Geoff Dean and Dennis Carpenter seem a lot more interested in debating each other than some of this season's other candidates. Last night they faced off for the 5th time already, and there are three more debates scheduled that will be open to the general public (plus a few more for smaller groups that might not be open to everyone).

Our coverage is here. As you can see, there weren't a lot of fireworks. Dean and Carpenter don't seem to disagree on their basic approaches to police work. There was one awkward moment for Carpenter: one of the panelists asked the candidates which new programs or community policing initiatives they would put into place as sheriff, and Carpenter drew a blank. He paused for a moment and then passed on the question. Dean seized the opportunity to talk about how he thinks the department needs a greater emphasis on community policing, better use of crime stats, and better use of technology in general.

We've had some requests to broadcast one of these debates live on our website, and we do plan to do that. That does take some resources on our part, so we can really only do it once for this race. We've decided to webcast one of the League of Women Voters debates next month. Keep your eyes on the paper and this blog for more information.

The Star is often asked to participate in those debates, by supplying some of the questions. What do you think we should ask the candidates for sheriff? Comment away and we'll pass your suggestions along to whoever ends up moderating.

Geoff Dean's campaign announced today that Supervisor Steve Bennett has endorsed Dean's candidacy for Sheriff. That means a majority of the Board of Supervisors -- Bennett, Kathy Long and John Zaragoza -- are all in the Dean camp. Interestingly enough, those are the three supervisors who represent West County districts. The two East County supes -- Peter Foy and Linda Parks -- haven't made endorsements in the sheriff's race. Maybe that's because they're both busy running their own re-election campaigns.

Dean's opponent, Dennis Carpenter, doesn't have as many endorsements from local elected officials. But he has one that might be the biggest of all: current Sheriff Bob Brooks.

For a full list of Dean's endorsements, click here. Carpenter's endorsement page is here.

As the election gets closer, we'll be compiling our own list of each candidate's top supporters. In the meantime, tell us what you think -- do endorsements matter? Does it matter that the current sheriff wants Carpenter in the job, or that the sheriff before him endorsed Dean?

My esteemed colleague Scott Hadly has taken over coverage of the race for Ventura County Sheriff, and today he brings us a story about the latest debate between the two candidates. He noticed the same thing that I did when I covered their last debate:

... Chief Deputy Dennis Carpenter and Cmdr. Geoff Dean agreed more than they disagreed on things such as community policing, dealing with the county jail issues and law enforcement budgets.

Their differences have less to do with arresting bad guys and more to do with each other.

Read the whole thing here.

It's difficult to understand the personal nature of this race without knowing a little of the background -- the very short version is, Dean was fired by Sheriff Bob Brooks and then reinstated on the orders of the county Civil Service Commission. This story from about a year ago goes into some of the details.