Rumors Swirl of Sheriff Takeover of OPD
Olney City Administrator Simon Dwyer - a reserve Young County sheriff ’s deputy and instructor - told the Enterprise on Aug. 25 he has discussed the idea of of bolstering the Olney Police Department’s ranks with Young County sheriff ’s deputies following the resignation of OPD Chief Dan Birbeck in May.
The revelation tracks with persistent rumors that the Young County Sheriff ’s Office will soon take over the OPD.
Chief Birbeck resigned from the OPD after multiple clashes with Mr. Dwyer, a former Olney Police officer, over what Chief Birbeck described as Mr. Dwyer’s attempts to defund the OPD budget, as well as improper behavior by Mr. Dwyer.
Chief Birbeck said his decision to take the police chief ’s job at the City of Vernon stemmed from city leaders’ failure to act on these reports.
Shortly after Chief Birbeck left Olney to take the police chief ’s job in the City of Vernon, Lane Burgess, the chairman of the Young County Republican Party, told the Enterprise and others that Sheriff Travis Babcock and city officials were discussing disbanding the OPD and turning the newly inaugurated Perry Public Safety Building on South Grand Avenue into a deputy substation.
“It was during that time we had all that turmoil around,” Mr. Burgess, chairman of the Young County Republican Party, said on Friday. “Some of the City Council was kicking around that idea. I have heard since then in the last three weeks that several city council members went to Graham to talk to the Sheriff.”
Sheriff Babcock could not be reached for comment.
Both Olney Mayor Rue Rogers and Young County Judge Win Graham have repeatedly denied that such plans were being discussed, but the rumors have persisted. Mr. Dwyer said after the Aug. 25 City Council meeting that he did, in fact, have a “closed-door meeting” with Sheriff Babcock to discuss the possible departure of OPD officers after Chief Birbeck’s resignation.
“I don’t know of anyone that has (met with Sheriff Babcock) and I haven’t met with him,” Mayor Rogers said. “Council has had zero discussions of that and has no plans to have those conversations. That is not something we have discussed and not the path to move forward. We are in the process of interviewing police chief candidates and planning to move down that path.”
Although Mr. Dwyer described the proposal as a temporary measure, he has proposed shutting down the Olney dispatch service and handing those duties to the Young County Sheriff ’s Office, which Olney first responders say is already overburdened and often slow to respond to local emergencies.
Olney Volunteer Fire Department Captain Jason Pack said the OVFD “would hate to lose dispatch ... and don’t want to lose our local police department” because Olney dispatcher Brandy Blodgett knows the area better than the Graham-based dispatchers.
Mr. Dwyer also has proposed several changes to the OPD budget for the 2026 fiscal year that some say would undercut the department’s ability to attract new officers, including his proposal to purchase the department’s high-mileage, hail-damaged cruisers rather than turning them in as part of the existing lease program and obtaining new vehicles.
Chief Birbeck told the City Council before his departure that the lease program was crucial to keeping the police fleet reliably maintained and to retaining Olney officers. Before the program was instituted and approved by the City Council in 2023, Olney officers had not infrequently had to have their aging patrol vehicles towed during call-outs, he said.
Earlier this summer, Mr. Dwyer told the Enterprise that continuing the lease program was more expensive than purchasing the leased vehicles. Chief Birbeck told the Council earlier this year that the vehicles were becoming unreliable, expensive to repair and maintain, and needed to be turned in for new models.
Mr. Dwyer has balked at repairing hail damage on the police vehicles, and on Aug. 25, said the OPD could not lease new vehicles until the city completed three outstanding financial audits. Chief Birbeck said audits were not a condition of the lease program.
Mr. Dwyer also stated that Animal Control Officer Hollie Hawkins, who was left without a vehicle to conduct her animal control and code enforcement duties, should not receive a new vehicle but should drive an aging vehicle driven by a police investigator that is not equipped to transport animals “because it’s not as new and as expensive as the … K9 (vehicle).”
Mr. Dwyer also proposed cutting the $18,000 salary of OPD evidence manager John Vasquez from the police department’s budget and handing his duties to Ms. Blodgett, who has had no training in evidence management.
Mr. Vasquez’s expert processing of evidence was crucial in obtaining convictions in dozens of drug and child sex assault cases investigated by the OPD during Chief Birbeck’s tenure, according to Young County District Attorney Dee Peavy.
“We are extremely fortunate to have John Vasquez as our evidence technician. His level of expertise and his professionalism are above reproach,” Mrs. Peavy said. “Those qualities make him an outstanding State’s witness which is so essential to successful prosecution.”
Adding fuel to the ru-mors, an OPD employee received a text message from the Sheriff ’s administrative assistant Karen Vaughn last week, indicating that Sheriff ’s Office employees had been told that Olney’s dispatch service would soon be shut down.
“Well it looks like we will be taking over anyway lol,” the text message read.
If the OPD were disbanded, Olney also would lose its health and fire inspection and code enforcement functions, set up by Chief Birbeck during his tenure.
A cautionary tale can be found in the City of Quanah’s decision to disband its police department in 2003.
Quanah has been paying the Hardeman County Sheriff to provide law enforcement since that time.
In 2016, Newschannel 6 in Wichita Falls reported receiving a stream of complaints from Quanah residents that their town had been taken over by drugs, corruption, and theft due to the poor response times and lack of action taken by the sheriff ’s office.