook. And so that’s what we did. And, and we capitalized on Facebook and we put a lot of posts out there. We share a lot of information, um, because we want to. We want our community to know what is going on.
Um, so that’s a platform that we’ve used for our transparency with the sheriff’s office. It’s our Facebook piece because it’s easy to share information, it’s [00:27:00] accurate, it’s quick, uh, it, it’s just the easiest way to figure it out there.
Brent Dowlen: What kind of culture would you build in the sheriff’s, inside the sheriff’s office continuing as a sheriff and how would you translate that into the way the deputies started the communities?
Joey Kriete: Yeah, culture, culture is important. Um, for, for me, the cul- the culture is, there’s a lot of different aspects of it.
For me, it’s, it’s, it’s a culture that has to take care of, take care of our people. We, we need, we have to be, worry about our employees and take care of our employees, and that’s where we really focused on our wellness program within the sheriff’s office. And our wellness program is growing and it’s expanded.
Um, the healthier our deputies are, while they’re at work, the better service that they’re gonna provide our communities. And the other thing is we did too is, is we didn’t just stop there with our, with our deputies and, and working at the sheriff’s office. We’ve expanded that to their families because when our deputies are going to calls for service, it doesn’t just affect them.
They take [00:28:00] that home with them and they share that information a lot of times with their spouses, significant others, or their kids. Um, so we want to make sure that we have an availability for them to have a resource as well. We’ve also extended that out to our retirees. Some of our retirees are part of our peer support program now.
Um, we’ve also invested into them to make sure that they have resources as retirees with some of the contracts we have, but by First Wellness, the Cortego app that we have that provides services as well as paid for and funded by the state. They have access to that stuff because it is important for them to have resources as well as far as wellness goes.
Um, the other thing is, is we’ve, we’ve, a, a culture of accountability and standards. Uh, those, those are big. Those are important to me. Um, we’ve strengthened our staffing with recruitment. Uh, we strengthened our leadership with additional training and specialized training for our leadership. We’ve also been very transparent with the public.
We try to share the information, like I said, on social media and make sure the community knows what is happening in the sheriff’s office and happening in their communities. We’ve done a really good job of sharing that. The other thing is, is teamwork, or team [00:29:00] first environment, team ... We have to be team oriented, have to be.
There’s no room for individuals out here. We are, we are the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, we’re no individualized sheriff’s office. We are, we are a sheriff, sheriff’s office for every community member in Grant County, and, and every role that we have in the sheriff’s office matters. Whether you’re in the support staff, corrections or patrol, any other specialized unit, every rule has a key, significant piece to the puzzle.
It just may be a different job, not any less important, but it is very, very, very key to the success of the agency. Um, collaboration, we expect to collaborate with people, not only the community, but our municipal partners, and even our regional partners and federal partners within the, within the organization and our federal partners, uh, whether it’s DEA, FBI, ATF, ICE, whatever it may be, we want to partner with our federal partners because we, we have to, to get, to have successful law enforcement.
Uh, service and community connections, um, I, I [00:30:00] I’m out in the community a lot. Uh, I, I do a lot of public events, which I love doing it. I really do. That’s probably the, my, my favorite piece of the job that I get to do is to go interact with the community at different events, uh, setting up different con- conversation pieces and being able to talk to them and hear the concerns that they have.
I welcome difficult questions. Um, because I don’t have all the answers. I, I don’t. And I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know everything. But I will tell you, I learn a lot from our community members, and I learn a lot from our, our staff that we have at the Sheriff’s Office. And they help me be successful.
It’s not, it’s not because of me. It’s because of all the input I get from everybody else is why we’re successful at the Sheriff’s office. That’s, that’s a big one. But we built a culture that’s supportive. We built a culture that’s team oriented. We’ve built a culture that is proactive, serving the community.
Um, long story short is, we, we put our community first. Everything that we do has to be and must be in the best interest of our community at the very forefront, [00:31:00] and our agency right alongside that. There is no room for any individualized success. It has to be the success for the best interest of the community, and that’s what I believe the culture we officially sheriff’s office.
