Mendocino County undersheriff prepares to take over as county’s top lawman

Matthew Kendall, a 30-year veteran of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, has followed in Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman’s footsteps for most of his career, a path Kendall said has served him well.

It began in the early 1990s, when Kendall sharpened his skills as a patrol deputy under Allman, who was a training officer and sergeant.

About a decade later, at the dawn of the millennium, Allman as a lieutenant supervised Kendall when he rose to the rank of patrol sergeant. And when former Undersheriff Randy Johnson retired almost two years ago near the tail-end of Allman’s third term as sheriff, Kendall was promoted to second in command.

“Not only has he been a good leader to the department but also a good friend to me,” Kendall said of Allman, who announced his retirement Dec. 12, ending a 34-year career with the agency. “Sheriff Allman is a hard act to follow.”

But that will be Kendall’s job come Monday, when he is set to be sworn in as the new sheriff for Mendocino County. The Board of Supervisors last week unanimously approved his appointment, filling the remainder of Allman’s term through 2022.

Kendall, 50, said he plans to run for a full term in office.

In the meantime, he doesn’t anticipate big changes for the agency. He’ll focus on a few key issues such as combating property crimes and reducing deputy response times, both made more difficult by the county’s large expanse.

“I think we got the ball rolling in the right direction, and I don’t feel like I’m done,” said the Covelo native. “I will constantly look to improve the things that we are doing and ask, ‘Can we do them better for the same or a better price?’?”

Before he found his calling in law enforcement almost three decades ago, a vehicle stop brought Kendall and Allman together for the first time. Kendall had just turned 16 and one of his friends had successfully convinced someone to buy them beer. But before Kendall and his friends had a chance to take a single sip, Allman and a couple of deputies stopped the group as they drove into an area west of Covelo along Town Creek.

Allman gave the teens a little over a minute to dump out the 40 beers in the car, Kendall said.

They followed his orders - and the experience left an impression on Kendall.

“Our little run-in many, many years ago could have turned out differently if he was a different guy, and so was I,” Kendall told the Board of Supervisors last week at the meeting where he was appointed. “Thank goodness it wasn’t all that good of beer.”

Kendall’s career at the Sheriff’s Office began in 1990 just before he turned 21, when he was hired as a correctional deputy at the Mendocino County Jail. He would go on to study at College of the Redwoods’ police academy a year later, leaving behind his marketing classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. His first assignments on patrol were along the Mendocino Coast and back in Covelo.

He went on to work in the narcotics unit before testing for a sergeant slot in 1999, which put him in charge of patrol officers in Ukiah and later in Willits.

In 2015, he was assigned to oversee an investigative unit in northern Mendocino County that targeted ongoing, minor crimes such as burglary rings. Among his biggest tasks as undersheriff was managing the agency’s budget, in which he said he shrunk what was expected to be a $3 million deficit in the 2018-19 fiscal year to about $500,000 without cutting services to the public.

The agency employs about 187 ?full-time employees, including upwards of 40 deputies. Nearly 50 people make up the Mendocino County Jail’s correctional staff, which houses 260 to 300 inmates on any given night.

Mendocino County Supervisor John Haschak, whose district makes up most of the northern part of the county, said he began working with Kendall this year on the topic of emergency planning.

“I think he’ll be a very efficient manager of the sheriff’s department,” Haschak said. “I’ve heard he’s very nuts and bolts. He knows how things work in the department, and he’s been a very good manager of the budget.”

Among Kendall’s biggest challenges in the next three years will be continuing the work on homelessness and mental health, issues Allman sought to tackle during his tenure as sheriff.

In his free time, he enjoys fishing trips with his wife and raising chickens on his farm. He has two stepchildren and a daughter from a previous relationship.

Kendall’s starting pay is more than $158,000, with a total salary and benefits package worth about $276,800. That compensation is expected to increase to more than $333,700 in the next three years, county documents show.