(Council Bluffs) Pottawattamie County Chief Deputy Rob Ambrose on Tuesday formally announced his candidacy for Pottawattamie County Sheriff. The announcement comes on the heels of Sheriff Jeff Danker’s recent announcement that he will not seek another term.
Ambrose law enforcement career began with the Missouri Department of Corrections and joined the Shelby County Sheriffs’ Department in 1998.
“People get into law enforcement and public service because they want to help people, and that’s what inspired me,” said Ambrose. “I enjoy helping people at times when they’re not in the best situation. I enjoy sitting down with them and helping them with their issues and hopefully provide them with a resolution to get them to a better place.”
Ambrose joined the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in 2006. His roles within the department, including the road patrol and investigations division. He has worked his way up the ranks from corporal in 2010 to sergeant in 2013, and lieutenant in 2015 overseeing the Road Patrol and Investigations Division. In 2018, Sheriff Danker named Ambrose Chief Deputy.
“I am committed to working diligently to provide residents of Pottawattamie County with dedicated and quality leadership within law enforcement, communications, and the jail divisions,” said Ambrose. “We’ve done a lot of good things within the Sheriffs’ Office over the past five or six years. I want to continue that and serve the citizens of Pottawattamie County and work with the great staff we have in place there.”
Some examples of the progress, according to Ambrose, include traffic camera installation throughout the county, mental health services to employees, and online training during employee work hours to keep them up-to-date. In addition to that, deputies are now equipped with NARCAN to help reverse opioid overdoses.
When asked about some of the challenges moving forward, Ambrose pointed out one issue facing many counties today, and that’s the rising jail population. Recently, the Pottawattamie County Jail is at 90-95-percent capacity.
“A renovation project added approximately 56 beds to the current jail,” said Ambrose. “This a short term solution, and eventually, this is something we’ll have to deal with because of the growing jail population.”
School Resources Officer’s is another topic Ambrose is passionate about is school resource officers. Last summer, Ambrose began conversing with- all of the school districts outside of Council Bluffs regarding this matter.
“We’re committed to working with schools to provide them with resource officers on a part-time or full-time basis,” Ambrose said. “This is something the citizens and parents are looking at as they see situations throughout the U.S. at different times.”
Ambrose says a project to add text to 9-1-1 to Pottawattamie County residents in nearly complete.
“With the Iowa School for the Deaf is something long overdue,” said Ambrose. “We are hoping to get that project finished up within the next two months. When finished, this will be a benefit to our residents.”
Rob Ambrose and his wife and three school-aged daughters reside in Underwood.
