The Benton County Quorum Court wasted no time in accepting Sheriff Kelley Cradduck's resignation and moving past the controversy that has included his arrest.
On Friday, the court formally accepted his resignation and declared a vacancy in the office Cradduck had held since 2013.
They've already begun accepting applications for an interim replacement and intend to have someone in office by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Cradduck's chief deputy is managing the Sheriff's Office.
All of this is costing Benton County taxpayers money. They're paying Cradduck to go and will pay a new sheriff to finish his term.
Cradduck made the buyout a condition of his resignation and the Quorum Court promptly, though somewhat begrudgingly, agreed to pay him what he would have earned through the end of 2016.
The two-term sheriff was arrested in January and has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of tampering with a public record amid allegations he falsified an employee's payroll form. He is scheduled for trial in September on the felony.
An Arkansas State Police investigation led to that charge and a separate misdemeanor charge against Cradduck for tampering.
Those events have, of course, affected the Sheriff's Office in the interim both in reality and in public perception.
They certainly colored this year's race for sheriff, in which Cradduck ran third. He almost made the runoff in the Republican primary but got less than 21 percent of the vote. The nomination eventually went to Shawn Holloway, a major in the Sheriff's Office who has since stepped down. Holloway faces Glenn Latham, an independent, in the November general election.
Importantly, neither of those men will be considered as Cradduck's interim replacement. That's because an appointee cannot lawfully succeed himself in office.
But someone will be named soon to fill the post until an elected sheriff takes office in January.
The now-former sheriff offered his resignation on Tuesday and the Quorum Court, in a special meeting that night, voted to appropriate $80,000 to pay Cradduck's salary and benefits for the remainder of his term. They delayed declaration of the vacancy until Friday because the legal notice had to be published first.
But they immediately started taking applications. Some have come in from several people with law enforcement experience, including a former sheriff and a former county judge.
The court will accept letters of application from qualified Benton County residents until noon Friday. Justices of the peace plan to meet as a Committee of the Whole on April 25 to interview candidates with the intention of naming Cradduck's replacement at the April 28 Quorum Court meeting.
The only candidates besides Holloway and Latham -- and Cradduck, of course -- that the Quorum Court can't consider are the court members themselves.
They've set a rapid schedule for filling the vacancy, but it's a necessary one.
The goal is to move the Sheriff's Office quickly away from controversy and into a more stable situation until a new sheriff can be elected and sworn into office.
They're doing what needed to be done under the circumstances.
Last week, as they pondered accepting his terms, some Quorum Court members plainly stated their reluctance.
"I don't like rewarding the bad behavior that's happened," Joel Jones, who represents District 7, said. "But I think this is our best course of action to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible."
Pat Adams, who represents District 6, was even more blunt.
"It chaps my butt that we're going to pay this man to leave when his resignation would have sufficed," he said.
Yes, Cradduck could have resigned without requiring the county buy him out. But he did what he needed to do for his family.
As someone charged but not convicted, he could certainly have held onto the job.
Depending on the outcome of his trial, he might eventually have been forced out of office -- or not.
The $80,000 buyout means he's gone now, whether he's convicted or not.
The strain on the Sheriff's Office, assuming the Quorum Court chooses well in naming an interim sheriff, should be gone, too.
Commentary on 04/17/2016