Sheriff Roderick Hayward















LEADERSHIP CHANGES
We, as a faction, have come together in a way that was completely unexpected. I’d be dishonest with myself if I said it has been smooth sailing since the reopening of the SA-MP server, the departmental restructuring, and the constant work to get everything up to date. It would be foolish to overlook the hard work that EVERYONE has put in, from current active members to those who have since moved on to different things.

Since I took the position of Executive Staff, which is now a few days short of being 3 years, I’ve been as transparent as I possibly can be without compromising the faction. When I put myself in the shoes of our core faction membership, perception and optics tell me that things seem more dire than they really are. It is rare to see an Executive Staff member leave, and when they do, it is typically shrouded in negativity. This causes negative assumptions to arise immediately, and this is something we cannot let go unacknowledged.

A sincere thank you goes out to both Duco and Romiro. Both members contributed so much to our faction as a whole, and without them, we would not be where we are now. They stood strong during the transitional periods back over to the SA-MP platform, ensured they always led their respective Divisions with care and motivation, and consistently worked for the betterment of our faction. Their experience, perspectives, and knowledge will be sorely missed.

SHERIFF'S STATIONS
Our new location was picked for the East Los Santos Sheriff's Station was not approved for move. Therefore we will be looking forward to find another location that is more suitable and more in line with what the community needs. However, we have succesfully moved Santa Clara Valley Sheriff's Station into what is now West Vinewood. Majority of the forum updates, teamspeak, and ingame callsigns have been adjusted to meet this station.

FIELD TRAINING PROGRAM
It is no secret that the Field Training Program has been lacking Field Training Officers for quiet some time now. It is important to know how this went wrong. To keep transparency, this happened during our merge to RageMP. We believed that it would not be a bad idea to allow people to continue to hold bonus assignments without holding a position within the Field Training Program if they didn't want too. However this clearly has not been working for months and the Field Training Program is a very crucial aspect to our faction.

With that being said, moving forward all Bonus I/Bonus II assignments will hold positions within the Field Training Program like they did before. This includes specialized assignments. To advance into Sergeant as well, you will have to partake in the Field Training Program just as before as well.

A TRADITION OF SERVICE - GUIDE TO THE LOS SANTOS COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
In the last update, I posted information regarding a guide that we previously held on the old forums which assisted faction members in properly portraying a Deputy Sheriff within the faction. I'm happy to announce that with the help of Azuko, we have managed to comply the old guides into one big one and ensure that it was updated. I like to thank all of the individuals (Wildcat, Skates and others) that made majority of these guides as it holds a lot of important information. That guide will be published later today.

CONDUCT EXPECTATIONS
We've recently noticed an increase of play to win mentality through out the faction. It is important that you remember that we are here to provide quality police roleplay, not to police the server. We get free weapons, free cars, and armor while criminals do not. Supervisors will be cracking down on this mentality.

TRAFFIC/GANG ENFORCEMENT
Traffic and Gang Enforcement Team is looking for individuals to join their ranks. If you're interested in Traffic, please reach out to Robert McClane. If you're interested in Gang Enforcement Team, please reach out to Tracy Lewis (Brasi). The OSSB/GET has launched an operation which you could find in your recent messages. You can also reach out to Brasi for this as well.

FORUM UPDATE
This is minor however could be very useful for all of us. I appreciate and thank @Lauren Chen for his continued support. You can now tag individuals and groups in posts by simply using the @ tag.

CLOSING
I know the faction has been in a bit of a hard place at the moment. We’ve suffered on all fronts—activity, people leaving, morale and motivation being down, and an overall negative feeling.

I’m now back in full swing, and I will be holding members of the Command Staff and Executive Staff accountable for everything we are doing in this faction. This accountability extends all the way through to you, the one reading this message. We will be enforcing our activity requirements, which right now is 1 ABAS; this roughly works out to at least one hour every day.

As a faction, we will be returning to our core focus: our Central Patrol Division, the one thing all of us are here to do—roleplay as deputies and patrol the streets. I’ll be working with each of the Station Command teams to promote and motivate more focus on this area of the faction, whether it be roll calls, coffee with a cop, station lunches, pinning ceremonies—anything that is considered passive roleplay will be making a return. We’ve fallen into a habit of responding to situations, engaging in a small amount of roleplay, then '98 and driving around until the next situation arises. Start going to calls for service, visiting businesses to show face, etc. There are many ways to do this, and we will pick it up starting today.

I want to personally thank everyone who has stuck around during this rough period. Without you, we wouldn’t have a faction, and we wouldn’t be where we are right now. As a team, we can collectively lift the faction and embrace what we all signed up to do.

Along with all of the above, we will be putting out a new survey for all of you to fill out. Nothing said in these surveys will be binding, but they will help me better understand where in the faction we need to improve and focus. Without your voice, we do not know what is going on at the grassroots level. I encourage everyone to participate, and together, we can fix the issues we currently face.