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Budget issues, traffic enforcement and immigration were hot topics at Tuesday night’s forum for Lee County Sheriff candidates in Bonita Springs.

And scattered throughout the one-hour session between Republican candidates Mike Scott, the incumbent sheriff, and Rod Shoap, the sheriff who preceded Scott, were the small snipes and antagonisms that have marked the candidates’ relationship for the past four years.

In his opening remarks, Scott noted the uniqueness of an election where both men have records in the position, and voters were able to see the differences in an eight-year span. Those differences, Scott said, would make the difference.

Early in the forum, Scott defended the department’s budget, which, with a 2.1 percent raise from the previous year, did not include raises for deputies.

“That hurts me, I don’t like that,” Scott said of not being able to give raises. “...the men and the women [in the office] know how I feel. They know this is temporary. I know this is temporary.”

Scott said he returned “focus and integrity” to an office in need of those qualities, mentioning Shoap’s lending of a deputy’s uniform to a friend for a Halloween party, as well as other allegations that were common during the last election.

“That occurred on day one, when he was out of office and I was in office,” Scott said.

Shoap critiqued Scott for the department’s growing budget as well as its focus on traffic enforcement over other crimes.

Holding up color photographs of Lee County Sheriff’s Office helicopters, boats and a convertible cruiser used for parades, the former sheriff accused the current sheriff of being wasteful. The money to provide raises, he said, was to be found in expenditures such as those vehicles.

Shoap also noted that while Scott’s department focused on traffic enforcement, theft rates have increased.

Deputies needed to focus on burglaries instead of traffic infractions, Shoap said.

“We need to get back to good old police work,” he said.

Scott countered that traffic enforcement was a gateway to larger crimes. He said his deputies’ stops forced criminal, unsafe and illegal drivers off the road.

“Obviously, traffic enforcement makes a difference,” he said.

Scott mentioned illegal immigration several times during the forum, and he placed it as his second-highest concern for the coming four years, behind drugs. Yet, he also acknowledged the department could do little without federal assistance and a stronger border.

Shoap agreed that federal assistance would be pivotal. He said jailing immigrants should not be an option, considering jail populations.

Both Shoap and Scott said a reduced jail population would be a goal. Scott said his deputies are giving more “notices to appear,” and making fewer arrests in some cases, in an attempt to take the strain off the county jail.

Shoap said the jail population, at about 2,200 inmates a day, is still 500 more than what it should be.

After the forum ended, candidates milled about the room to speak to the audience.

Lee County resident Ray Faubion, 49, said he liked both candidates and was still unsure how to vote.

He said he didn’t like the commentary between the candidates, the trading of personal jabs and controversies.

“It just rubs me the wrong way, that’s all,” he said. “But I also understand that’s the way politics is today.”

Pat Robson, a Lee County resident who teaches in Collier County, said she came to the debate to hear about youth issues. She spoke with concern about the recent arrest of 12 teenagers for vandalism and theft in Estero.

The candidates, she said, barely touched on her concerns. She mentioned Scott’s allusion to a dance the Sheriff’s Office held for Lehigh Acre teenagers earlier this summer, an effort to give teenagers a safe place where they might stay out of trouble.

“That’s all well and good,” said Robson, 65, “but the kids are still doing drugs because they’re easy to get.”

Robson said nothing else from the forum stuck out in her mind.

“Once they started titting-for-tatting, they lost me.”