Editorial: Corpus should immediately resign

While the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office was moving in line with those changes, it seemed a fresh start was in order as questions lingered over operational decisions and loyalties. Corpus had the requisite experience and made proactive transparency and communication her campaign’s central premise.

Organizational change is not an easy lift, but it can be done through mutual respect, collaboration and open communication. Leadership takes flexibility, listening and compassion. The men and women of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office are undergoing challenges from a changing perspective on policing, a high cost of living, and the day-to-day hardships of their jobs investigating crimes, keeping our community safe, and supporting and overseeing inmates at our county jail. There are sacrifices made every single day.

Our county’s deputy sheriffs have made it abundantly clear there is a high level of dissatisfaction in the decisions of both Sheriff Corpus and her close ally Victor Aenlle, who has operated as chief of staff. Sheriff’s sergeants and captains also have made it abundantly clear they have no confidence. The Board of Supervisors have no confidence.

Neither do we.

Corpus began her tenure as sheriff with great promise, and vowed for a new day. She may have faced challenges greater than we know in enacting her philosophy, but she did not meet those challenges. In fact, she fell far short.

The information in the report by Judge LaDoris Cordell is a litany of failures by Corpus, though it focuses much on Aenlle. Each page clearly shows an organization in chaos, severely strained by a lack of leadership, compassion and flexibility at best and saturated by corruption, vindictiveness, paranoia and a cloudy sense of reality at worst. It is a tragedy of the highest order.

Cordell has a stellar reputation forged by years of experience in exactly this type of work. Her perspective is clear-eyed and resolute. Her report has merit.

There is no clear path forward for Corpus in this office. There is no way anyone can read the Cordell report, and Corpus’ incomplete and combative responses to it, and think this is a good department with a promising future. The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office is now a salvage job, with its leader mired in a jaundiced crisis of her own making.

The men and women of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office deserve far better than this. The people of San Mateo County deserve far better than this. There is only one clear choice to allow for a true fresh start and new beginning. Corpus should immediately resign.