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Pasco Sheriff Candidates Answer Questions At Forum

Carl Orth/SUNCOAST NEWS

Sheriff forum moderator Alice Delgardo confers with four candidates before the event started. Seated from left are Republican incumbent Bob White, Democrat Kim Bogart, Democrat Jeff Deremer and Republican Robert Sullivan. Nonpartisan candidate Bobby Kinzy did not appear.

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: July 23, 2008

HOLIDAY – Pasco sheriff candidates spoke about gangs, response times, budgets and other issues during a July 21 forum before more than 50 members of the Holiday Gardens Estates Civic Association.

The four candidates often agreed as much as they disagreed about the agency with more than 1,200 employees and a proposed $86 million budget.

Appearing were Republican incumbent Sheriff Bob White and his Republican challenger in the Aug. 26 primary, Robert J. Sullivan. The two Democratic primary contenders, Kim Bogart and Jeff Deremer, also shared their views.

Nonpartisan candidate Bobby Kinzy did not appear.

Alice Delgardo, the forum's moderator, selected from written questions submitted by the audience. Excerpts from a few of about 10 topics follow, with responses in the order candidates answered questions.

Gangs
Sullivan
"The sheriff did away" with some community policing efforts. "I think that's a big mistake." Crime prevention specialists need to be in communities for daily contact.

Sullivan outlined his "assertive policing" plan. "We're going to have a community policing deputy that is assigned to those areas regularly and not randomly reassigned. Folks, it takes a while to get to know you. It takes a while to get to know your problems. Next thing you know, what happens? Your deputy goes bye-bye and now they're in Shady Hills. That's not assertive policing. That doesn't fix the problem."

Deputies need to cultivate trust and working relationships for "assertive attack on gangs. Gangs "do not belong on your streets. They've got to be eradicated like cancer."

Deremer
"The gang problem in our county has exploded. I know this through working with the state department of corrections and (I've) seen the prison releasees. All the signs are there, folks, that we have been overrun and the violence is directly attributed to that gang activity.

"Not only a community policing officer, but we don't enough officers on the street, period. I highly doubt that our agency right now is investigating any gang related activity because we don't have the personnel to do it. We're just so understaffed.

"We need to get back in touch with our young people. We need to teach these kids how gang members recruit other gang members, what they look like, how they act and they're all about criminal enterprise.

"I agree with Lt. Sullivan, we can't treat this with kid gloves. We have to aggressively attack this and kick these people the heck out of here, because sure as heck the other counties have kicked them up our way."

Bogart
"There is absolutely no doubt that we have got gang activity in Pasco County. And it's countywide. There are over 10 gangs working on the west side of the county."

"They choose you as victims" as part of initiation methods.

"The only way to deal with gangs, … the right way to do it is you get on them like a bad smell. They can't breathe without law enforcement on their backs, until you either put them in jail or run them out of the county. That's the only way to deal with them."

He agreed with Deremer that "we do have to increase our education of our juveniles and quit aggrandizing" gang activity.

"Many of the home invasion robberies are directly attributed to gangs and drugs. Gangs and drugs are our biggest problems. We have many other problems, but gangs and drugs have got to be the primary focus of this agency. Just as the cancer Mr. Sullivan was addressing, it's absolutely the case, and we can drive it down."

White
White said he took community policing deputies out of neighborhoods for several months to assist with field training, but they have returned to their regular duties.

"The problem is … we simply don't have enough law enforcement officers. And I don't think that's any secret. In fact, we've never had enough law enforcement officers."

As for the crime prevention unit, the County Commission "failed to fund that group and I had to move those people into another area."

The Sheriff's Office currently has about 300 officers on patrol. "That's clearly not enough" for about 400,000 people. "We have less than one deputy sheriff per 1,000" residents.

"We all know that Pasco County has a history of really not funding law enforcement officers. I'm not sure if it's in the water, or where it is, but it is a fact. Even a couple of years ago, when Pasco County had more money than they ever had, they still failed to fund an adequate number of law enforcement officers."

White said drugs are the "fuel that drives the crime engine. There's no two ways about it."
"We can't chase that one person. We have to chase the crime." More husbands and wives kill each other in our county than gang members do, he pointed out.

"We should not incite the public to fear. Part of our job as a law enforcement officer is to calm the public, not to cause them to fear."

Response time
White
Emergency response times during White's tenure have been lowered from 10.8 minutes to 5.3 minutes. All other calls on average fall within 20-minute response time.

"You bring it down with more deputies, that's the only way to bring it down. When an emergency happens, our folks drop everything and go to that emergency. That's what you want. Everything else, yes, will take a back seat until we can get there."

Bogart
"Response times are a kind of funny number. It's kind of like smoke, you can never really get a handle on it because it tends to change over the years. I can tell you this from my consulting experience, that it kind of depends on which crimes you fit into that category of emergency calls.

"The reality is that everybody wants a deputy there as fast as they can get them there. As the sheriff said, it does require appropriate levels of manpower. Pasco County, there's no doubt about it, is short of deputies. I think some improvement can be made … by redistricting."

