End of an Era December 31, 2010 eaving Department NICHOLAS DRANEY/Standard-Examiner Outgoing Weber County Sheriff Brad Slater (left) and new Weber County Sheriff Terry Thompson give a tour of the 12th Street jail in Ogden on Wednesday. Weber County Sheriff signing off from his police radio By TIM GURRISTER Standard-Examiner staff tgurrister@standard.net OGDEN — After 30 years with the Weber County Sheriff's Office, mostly running it, Brad Slater says, "Most of the people we deal with are good people. "There are a few knuckleheads, but most in here are good people who just made a very bad mistake. I tell people that more often now than when I started." The occasion earlier this week was showing off what likely is his legacy, the Weber County Jail, in one of his last official acts before stepping down as sheriff. Thursday was Slater's last day. His final sign-off on the police radio concluded with the message to the sheriff's office to "come get your truck out of my driveway." Just a standing office joke. He actually turned in his assigned SUV patrol vehicle at the office with other accoutrements of the job. Slater, 53, did not run for another term in November. One of his chief deputies, Terry Thompson, will be sworn in as the new sheriff on Monday. After ending three terms as sheriff, preceded by two years as the appointed sheriff, Slater on Jan. 10 will begin commuting to his new job in Logan as chief deputy to the Cache County Sheriff. Wednesday he bought his oldest son, Kyley, 27, a bulletproof vest for his first day on the job early next month as a Morgan County sheriff's deputy. "It should probably say bullet- resistant. Nothing's bulletproof." A sheriff's office provides for the full range of law enforcement opportunities, including what Slater called the toughest job. "Working as a correctional officer is the most responsible and demanding job in law enforcement," he said. "This is the front line, more so than patrol. Patrolmen get time to do other things. Correctional officers do nothing but interact with inmates. "In a sense, jail staff is sentenced to the county jail just like the inmates.... We don't just drop prisoners off. We have to manage them as well." The jail makes up four-fifths of the Sheriff's Complex at 721 West 12th St., built during Slater's first term in office. It was state of the art when it "went operational" in August of 2000 after two years under construction. "It's a jail facility that has a plan attached to it that will hold six more pods for future groupings as needed," Slater said. "And it's a constitutionally sound jail operation." The jail at the 12th Street complex currently has four cell pods holding 888 beds, with an optimum operational head count of 800 inmates. It currently houses about 790. The jail's Kiesel Facility downtown has 300 beds, typically 218