Brent Dowlen: What does leadership mean to you?
Joey Kriete: Leadership to me is, is being able to, uh, be in a position to influence some change, uh, to be able to gather, uh, people’s ideas, to be able to influence those ideas and watch them come to life. Um, like I said earlier, it, it’s, this position has never been about me and me being the sheriff.
Um, I love my job. I absolutely love this community. Um, I love this organization. But, but to me, the leadership piece is bigger than any individual. We are [00:32:00] public servants. We’re not self-servants. So we need to lead by example and lead in a partnership and teamwork is the forefront of leadership for me.
Brent Dowlen: Live Nation and the Gorge are major tourism sources for Grand County. The traffic around the concerts and the shenanigans, the campgrounds can sometimes be a source of frustration. How will you work with Live Nation and the local community to handle these frustrations?
Joey Kriete: We’re currently working with Live Nation right now.
Um, we have meetings with Live Nation, even in the off season. We’re always talking about, um, infrastructure. We just changed the roadway structure out there and, and expanded the lanes out there. We’re constantly working with Live Nation. Um, they’ve got a new, the new director out there, um, that is, uh, kind of learning the dynamics of Grant County, quite frankly.
Um, and we’re in constant communication with them coming into the gorge season. We are trying to do some different things, um, to see how the successes that, of that’s going to be. I’ll tell you, we’re not going to be [00:33:00] perfect every year. We’re not going to be. There’s also always room for improvement. I think we can always be better.
Um, we do a really good job of bringing ideas to the table, and Live Nation is very receptive to ideas. They also bring great ideas to the table. But those ideas that we bring forward don’t just come from us at the sheriff’s office. They do come from our community members and ideas that they may have or concerns that they do have.
Um, and we do bring those forward. We’ve talked about different coverage, uh, how coverage is gonna be with, uh, at Live Nation of our concerts and what type of specialized units we’re gonna have at those concerts and various shows that happen out there. So we’re constantly communicating with Black Nation to try to make the venue better for every concert builder that shows up to Grant County to make sure they have the best experience they can have.
Brent Dowlen: Communities like Crescent Bar, some of the states, Quincy and George see direct impacts in the volume of visitors and increase risk of wildfires during concert event weekends. Will you elevate improving safety and reducing wildfire risk in the areas impacted by the concert goers? [00:34:00] Um, I’m, I’m not aware of any
Joey Kriete: specific, uh, increase of the wildfires from specific concert goers.
Um, I, I’m just not aware of it, but what we have, like I just said a second ago, what we are doing is working with Live Nation to try to do our presence of law enforcement there differently, uh, to expand the areas that we’re in, to provide different specialty units at different shows, depending on what they are.
So I think you’re gonna see that depending on what the crowd is at, what show they’re attending at the Gorge, is going to dictate more of what we provide as far as law enforcement services go. And so I think it’s going to have a direct reflection of that. I wouldn’t say that I’m, or we’re focusing specifically on wildfire prevention or, or that, but I think the changes that we are doing out there with Live Nation, partnering with them in the different ways we’re going to be addressing things, I think that’ll be a direct [00:35:00] reflection of that.
Um, so I’m hoping we’ll see some changes with that as well. And, and we, we partner and talk with district three all the time, quite hone- honestly out there. Um, and, uh, you know, we work on ideas from, from district three, of course, if there’s any ideas that they may have as well. So I think some of the changes that we are going to do will, will have an impact on that and as we move into this new season.
Brent Dowlen: The newly passed controversial Washington Senate Bill 5974 was signed at the beginning of April. It’s a source of concern for a lot of people. There has been an update that it is currently stopped. Where do you stand on the bill?
Joey Kriete: I stand adamantly and completely against it. In fact, I’ve kind of rephrased the bill as, not the sheriff’s accountability or qualifications bill, but it is the strip your rights of voters bill.
This bill is in place and we, we currently as sheriffs already have some of the strictest, uh, provisions of, of taking office currently of any other elected official. Um, [00:36:00] we are elected into office by the people of our community, our constituents, and that’s exactly how we should be removed from the office.
