BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL
On January 13th, 2025 Morgan Ballis officially began his tenure as Sheriff of Blaine County. After a successful campaign and the trust of the community Ballis has begun a new administration in complete coherence with the operational brilliance of the previous organization.
Ballis has already had a major challenge and responded quickly and accurately to dispel anxieties aand fear around potential ICE raids. Now he looks at an unprecedented transition due to the upcoming World Cup. This magnified event presents a challenge not usually reserved for the first quarter of a sheriff’s term. The entire world is watching Sun Valley in the coming months; how will that present itself to his new administration?
3 Weeks In
Ballis extends utmost respect and admiration for the organization already in place. “I’m working with an extremely professional staff, completely in touch with what’s going on in our community and with the needs of our community at the forefront. I can’t say enough for the efficacy of the system in place, the officers, the camaraderie. So, the first three weeks for me have been really about learning the systems that are there and identifying what is, first of all, even necessary. But also what are some things we can look at shorthand and what are some strategic goals that we need over the next four to 10 years to move the sheriff’s office in the direction that we need to continue supporting our Valley?”
Goals and strategies are crucial. As Ballis puts it, the administration is already in excellence with its ability to keep the peace in the Valley. However, like any system there are points of potential bolt tightening that need addressed and these ideas come from the community’s needs.
“When it comes down to systems changes, it’s really identifying what the needs or wants are, looking at the data and best practices to support those things to make sure that our rollout is done right.
“So much of it is about creating an atmosphere where individuals understand and believe in themselves – that what we’re suggesting is the right path and they’re capable of doing it.
“A very simple example of this is that the community has been very vocal about wanting, in Ketchum specifically although this no doubt applies everywhere, to see more foot patrols from the deputies. They don’t currently feel like there is a personal relationship that had been there in the past.
“So I can easily come in and say, ‘Hey, during your shift, you’re going to conduct three to seven, foot patrols and you’re going to document those foot patrols’. The foot patrols themselves aren’t really the point. It is building relationships with the community.
“And so a better way to do that which we’ve already begun is starting at the command level. Okay, we’re all in agreement that foot patrols not only build community relations, but they are a proactive and a preventative way of policing to reduce crime. And so the command staff is on board with the message.
“From there, we go to the frontline supervisors and the sergeants and we talk to them. We want to see more foot patrols but there is no mandate on it. You guys are the ones on the ground that set the pace and example for those deputies underneath you. We need you to get out there and show them what that looks and feels like. It’s that full connection from the top down to help us build the idea, regardless of personalities. Some personalities, it might not be their forte? Right? But,when all understand the ‘why’ of building relationships and policing in this way, through the community’s requests, when they understand what we’re trying to do to build a connection and actually focus on prevention-based policing, now we start to create that initiative. And before long, what we’re going to see is that three to four foot patrols a shift is now just a common thing.
Decentralized Democracy
Ballis’ understanding of the psychology of teams and hierarchies is abundantly apparent, not merely in his own history of leading initiatives but his general approach to ideas.
Like the brilliant filmmaker Stanley Kubrick who asked for ideas from everyone, the security, the stand-ins, the gaffer, anyone, Ballis exemplifies the approach that decentralized, open ended ideation is the key to creating a harmonious organization that evolves navigates and self-corrects from every angle. Everyone’s voice matters and ideas are the currency.
“So what I did on one of my first days when we had our all-staff meeting is I call out to every single employee in the Sheriff’s Office to send me a list of their ideas and recommendations.
So this could be equipment-related, policy-related, there was literally nothing off the table, no matter how wild it was.
“That way we can see what the officers feel they may need or want to better do their job, but more importantly, to solicit ideas that were aligned with some of the strategic missions we’re creating. The reason I did that was because there are times the people on the ground know best, right? There are times, especially in a law enforcement agency, where there’s a chain of command, there’s a rank structure, times when amazing ideas either get cut off too soon, they get filtered too much, or they never make it to the people who have the power to make those decisions or truly consider the impact.
