Congressman Duncan visits OC Sheriff’s Office

U.S. Third District Congressman Jeff Duncan met Monday morning with law enforcement, fire fighters, paramedics and first responders at the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office to pass along his appreciation for their work and talk about potential grant opportunities. The visit to the Sheriff’s Office was part of the Congressman’s “Thanking Our First Responders Tour” that began last Friday and concludes tomorrow.  The tour will take the Congressman through into Oconee, Pickens, Anderson, Abbeville, and Laurens counties.  The Congressman spoke for over 10 minutes and then took some questions and listened to some comments for those who were gathered. “I appreciate everyone coming this morning and I appreciate Congressman Duncan being here,” said Oconee County Sheriff Mike Crenshaw as he introduced Congressman Duncan to those gathered in the second floor training room at the Law Enforcement Center in Walhalla.  “I guess all of us know that whether it is fire, EMS, or law enforcement that we have each other’s back.  It is also important that we have someone in Washington that has our back.  I am certainly proud that Congressman Duncan does that.  He understands the importance of border security and the drug cartels that we are dealing with in Oconee County and he understands the significance of that.” “I don’t really have an agenda except to come and thank you for what you do,” said Congressman Duncan.  “What we had in Boston (concerning the terrorists attack a few weeks ago at the Boston Marathon) was police, fire, first responders and EMT’s running towards the sounds of the bombing and you had others running away from it.  We are very mindful of the fact that first responders put themselves in harm’s way to protect us.  You guys do that every day and we don’t take that lightly.” “We got those heroes right here,” according to Congressman Duncan.  “You perform the same duties and wear the same uniforms.  Luckily, we have not had any major incidents that require y’all to be seen in the eyes of the public in that way.  We know what you do and we first off simply want to say thank you because it is something I need to do and to let you know that we have your back.”  Even with the issues of the federal budget in Washington, Congressman Duncan says that he stands ready to assist law enforcement, fire, EMS and rescue with federal grants that are available.  In fact, grant packets were available for officials to pick-up this morning during the Congressman’s visit.  “One thing that we have got is that the federal government has a lot of grants,” says Congressman Duncan.  “We have a grant coordinator in our office and we have grant applications here to begin that process to try to find some Homeland Security Grants that may be applicable to whatever agency you are here in Oconee County, whether they are HAZMAT type grants or any other sort of law enforcement grants.  We have that ability to at least start chasing some of that to try to help out.”