Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby is looking to make positive changes within the Sheriff’s Office. For him, it all starts with building stronger relationships with the community and the county as a whole.
Rigby, who is in his second term as sheriff, is not ignorant to the year the Sheriff’s Office has had in 2025. After a series of public safety issues were brought to the attention of the Wasatch County Council in March, a retired Third District Court judge was tapped to lead a third-party investigation into goings-on in the Sheriff’s Office.
The Wasatch County Council said in the report published in September that there was no illegal activity or “gross mismanagement” found.
But Richard McKelvie, who conducted the investigation, detailed instances of reported favoritism, retaliation, misuse of county property, investigation interference and other “shortcomings.” McKelvie collected his findings through interviews with current and former employees of the Sheriff’s Office, along with conversations with other law enforcement officials.
Rigby, who denied any wrongdoing by himself or the Sheriff’s Office, has made efforts to quell the fire since the report was published in September. In December, Rigby suggested that members of the Wasatch County Council should meet up with the Sheriff’s Office each quarter to improve communication and cooperation.
“It’s not just, let’s accomplish this generic thing and that generic thing, but it’s actually stuff that’s tied to what we’re working on and experiencing in Wasatch right now,” Rigby said. “The main priority is to build stronger relationships and relationships of trust within the Sheriff’s Office and in the broader community.”
Rigby said the Sheriff’s Office has also acted on the recommendations made in the investigation. That includes what he referred to as “follow-up.”
“Follow-up in law enforcement really means us working well with the citizens when it comes to cases and investigations and making sure that they have the latest updates, and even if we don’t have necessarily anything that’s recent of an update — that they still hear from us, so that they know that we’re actively engaged in their case,” Rigby said.
Feedback, he said, is also crucial at this time. That means monitoring how the Sheriff’s Office is doing through a community lens.
“We want to monitor both inside and outside the office how our partners in our community are feeling about the services that we’re providing for them,” Rigby said.
That’s where community engagement comes in for Rigby.
“We know that regardless of whatever community a person lives in or serves in, it comes down to relationships and to trust, and so the legitimacy of law enforcement and the government overall,” Rigby said.
Part of that includes Rigby’s hope to have quarterly meetings with law enforcement agencies along the Wasatch Back. That’s one issue also featured in recommendations from McKelvie’s findings — better collaboration with other law enforcement entities in Wasatch and Summit counties.
The county has also hired a professional standards director to monitor goings-on in the Sheriff’s Office. At a Wasatch County Council meeting on Dec. 17, Councilor Spencer Park suggested the hire come from outside the Sheriff’s Office to provide review without “fear of retribution.”
Kurt Cottrell is now in the role, and retired Washington City Police Chief Jim Keith was also hired in a temporary position to help provide an “outside perspective” on the Sheriff’s Office.
“[Keith] has worked one on one with agencies in helping them to identify the areas that they can make their offices stronger and relationships with their communities stronger,” Rigby said. “What we’ve been trying to do is to identify within the office how the employees really are feeling, and to do that anonymously.”
Rigby said he also wants to emphasize giving current employees a boost. It’s about being proactive, he said, and providing professional development and mentoring to get Sheriff’s Office employees where they need to be.
“We’re doing the best that we can as a department to get them the training and the opportunities that they’re hoping to get,” Rigby said. “We’re going to focus more in 2026 on identifying with employees what it is they are after and then coming up with individualized plans.”