DeSotel sworn as Jones County's new sheriff

Retirement just didn't work out for Jones County's new sheriff.

“After your retire, sometimes you think, ‘Wow this is great,'” Harvey DeSotel said Friday morning, minutes after being sworn in. “And sometimes your life takes a turn.”

Meeting in special session, county supervisors voted 3-2 Friday morning to appoint DeSotel to serve out the term of Mark Denniston, who submitted his resignation May 24. DeSotel was sworn in at 10:30 a.m.

Supervisors Leo Cook, Joe Cruise, and Kate Dirks voted in favor of DeSotel's appointment, county auditor Janine Sulzner said. Ned Rohwedder and Wayne Manternach dissented.

DeSotel, 61, Anamosa, retired in 2007 as a sergeant from the Linn County Sheriff's Office after 30 years. Before that, he was a member of Anamosa's police department the town marshal in Oxford Junction, Wyoming, and Oelwein.

DeSotel began work for the Jones County Sheriff's Office on the courthouse security detail a few months after his retirement.

Denniston recommended DeSotel, a retired Linn County sheriff's deputy, to fill out his term. Rick LaMere, a retired Drug Enforcement Agency agent, also applied for the job. Supervisors interviewed the applicants Tuesday.

“He wanted to have somebody in the department who knew the department and knew the runnings of the department to finish out the remaining term,” said DeSotel. “Since I'm retired, I wouldn't afraid of losing my job like some of the deputies” when the current term ends.

That term is up in 2012. DeSotel said he hasn't decided if he'll run then.

“People have asked me that,” he said. “To be quite honest, I'm not sure. There's a lot of circumstances and I don't want to evade the issue, but you never say never.”

County residents have two weeks to file a petition for a special election to fill the position, but “I haven't heard anything on that,” Sulzner said.

Denniston, 51, has been Jones County sheriff since 1996, and was last re-elected in 2008. He started as a deputy in 1983.