Sheriff Erik Holland Endorses Jason Maki for Presiding Commissioner

This week Sheriff Erik Holland told me he is endorsing my campaign for Platte County Presiding Commissioner. I want to share what he said, because I think it says something about where this county needs to go.

A little background for anyone who doesn’t know him. Sheriff Holland has been with the Platte County Sheriff’s Office since 1999. He worked his way up as a sergeant, a captain, and a major, served as the department’s general counsel, and was elected sheriff in 2024. He didn’t come to public safety from the outside. He has done the work for over 25 years.

Why this matters

The sheriff and I have talked, and we see a lot of the same things. Platte County is growing, and it is growing fast. Growth brings more calls, more traffic, and more pressure on the deputies and detention officers we already have. Neither of us thinks the county can afford to lose focus on that.

My campaign comes down to two things: public safety and public infrastructure. That’s the whole list. If the county is brilliant at those basics, everything else gets easier. Sheriff Holland’s endorsement tells me the person responsible for the first half of that list agrees.

What I told him

I told the sheriff the same thing I have been telling voters since this campaign started. Public safety gets funded first. Funded first, and funded fully, before we spend a dollar on anything that isn’t part of the county’s core mission.

For the people doing the work, that means five things: attract, retain, equip, train, and support. We have to pay deputies and detention officers enough that they don’t leave for the county next door after we’ve trained them. We have to give them the right equipment and the right training to do a dangerous job safely. And we have to fund the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office so that when a deputy makes an arrest, the case actually gets carried through. An arrest that goes nowhere is a revolving door, and every bad actor in the county learns exactly what that door means.

A partnership

The sheriff used the word partnership. The commission sets the budget. The sheriff runs the department. If those two offices aren’t pulling in the same direction, the people who pay for it are the citizens of Platte County, the deputies on the road, the detention officers in the county jail, and the families they protect. I intend to work with Sheriff Holland the way I have approached this whole campaign: show up, listen to the people doing the work, and then do what I said I would do.

This endorsement comes on top of the endorsements from the Kansas City firefighters of IAFF Local 42 and Fraternal Order of Police Lodges #99 and #50. I am grateful for every one of them.

Sheriff Holland, thank you.