And constitution is very clear of that. Um, we challenged it, uh, as a Western State Sheriff’s Association that I’m a member of, and we collectively came together as 39 sheriffs in the state of Washington, and we challenged it and we pushed it. Four of my colleagues, uh, specifically in the northeast section of the state is, is what moved the challenge that we recently, really recently had the ruling over in Olympia in Thurston County to, for the injunction of that law, as it should be.
And it’s moving forward in the, in the judicial process right now. Um, and we’re doing it the right way. We’re doing it through the judicial process as it should be done through the Constitution and that’s established very clearly how you handle things and that’s what we’re doing judicially because that’s what needs to be taken care of.
I am adamantly against that bill. I’ve testified against that bill. I’ve done documents against that bill. I’ve recruited different sheriff’s organizations through the nation to help us get support through that bill with the other 38 [00:37:00] sheriffs in the state. I’m definitely not alone on this. We are, we are a, a big organization of sheriffs in Washington state and we all stand together and we want what’s right for our constituents and our voters and our, and our state, and our state as a whole, not just a Grant County, but, uh, I have, I have a pretty good legislative voice as a vice president of WASPC right now and, and, uh, we, we come together and, and we, we’re adamantly against that door for sure.
Brent Dowlen: Which branch of the government or the sheriff’s office fall of our executive,
Joey Kriete: judicial or legislative? Executive. We’re, we’re the, we’re the rule and law enforcer. That’s what the executive branch of government does. So we don’t make the laws as a legislative one. We don’t, we don’t interpret the laws actually ju- judicial one, but we are the executive branch of government and sheriffs.
How
Brent Dowlen: long have you been in
Joey Kriete: law enforcement and in what capacity? I’ve been in law enforcement for 30, over 33 years now. All my time has been with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, and, uh, I [00:38:00] am, I am extremely proud of this organization that I worked for, and that quite frankly has raised me. Um, I’ve worked in every aspect of the sheriff’s office for the most part, um, since my career.
I’ve been a patrol deputy. I’ve been a major crimes detective. I have been a patrol sergeant. I’ve been a traffic sergeant. I’ve, uh, been 10 and a half years as the jail commit corrections chief deputy to where it’s pretty critical now with a new jail opening up. So having some corrections background is very, very important.
Um, I was a chief deputy of the investigations unit and then I was elected sheriff, uh, actually I took office in late 2022 and continued my term in 2023. So I’ve, I’ve touched about every facet of the sheriff’s office that you can. Um, you know, as, as well as that as, as I’m on, uh, uh, of different committees with our state organization, I’m on a professional standards committee, which does a lot with our accreditation process, which the Grand County Sheriff’s Office is [00:39:00] accredited.
We just receive ... In fact, we’ll be formally receiving our re-accreditation here in a couple weeks at the WASPC conference, and that’s ... We meet 140 standards of, of law enforcement professionals to make sure that we’re performing at the highest level in the state that is established that way. I also sit on the corrections committee, uh, with, with WASPC and making sure that our jails have the, the best training they can get, um, different ideas that come from different jail commanders and make sure we can implement those ideas, have a legislative voice when it comes to the direction of corrections.
Um, corrections is a very, very large piece of the law enforcement puzzle that sometimes I think may not get the full attention that it needs. And so I’m glad that I have the experience and the, and the, uh, connections that I have to give it that voice and to make sure that we’re doing the best thing for corrections as well.
Brent Dowlen: What do we need to know about you?
Joey Kriete: Oh, boy. Well, I am, uh, I’ve, I’ve lived in Grant County my entire life. Efredo was a community that raised me [00:40:00] as a kid. Um, I am trying to count the generations back with, as afraid of resident, Grand County resident, but I think it’s around seven generations. And my family were one of the first settlers that, that came to Grant County.
Um, and this is my home. Uh, I was born and raised here, um, and I’m happy to, I’m happy to be here. I graduated from three to high school. I, uh, later went on and played baseball at Big Bend Community College, attended there, um, and raised, uh, Jennifer and I have raised two wonderful daughters, um, that, that are just great kids.
