As coronavirus cases rise in nearby counties, Power County Chief Deputy Max Sprague says the Sheriff’s Office is taking precautions and making preparations for the instance when or if the virus hits its cities.

Sprague, who has been chief deputy for about four years and is running for Power County sheriff in January 2021’s election, says that routines have already changed for their patrol deputies as they adapt to serving the community during the times of the pandemic.

“For our patrol deputies, their lives have been turned around pretty drastically," he said. "… Right now, they have become more of a community helper type of person.”

The city of American Falls has developed a food bank that the Sheriff’s Office is assisting by transporting food to residents in need, and if the virus hits the city, Sprague says the patrol deputies will adopt more roles to help.

“If it does hit Power County pretty hard, our duties are going to swap into more of a community policing type of program where we deal more with community relations,” he said. “We’ll be helping people out, bringing them packages and food or whatever they need instead of them coming out of their residence if they are ill or can’t come out for whatever reason.”

While the situation is serious, Sprague says that he has had experience dealing with large law enforcement operations over the 15 years of working at the Sheriff’s Office and is confident in his and his deputies’ abilities to handle the situation as it comes.

“Having that experience now is really paying off because with this completely unknown COVID-19 situation that is going on and having our state shut down, it’s easier to deal with it because I’ve managed big situations like this before,” he said. “There’s a chain of command and a process that you follow, and if you develop a good goal, you have good communication and have good information coming in and out (and) you can do a lot of things and stay safe.”

Currently, Sprague said their short-term goal is keeping everyone in the community safe and healthy — from the deputies to the dispatchers to the citizens to the inmates and jailers at the jail. He stressed the importance of maintaining good health and obeying the request sent out by Gov. Brad Little to social distance and close non-essential businesses.

While the primary election for Power County will be held in May, Sprague says that right now his focus is on keeping the citizens of the county safe.

“I think the election is going to take care of itself, and I don’t know how that will shake out,” he said. “What I need to do is stay focused on doing my very best to meet the needs of our citizens and our businesses while doing everything I can to meet the needs of our employees and inmates and … the other entities within Power County. This is something we’re all going to have to work together at and with the election that’s down the road a ways, we’ll cross that bridge when we need to.”

Sprague, whose father Howard Sprague was Power County sheriff from 1977 to 2005, has been around law enforcement all his life. He attended the Law Enforcement Program at Idaho State University, became a bailiff for a short time and soon afterward became a juvenile probation officer in the early 2000s. He was the detective for the Power County Sheriff’s Office from 2005 to 2015 until he stepped into the position of chief deputy.

“I’ve been at the Power County Sheriff’s Office since my father was sheriff there for a long time,” he said. “And through that process I developed a lot of good friendships with some really smart people, and I basically rode their coat tails on how they did things, and I had a couple (mentors) going through all of it that taught me well. I think that had a great deal with having me be here today.”

Sprague mentioned that over the years he’s learned that it is crucial to understand how all the divisions at the Sheriff’s Office function and how important good relationships with all the moving parts of a county are.

“And while you’re doing all that, you have to be fiscally responsible and making sure you’re doing the right things with the taxpayers’ money,” he said. “Another thing that is unique to us is we have a reservation within our county so those relationships with the Sho-Ban Tribe become important. I think we have a really good relationship with them, we have to have a good relationship with the commissioners, with the prosecutors, so it’s all really important.”

He also has long-term goals for each department that he hopes they can tackle, which include an upgrade they are currently implementing to their 911 system that will allow the dispatchers to be in two different locations, which fits in well with the social distancing rule.

Another goal is to upgrade a medical program on their computer system that will allow dispatchers to give callers with medical concerns advice on what to do and how to do it.

“That’s really critical, I’d like to expand on that,” he said. “It basically makes everything consistent so we are … following the procedures every time.”

As for the detention center, they do not have an isolation cell which could be used for ill inmates, so Sprague said he would like to pursue a solution to that as well.

Another goal that Sprague would like to implement if he became sheriff is being involved more with the community.

“In patrol, one of the important things to me, and I might be kind of unique in this, is I want to lean toward more of the community policing effort,” he said. “I would like to have those deputies be more socially involved with our communities. We have also been blessed to have good equipment and good training and I would like to continue on with that.”

Sprague will be running as a Democratic candidate for sheriff, although in light of the political environment, he says it’s incredibly important for everyone to be united especially during this time of crisis.

“In a small town everybody knows everybody, and right now it’s a good thing,” he said. “Because since you know everybody you care about everybody … and Power County has a relatively older population and this could affect them a great deal and we should all hold together. We shouldn’t go to one side or the other. We should be in the middle, and say, ‘OK, this is a problem, a really serious problem, but we can get through this.’”

He continued, “This has a light at the end of the tunnel but we just have to be smart on how we get there. And if we’re smart on how we get there, if we follow what (experts) say, I think that’s the smartest way to move forward because that’s going to get us to the end of the tunnel faster.”