"The same single deputy … is handling the same geographic area that he did 10 years ago," Bogart maintained, despite the county's tremendous population growth. "That is not the way to manage your resources on the field. And we do have some specialty units that involve deputies on special assignments that could be put back into zones.

"Right now our problem is not enough deputies on the street. That's our immediate problem. And it's not about to be fixed over the next year or two. The resources are not there.

"Amendment 1 has set this agency back 5 years on where it should be," Bogart said about property tax reforms voters approved on Jan. 29. "We we're duped, frankly. That's my personal and professional opinion. For the little bit we save on our taxes, look at what we're losing out on, the quality of life for our community. That never should have happened."

Deremer
"Our sheriff has an $86 million budget. I work for the state where our budget is so tight … we squeak. Heck, we have to report it if we lose a pen. But at the sheriff's office level, we buy expensive SUVs. We give administrators top raises."

"We need to re-evaluate where we're spending the money. Why are we giving human resource directors $40,000 in increases? Are they responding to calls? No.

"Our deputies are the ones putting their lives on the line. Not only is response time a problem, what about the poor deputy that's going to a domestic violence call doesn't have the proper backup? What about that (deputy) that has two small children at home and all of a sudden he doesn't go home because we didn't evaluate our money correctly.

"We need to start being honest with the public, honest with every single one of you about the way we spend our money. That's what's going to put more deputies on the streets and that overall will reduce response time."

Sullivan
"Fiscal mismanagement (is) one of the things that has led us to this point. Like Mr. Bogart said, boots on the street. You have to have the deputies, you really do.

"We're 100 deputies short, folks – a hundred deputies short right now. There are people that can be reassigned right now."

Redistricting is a "huge" priority. "When you've got somebody working by themselves in a (large area), it's very difficult. These folks are telling us that they are going call to call to call, not going to meal breaks. It's happening, folks, it's happening.

"What nobody has said yet is do you know how much time it takes to train a new deputy and how much time is involved with that? Do you know how many people we have lost to Tampa Police Department this past year? And you know what, I'm not talking about rookies on the street that went to Tampa Police Department for more pay. Most of these people took pay cuts." Some sergeants and detectives accepted jobs elsewhere with lower ranks.

"Why? They have no faith in their leadership at Pasco Sheriff's Office. That is another one of our huge problems. We need leadership the people can get behind in this agency. That's part of fixing this problem" of response times.

Domestic violence
Deremer
"That probably should be at the top of the (priority) list because it probably is considered the most dangerous call.

"I think the Sheriff's Office needs to get more involved with that, anger management, domestic violence marriage counseling."

As a parole officer and probation officer, he has observed that "the two people have to be willing to want to change" for treatment programs to work.

"It comes back to more deputies for better response times. It's that simple."

White
Years ago, the Sheriff's Office began training all deputies in handling domestic violence problems. "When the deputy arrives on the scene of a domestic (call), we want that to be handled then, we don't want to have to send a detective later" if possible.

White recalled how the Sheriff's Office once received a call from a young mother to send a deputy to tell her 5-year-old child that she is in charge.

"Would you say we need to send a deputy there? (Chorus of "no" from audience). Well, we do actually, and here's why: because that young mother might be calling out for help. If we don't respond to that home and respond to that young mother, we may be burying a child.

"Those kinds of things we need to be able to recognize and respond to. That's part of our response program. We take domestic violence very seriously. It's one of our top priority calls."

Bogart
Bogart was part of the task force to help form the Sunrise spouse abuse shelter based in Dade City. He also helped start a victim advocacy program. Then a domestic violence program was launched with "highly trained specialists to deal with a very delicate problem.

"I agree with the sheriff in that the responding deputy should be well trained to recognize abuse issues. But I don't feel they should be tasked with the responsibility of that specialized follow-up that a specially trained person can do. Just as you wouldn't expect a street, uniformed officer to handle an interview of a victim of child abuse. (Officers) don't have the special expertise that it takes."

"I would explore the possibility of re-implementing the program" for domestic violence cases.

Sullivan
"If you ask any deputy how many spouse abuse complaints they handle, it would shock you. That takes up a bulk of their time, especially depending on what shift they are working. It's just an incredible dynamic to try to mediate in between two warring factions.

"I agree that the deputies on the street need to be trained to deal with this. But I also agree with Mr. Bogart that you really need to have somebody that is specialized to follow it up later.

"I remember when I started on the street. You know what my sergeant told me in 1982 (about domestic violence cases)? Somebody's going to jail. You picked one, whichever one is yelling the loudest. Things have changed, folks, since 1982, thank God, in law enforcement. We need to be more attuned to this and it needs to be done by specialized people. We need to re-institute the domestic violence unit."

Red-light cameras
White
Pasco County hasn't installed any yet. Counties and cities have option for cameras to catch red-light runners, such as the city of Port Richey installed at U.S. 19 and Ridge Road.

"The state has not addressed it yet. The traffic law would have to be changed if you're going to write a uniform traffic citation for the ticket.

"I think that there are some studies out there that sound pretty good. But I think you have to have a real sophisticated system. They do it in Europe. Clearly, it could possibly save some lives."

