Allen Medina
Democratic Party
How does your experience make you qualified to represent the people?
My qualification to serve as your Sheriff stems from a career built on the front lines of Pueblo County’s public safety framework, alongside the dedicated men and women who do this job every day. Having served extensively as a Sergeant within both the detention and patrol bureaus; including investigations, I have a ground-level understanding of our agency's operational strengths and its systemic vulnerabilities. For the past two years, I have expanded on that foundation by serving as a Parole Officer, giving me unique insight into state-level law enforcement, community reintegration, and how to effectively break the cycle of repeat offenses.
A qualified Sheriff cannot lead effectively from a distance, nor can they lead while at war with their own staff. True leadership requires a deep, institutional knowledge of the jail, the streets, and a mutual respect with the personnel who protect our community. My decades of service to this community and my country mean I won’t face a learning curve on day one. I am ready to step in immediately to stabilize operations, support our deputies, and deliver the proactive law enforcement Pueblo County deserves.
What are your top policy priorities?
Our campaign is focused on concrete, actionable policy priorities designed to build a safer, more transparent, and united Pueblo County:
Repairing Labor Relations & Ending Frivolous Litigation: True leadership means sitting at the negotiating table with your employees, not taking them to court. On day one, I will direct the immediate dismissal of the lawsuit filed by the current administration against the State of Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, and most importantly, the members of the union at the Sheriff's Office, IBPO Local #837. We will restore good-faith collective bargaining and treat our workforce with the respect they have earned. A Sheriff should follow all of the laws he enforces and not disregard the ones he thinks don't apply to him.
Restoring Specialized Units: The community deserves targeted, specialized law enforcement. We will re-establish a dedicated Traffic Unit to secure our roadways and a Metro Gang Unit to proactively dismantle violent street crime and drug trafficking at the root.
Fixing Jail Operations & Restoring Work Release: We will bring back the Work Release Program to provide structured, accountable community reintegration for eligible offenders. Alongside this, we will introduce a strict 4-hour holding policy for specific offenses at the Pueblo County Jail. This ensures individuals who pose an immediate disruption or threat are properly processed and held to close the 'revolving door' that frustrates both our citizens and arresting officers.
Community-Centered Transparency: We will modernize how the Sheriff’s Office communicates with the public, utilizing regular digital updates and public notifications so residents are always informed about active safety initiatives and how their tax dollars are being utilized.
What is one issue you think is being overlooked in this race, and how would you address it?
A critical issue being overlooked in this race is how poor internal labor relations and administrative inefficiencies are directly impacting public safety. When an administration spends time, energy, and taxpayer resources suing its own deputies—as we've seen with the current lawsuit against the union at the Sheriff's Office—morale plummets, retention suffers, and frontline staff are stretched thin. I am a staunch supporter of labor, and I am honored that the hardworking deputies and staff of IBPO Local #837, the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police FOP (including 67 local lodges across the state, representing more than 10,000 active and retired law enforcement members) as well as the Southern Colorado Labor Council strongly support our campaign.
I cannot dismiss the immediate need for structural and operational accountability regarding how our agency's existing time and personnel are managed. Public safety suffers when frontline deputies are stretched thin by inefficient internal administrative processes, outdated intake procedures, or logistical bottlenecks.
We don't just need a larger budget; we need better stewardship of the resources and personnel we already have. To address this, I will implement an immediate top-to-bottom operational audit of our deployment schedules and jail intake pipelines. By repairing our relationship with labor, streamlining administrative burdens, and fixing the systemic bottlenecks that keep deputies off the streets, we can maximize our proactive patrol presence and ensure our personnel are positioned where the community needs them most. True accountability means running a disciplined, unified operation that supports its workforce before asking the taxpayers for more.
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