I’m very, I’m very lucky and very blessed to not only have the career that I’ve had, but the family that’s been alongside me, uh, the entire time. So, um, yeah, I guess, I guess that’s, I guess that’s about me, Brett. I don’t know how much more debt you want me to go on that.
Brent Dowlen: What is one accomplishment you’re exceptionally proud of in last year?[00:41:00]
Joey Kriete: Um, you know, I, I think that the, the biggest accomplishment, um, that I’m the most proud of because I, I didn’t realize the impact that it was going to have when we implemented our crime reduction team, which is that proactive team that we established in, uh, mid 2024. But I looked at the statistics that they’ve actually been able to do and the, and the change that they’ve done, um, I don’t know how to have the statistics in front of me, but between wire theft, uh, agricultural theft, uh, theft of fuel, um, different types of metal thefts and things like that, the reduction has been anywhere between 60% to 80% of reduction of those crimes and since they’ve been, since they’ve been in place in a year, and that’s only with a team of three, and we’re gonna expand it to a team of five.
I’m extremely excited to get that team expanded to see the impact that they can have. I’m probably most proud of [00:42:00] that, only because I didn’t expect the outcome to be that high, quite frankly. Um, another thing that I’m extremely proud of ... Sorry, I do have more than one, Brent. Hope you’re okay with that. So, um, is the opening of our new jail coming up here?
Um, our, our correction staff has worked so hard in the last two and a half years with their transition team to make sure that we are gonna be the most prepared that we can be to transition into this new jail and continue to grow the population when we get into that place. Um, we’ve also established a really good, um, investigator’s position within the jail.
That’s another thing that I’m very proud of because, again, I, I didn’t, I didn’t realize how successful it was really going to be. I knew we needed it. In fact, we’re the only jail in the state of Washington that has an investigator. Um, there’s prisons that do, but as county jails do, we’re the only one. And the, the, uh, impact that, that investigator has had by bridging communication [00:43:00] gaps between our correction staff and our investigators or deputies that are out in the field, even our municipal partners, they’ve worked really well for municipal partners too.
We’ve really been able to take some bad, bad people off the streets and, and murder suspects. We’ve been able to find them, locate them and get them off the streets because it’s established such a better communication piece through law enforcement, just from one position to be developed. Like I said, I, I didn’t realize the impact that position was going to have, but it was substantial.
It is really substantial what they’ve been able to do. So, um, the wellness piece, I’m extremely proud of that. We’re really branching our wellness into our deputies, um, and our staff corrections support deputies, uh, everyone, and it’s exciting to see, um, the buy-in that we’ve had with our staff now that we’re having some supervisors in multiple divisions that are becoming involved and becoming a voice and a, and a leader in the, in our peer support groups, in our wellness.
[00:44:00] Um, that’s, that’s exciting to me because the, like I said earlier, the healthier staff can be, the better service that they’re gonna provide their communities. Yeah. And, and in the long run at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about, is the service we provide to our community. So anything we can do to better our staff to be able to, to be healthier and well, um, to be able to get that best service for them, that’s, that’s a priority to me.
So, um, there’s ... I can keep going. I could. I’m just, I’m, I’m really proud of this agency as a whole, Brent, say the truth. It’s, it’s not ... If I could tell you the one thing that I’m proud of the most is probably the absolute involvement of everybody in the agency, because we have, we have been a phenomenal team.
We have amazing people that work for the Grand County Sheriff’s Office. I firmly believe that we have the best sheriff’s office in the state of Washington, um, because we have the team that has established it that way, and I’m, I’m, I’m probably the most proud of that, quite frankly. I’ve been here for 33 years, and I [00:45:00] don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of this agency than I am now.
Why should the people of Grant County trust you specifically to serve as their sheriff in becoming like the firm? Um, I, you know, I think I have a pretty good track record in this, in this first term that, uh, good things that we’ve done in the agency and done for the community first. Um, I’ll tell you every decision that I make within the sheriff’s office, it’s not always popular, um, it’s, it, but they are decisions that I make with the community in mind first because, like I said, we are, we are public servants first.