“I wanted from the get-go to create this direct line to myself on ideas that maybe had been put out there before, maybe things that had actually happened before, but somehow or for some reason went away. And one of the things that came out was creating a recruiting team within the sheriff’s office. What our guys want to do is create a more proactive peer-to-peer recruiting model that allows them to directly connect with individuals they know, at other agencies even, that might be interested. So that way they have a point of contact to come and talk, to do ride-alongs, to get information from each other in order to explore all the benefits that we have at the sheriff’s office, to get to know our team, to get to know our culture.
Coherent Culture
“We’re huge on not having a single point of failure, we need to make sure that anyone else can do the other person’s job effectively, so we build our future leaders. So when they’re coming to the command staff with these ideas we put it back on the officers ‘okay, you need to come up with a formal proposal. I need you to research these things.’
“We give them a point of contact or a mentor to go and ask questions so that way they can learn the process. And in areas where there’s certain challenges or maybe there’s a lot of officers that are interested in something, but budget wise, it doesn’t work out. It’s easy for us to tell them we can’t afford that. But It’s much more powerful to bring them in and show them how the budget actually works.”
Ballis is putting into place a deeply democratized, decentralized route to hearing from all angles, finding what works best, listening to the people who see the action to develop better ideas that serve the community.
“The culture we’re building is that everybody is a leader. Everybody has a voice. There’s no such thing as a bad idea, but we’re going to put it on you to go out there and do the legwork to justify why this change is what we need.
Solutions
This sounds a lot like a type of direct democracy stemming back to the height of civilization in Athens. Ballis is a solutions based leader. He’s already found a deep need, for instance, for conjunctional tourniquets through a connection with the Stop The Bleed program at St. Luke’s.
Ballis is completely in touch, constantly reaching out and has actionable awareness of the various programs, grants and initiatives in the community that can better serve the budgetary restraints and needs they face in their goals of bettering lives in Sun Valley.
ICE
Ballis was quick to put the ICE concerns to rest, explaining unsubstantiated rumors and in fact a group that perpetuates this type of fear mongering.
“What I wanted to make very clear, not just to that specific rumor, but the situation as a whole, is that those bad actors and those instigators that are either on their own, or in some cases operating as part of bigger organizations, it is literally part of their game plan to spread misinformation.
“Over the past three weeks, every other day, either the sheriff’s office in general, or me personally had people reaching out. We heard that ICE picked someone up here or we heard there was a raid there. Three weeks.
“It was a constant thing. And then on the 29th, those rumors escalated because there were social media posts by some businesses that spread it a lot faster and maybe added some degree of credibility to those rumors.
“These groups conduct psyops, no different than the military. But they leverage the current climate in order to maintain control over victims in order to continue to exploit victims.
“We have to be conscious as individuals that if we’re going to share information, take a step back and considering how valid is this? Am I actually contributing to any unnecessary fear and anxiety? Am I adding to it? And by default, actually helping these bad actors continue to victimize people? Yes, that happened.
“The end goal for them is that if victims aren’t reporting crimes, then their operation continues, right? Or in the cases where it is just a specific victim if we’re talking like a sexual assault or some sort of battery, these things are going to minimize the likelihood that a victim is willing to come and cooperate with law enforcement in order to pursue charges.
Crime Doesn’t Discriminate
Ballis is adamant about protecting the community. “We are here to support victims. We don’t care about an individual’s immigration status. Crime doesn’t care what your legal status is. You know, we’re not going to let individuals or organizations undermine the trust that we’ve worked so hard and will continue to work so hard to build.
As for a first year Ballis is firing on all pistons and coming at law enforcement through a team and community building perspective. He has his work cut out for him with the upcoming World Cup which brings celebrities, spectators and dignitaries of all status from across the world. Sun Valley is in the spotlight and Ballis’ team are on the front lines to continue the excellence set forth from Harkin’s previous administration.
Ballis has a monthly meetup planned to being just after the World Cup where you can see and speak to him in person. The availability and forward thinking is a fresh step to promoting the peace and security of this extraordinary Valley we all love.