Bogart
"That is one of the major complaints. We have traffic problems out of control."

Officers will carry horrid memories of wrecks the rest of their lives.

"We need to do more about traffic enforcement. We need to do more about educating the public to be more courteous drivers. I do a lot of driving around the state. When I get down into the Miami area and Fort Lauderdale, literally I take my gun out of its holster and I put it up closer on my seat. There is a different tension in the environment."

Some areas of Pasco seem to him to be "just about on the cusp of that" kind of tension because of aggressive drivers.

"The deputies are so busy handling calls for service they can't do a sufficient amount of traffic enforcement. I was weaned at an agency, Tampa Police Department, where traffic enforcement and traffic accident investigation was a major part of what we did. I found that to be one of the most useful tools that actually sometimes turned into criminal investigations by what you found.

"My sister was killed at 21 years old in a car accident. It was a life lost that never should have happened."

His wife had a fender bender accident a few years ago. "My heart fell through my stomach" with fear. "We've got to stop that. We've got to slow it down."

Sullivan
"You notice that everybody is angry these days? And that is a serious issue on the street. Look at everybody riding your bumper."

State lawmakers helped a little bit with aggressive driving laws. But the Sheriff's Office needs to boost staffing in order "to beef up our traffic enforcement unit."

The two top calls a police agency receives are speeders and a drug dealer in the neighborhood, he said.

Deremer
"I'm probably the only one that really worries about cameras at intersection with a red light. I worry about when is enough enough? Are we going to have cameras everywhere? What's the next step?

"I agree with all my opponents that we need to be better educated in traffic law, we need to beef up our traffic units, I agree with all that.

"But I'm not sold on cameras yet" for red lights. "I'm a big believer in civil rights. Is every minute of our life going to be watched soon? So it worries me a little bit. Not that I'm that I'm totally in disagreement on (red light cameras) because I think it serves a good purpose, but it does worry me a little bit.

Closing statements
Bogart
"I was so proud in April 1975 when that badge was pinned on my chest. I absolutely love what I do. I have always been about focus. The Sheriff's Office is more than just the law enforcement boots on the street. It's a complex organization, very complex."

"I've got the education and I've got the experience." He spent more than 7 years visiting other agencies to help them get accredited, write policy manuals, set goals, budget and other tasks.

"Those are the things that none of my fellow candidates have had an opportunity to do. I bring a lot to the table. I am so vested here. I am not leaving Pasco County." He wants to apply his knowledge here "to address these crime problems and get our community back to the safe level that we felt years ago."

Deremer
"I'm a little more laid back than Mr. Bogart, as you can tell. I was raised in this county. I went to college and I learned a lot about criminology, criminal justice."

He played for great football coaches such as Bobby Bowden in college and John Castelamare when he was at Ridgewood High. Deremer also looked up to principals and other high school administrators. "These guys have roots in this county. And they taught me things, everyday life things that I use to this day.

"When I came out of college I thought I was a million bucks until I started going to work on the streets … and I didn't even realize what crack looked like, didn't know what meth was. In 15 years I learned all about seizing drugs, weapons, putting sexual offenders away. I learned that through experience on the street" not his FSU degree in criminology.

"When you go and look at this next election, look into who you really trust." Many times in the past voters have selected what Deremer called "outsiders." He has experience, education and is the youngest candidate. "Really make your decision based on trust."

Sullivan
Sullivan said he has taught administrators, written policies for various police departments and has taught police officers across the state.

"I'm passionate about your safety, I truly am. I'm running for chief law enforcement officer of Pasco County, not chief political poser."

One of his early supporters in Land O' Lakes, a social worker, made Sullivan promise to protect residents. "A week later she was shot in the head at her front door, dead. That's one of the things that make me even more passionate, folks.

"When I become sheriff, that is going to be my No. 1 goal, my No. 1 priority. And it is going to filter down to every law enforcement officer. That's going to be their mandate."

Sullivan was "very honored" to receive endorsements from Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 29 and Pasco County Professional Fire Fighters IAFF Local 4420. The groups also endorsed Bogart in the Democratic primary.

"You're going to see that your current sheriff is endorsed by a whole lot of heavyweight politicians, whole lot of them. Those are politicians. They know about votes; what do they know about public safety?"

White
White gave Eddie Graham, who turned 100 last fall, a lifetime achievement award for his service on the Regency Park security patrol board. He is a prime example of a volunteer among 250 volunteers. White wants more people involved like that.

Back in the 1970s as most people got air conditioning installed, "We pulled the windows down and shut the doors." Likewise deputies got A/C in patrol cars. "We rowed our windows up and we didn't talk for 30 years. 9/11 changed all that."

"Our crime rate is one of the lowest in our peer group of those over 250,000 citizens." Pasco Sheriff's Office serves some 400,000 people in the unincorporated county. "Our violent crime is the lowest in our peer group."

"Our clearance rates are going up. Our response times are very good. Your deputy sheriffs are doing a great job. Together we can do a lot and we've done a lot over the last 8 years. You live in a safe county. Crime is going to happen. It's been going on since Cain and Abel."

Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.

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