Gerald Sticker was elected Saturday to be Tangipahoa Parish’s next sheriff, a job that will hand him a host of budget problems that he has said might force him to seek a tax increase.
Sticker, who served as Mandeville’s police chief from 2016 to 2021, defeated Chris Gideon, a former sheriff’s deputy, with more than 61% of the vote.
Sticker's ascension to power on July 1 will mark the first time in 56 years that neither an Edwards nor a Layrisson serves as sheriff.
He will replace Daniel Edwards, the brother of Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has held the position for the past 20 years. Eddie Layrisson preceded Daniel Edwards and succeeded Frank Edwards Jr.
Sticker, who graduated from Ponchatoula High School, is believed to be the first Republican sheriff in Tangipahoa Parish since the original sheriff of Tangipahoa, H.H. Bankston, was appointed to the position in 1869, said Samuel Hyde, a history professor at the University of Southeastern Louisiana.
Sticker, 52, touted his experience as police chief in Mandeville, his training stints at the FBI academy in Virginia and his service as a Marine in Iraq and Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm.
During the campaign, Sticker promised to increase the number of sheriff’s deputies on call, to decrease response times on 911 calls, to recruit more reserve sheriff deputies and to provide deputies with additional training and equipment.
“The response times are horrible,” Sticker said in a recent interview, adding, residents “don’t see deputies.”
Sticker said a lack of funds is the biggest issue.
He and others say the parish jail in Amite is outmoded. Bry Layrisson, the police chief of Ponchatoula and a son of Eddie Layrisson, said it ought to be “bulldozed.”
“They can’t pay deputies, and the turnover rate is very bad,” Sticker said, adding that once he takes over from Daniel Edwards, he plans to review the department’s operations to determine how to reduce costs. Deputies earn $16 to $18 per hour as starting pay, which is less than what police officers in Hammond and Ponchatoula receive.
“I think inevitably there needs to be a tax increase of some sort,” Sticker said. But, he added, given the “general distrust in how government spends its money, I want to make sure I’ve done everything I can to make my personal stamp on it with the resources at hand.”
Daniel Edwards said he built up the department’s reserves to $10 million but is running a $1.5 million deficit during the current fiscal year that is drawing down those reserves.
Tangipahoa Parish is one of the fastest growing parishes in Louisiana, as people flee the congestion of neighboring Livingston and St. Tammany. But Tangipahoa Parish voters last approved a tax increase under Eddie Layrisson in 1980. Voters rejected a half-cent sales tax in 2011 that Daniel Edwards and parish leaders sought.
Chris Gideon, a former sheriff's deputy in Tangipahoa Parish, is a candidate in 2023 to sheriff.
Gideon, 52, worked as a sheriff’s deputy for 15 years until Daniel Edwards let him go in 2004, after Gideon’s brother Tim Gideon lost the sheriff’s race to Daniel Edwards. Chris Gideon then owned a couple of companies that provided services to law enforcement agencies.
Like Sticker, Gideon said during his campaign that the sheriff’s office needed to pay higher salaries to deputies and said he hadn’t ruled out a tax increase if he won the election.
First, however, he said he would try to find enough ways to trim spending to make additional revenue unnecessary.
“We have to show the public we’re running it as efficiently as we can,” Gideon said.
Daniel Edwards has promised a smooth transition for the next sheriff.
