Despite some empty seats at a forum this week, it looks like commitments are solid for the May 7 and May 13 events.

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?

There's one big question about the whole brouhaha over Sheriff Bob Brooks' contacts database, the one that he fired Geoff Dean for asking about (or trying to steal, depending on whom you believe): Just what's in that database?

We don't want to leave any questions unanswered, so we've posted the entire database online. Just go to this article and click on the link under "documents," on the upper left-hand side of the page.

The file is pretty much just what Brooks says it is: an electronic Rolodex, a long list (331 pages) of everybody who's passed the sheriff a business card during his career. There are a lot of blanks, because the sheriff's office redacted some of the contact information and a few of the names, for purposes of security and confidentiality (for example, some of the sheriff's contacts might be people who do undercover police work).

The database would certainly be useful to someone who wanted to run for sheriff -- otherwise, Dean wouldn't have been interested in it. But it doesn't appear to be a fundraising database. There's nothing in it that notes anyone's political leanings or campaign donations.

I asked the sheriff's office for the database last year, after I read the Civil Service Commission report on Dean's alleged attempts to access it. I cited the California Public Records Act, which guarantees public access to government records unless they fall into a few well-defined exemptions. By complying with my request, the sheriff seemed to admit that the database was indeed a public record.

So, if it was public, why was Geoff Dean disciplined for asking about it? Couldn't he have just filed his own public records request?

I'm not entirely certain, but there are a few possible answers. First, if Dean had gotten the version of the database that the sheriff gave us, it would have been missing a lot of valuable information (the names and phone numbers that were redacted).

Second, perhaps Brooks would have had to comply with a public records request and given Dean the database, but the sheriff still could have disciplined Dean for asking. Dean was a chief deputy at the time, which means he was essentially a political appointee, serving at the pleasure of the sheriff. Civil service rules don't protect his right to be a chief deputy -- which is why the Civil Service Commission couldn't order Brooks to bring Dean back at that rank. Instead, he was rehired as a commander, which is a civil service-protected position.

As Scott Hadly detailed in today's paper (the story is here), Diane White, a former administrative assistant in the Sheriff's Department, surfaced yesterday with a harsh letter about candidate Geoff Dean. White was the office worker who Dean approached in 2008 with questions about a database of Sheriff Bob Brooks' contacts. White says Dean was trying to steal it; Dean disputes that characterization.

White's story doesn't really add much to what we already knew about this incident, but it does give us the firsthand perspective of one of the key players. The Civil Service Commission investigated the incident and decided that Dean's offense was a minor one; Brooks disagrees, and now we know that so does White.

Unfortunately, Civil Service Commission reports are not public records, so we're not able to provide you with the entire report. As the subject of the hearing, only Geoff Dean can waive the report's confidentiality. He allowed us at the Star to read the report and write about it, but he did not give us permission to post it on our website. The reason, he said, was that innocent third parties (such as Diane White, I assume) were named in the report, and he wanted to protect their privacy. It will be interesting to see if he keeps that stance, now that White is speaking publicly.

I've just confirmed with the county elections office that the county clerk-recorder, who oversees elections, has rejected the candidate statements submitted by three candidates in the June primary: Geoff Dean, a candidate for sheriff; Mark Lunn, a candidate for clerk-recorder; and Lela Henke-Dobroth, a candidate for judge.

The candidate's statement is an optional 200-word statement submitted by the candidate to be printed on the sample ballots that registered voters get in the mail before the election. Getting your statement rejected is not that unusual -- it happened to someone in both the 2006 and 2008 county elections -- and it's not a major disaster. The next step for Dean, Lunn and Henke-Dobroth will be to rewrite their statements and submit them to a judge. If the judge approves of the rewrite, he will order the statement included on the sample ballot.

So, why did the clerk-recorder's office reject Dean's, Lunn's and Henke-Dobroth's statements? At the moment, it's hard to say. The Elections Division office is closed for the weekend, so I won't get a look at the rejected statements until Monday.

There are very strict rules about what you can and can't say in your statement. The most common no-no is mentioning your opponent in any way, even vaguely. Two years ago, Socorro Lopez Hanson was running against Supervisor Kathy Long and had her initial attempt at a candidate statement rejected because it had the phrases, "It is time to set political games aside," and "It is time for a strong, courteous supervisor." She did not mention Long by name.

Here's what the county's handbook for candidates has to say about what should be in the statement:

Each statement may include the name, age and occupation of the candidate and a brief description of the candidate's education and qualifications expressed by the candidate.
... 
Comments on opponents have been disallowed by the courts. The statement shall not include the party affiliation of the candidate, nor membership or activity in partisan political organizations. 
 
Any candidate's statement shall be limited to a recitation of the candidate's own personal
background and qualifications, and shall not in any way make reference to other candidates for that office or to another candidate's qualifications, character, or activities.

We'll be back next week with the full story of why these candidates' statements were rejected, and we'll follow their attempts to get a revised statement on the sample ballot.

One last thing about candidate statements: they aren't cheap. The candidate has to pay for their share of the printing costs of the sample ballot. You have to pay a deposit first, and then if the actual cost of printing is lower or higher, the payment is adjusted. The deposit this year for a countywide office (like sheriff, judge or clerk-recorder) was $5,050.

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.