We’re not self-service. So every decision that I, that I make, it, it is with the community’s best interest in mind first, and then the agency is right alongside that. But the, those two have to be at the top every single time, and with, with no wavering about that. Like I said, it’s not, it’s not always popular, the decisions that I have to make.
[00:46:00] Um, they’re difficult decisions a lot of times, but I, I, I definitely make decisions that are one of the best for the organization and the community first, for sure. Um, we’re very transparent about that. We share all the information that we have on our Facebook page. Like I said, we, we, we share the same media information as we, as a, as a public gets.
They, they get the exact same information we share it because we have one platform and it makes it really easy to do that. I’m very accessible. I’m very easy to contact, whether it’s by my phone, by my email, by the office, it, it doesn’t matter. I’m, I’m pretty easily accessible, and I re- I return phone calls when I get them, or text messages when I get them, or emails when I get them.
Sometimes it takes a while, but I, but I will get back to you and return your message if you don’t catch me on my phone or my email. Um, but I, I wanna be accessible. I mean, I, I carry, I carry two phones with me just to make sure that I’m ac- accessible. Um, but that’s important to me because the accessibility of, of the sheriff is, it is important and it should be accessible.
[00:47:00] Um, like I said, I don’t, I don’t, uh, I don’t have all the answers out here, but I sure love getting ideas pushed at me and, and to make sure we can get answers together that are the best for the community and the organization. So I think those are the strong things that I bring to the table. Um, and, and I think that we’ve got a, we’ve established a pretty good track record in the last three years of the great improvements and, and the reduction of specific crimes that we’ve done with the
And we’ve proactively addressed those. We’re trying to find ways to stop them from happening instead of being so reactive. Um, and I think that that’s one piece that we’ve missed over the years is not having a specific proactive piece to try to prevent crimes from happening instead of just reacting to them and, and we’re on the right track.
We are on the right track.
Brent Dowlen: What is your vision for the next term of the Grand County Sheriff’s Office?
Joey Kriete: So the foundation that we’ve built, Grant, is, is great, but what I want to do is I want to elevate that, that foundation. Um, I want to expand our specialty and that’s our crime reduction team for that proactive [00:48:00] policing that we’re doing.
I want to, uh, get our specialized teams backfilled and so we’re now running as a, as an efficient sheriff’s office. Um, recruitment has been so heavy for us and now we’re getting to the point where you’re full staffed. Now we get to see the rewards of being full staffed, um, and being able to establish that to make sure that we’re providing the best service to our community.
Moving forward is we’re going to strengthen our wellness program. Um, we’re, we’re just scratching the surface of that. Wellness for our, our, our employees is the forefront for me, um, to make sure that we are providing the best, the best service of deputies that we have at the agency to our community. Um, I’ve already said it a million times, but, but, but well deputies provide great service.
Um, tho- those are, those are some things that are, that are important to me moving forward. And I, and I think that we’re going to continue to develop and do some great things. Um, being partners with all of our [00:49:00] municipal partners and federal partners in the community, like I said, we can’t do it alone. We have to have everybody’s help to do it and be successful.
And I think that’s one thing that we’ve done really good at the Sheriff’s office is, is implementing a lot of good ideas that have come from our community. I know. Um, like I said, I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I love having conversations with people to give me ideas and help me think outside the box because sometimes legislatively, we’ve been forced to do that sometimes.
So that’s, uh, that’s kind of what my vision moving forward is. Um, and, uh, I think we’ve got a really good start this first, this first four years, and then I think the next four are gonna be very exciting.
Brent Dowlen: Thank you for taking your time.
Joey Kriete: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Website Bio
Proud to serve as Grant County Sheriff. 33 years in law enforcement, 15 years in executive leadership. Committed to public safety, transparency, proactive policing, and working with our communities to keep Grant County safe.
Website: https://www.krieteforgcsheriff.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/electjoekrieteforsheriff
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This interview is presented as part of our commitment to providing accessible, local information to the community. All candidates in the 2026 Grant County Sheriff’s race were given the same questions, in the same format, and the opportunity to share their perspectives directly.
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