<P><BR> Sheriff's race is turning feisty<P> By Owen S. Good, Rocky Mountain News<BR> July 31, 2002<P> BOULDER - For Joe Pelle, showing up should have been enough to win<BR> the Democratic primary for Boulder County sheriff. <P> The career cop and commander of detectives for the Boulder police<BR> carries all the prized endorsements. <P> He faces a retired deputy sergeant who ended a 24-year career as an<BR> outsider in her own department and barely made the ballot. <P> Yet Pelle finds himself dogged by charges more suited to a<BR> bare-knuckled Statehouse race: that he's a party-jumping former<BR> Republican and a flip-flopper on issues. <P> Even his refusal to say where he stands on abortion has become an<BR> issue. <P> That's the work of Wanda Sterner of Longmont. The 62-year-old is<BR> compensating for a lack of support with a reservoir of nerve - and doing<BR> her best to put a shoo-in favorite on the defensive. <P> Pelle, 43, of Niwot, is reluctant to discuss his opponent and politicize what<BR> most voters prefer to view as a nonpartisan office. <P> "I'm not coming to this job with an agenda other than to provide<BR> effective public safety," Pelle said at a July 22 forum. <P> That has left Sterner to set most of the campaign's agenda, pointedly<BR> bringing up her position on abortion - she's pro-choice - and her<BR> opposition to state laws that override local gun control. <P> Until three years ago, Pelle had been a registered Republican because,<BR> he said, his father was one. Then he switched parties to help with Mary<BR> Keenan's successful campaign for district attorney. <P> Sterner paints herself as the true Democrat. <P> "If you believe something, stick with what you believe. Don't flip-flop<BR> because it's the popular thing to do," she said. <P> Sterner left the Sheriff's Department in 1999, saying she was unable to<BR> get support in her role as sergeant for community services. <P> She agreed she was less than popular. <P> "We call them 'jackets' " Sterner said of the label for "outsider." "Once<BR> you get a jacket, you don't get rid of it." <P> Pelle has strong ties within the criminal-justice community, reflected in<BR> endorsements from Keenan and Sheriff George Epp, who is being forced<BR> out of office by term limits. <P> "Since (Pelle's) been in charge of detectives, he's been responsible for a<BR> significant increase in morale and esprit de corps in that unit, which had<BR> really suffered in the wake of the (JonBenet) Ramsey case," Epp said. <P> The high-profile case is perhaps the only Boulder controversy not to<BR> make it into this campaign. <BR>