Pinellas County Needs a New Sheriff

By Rick Smith, activist and resident of Pinellas County

It doesn’t have to be this way. Our community is diverse and we share a desire for a sheriff’s department that keeps all of us safe. Polling from Public Policy Polling shows that only a third of Pinellas residents approve of Bob Gualtieri’s performance as sheriff, and that number declines when voters learn his true record. In fact, more than half of voters don’t know Bob Gualtieri at all despite his efforts to seize the limelight. Too often, the role of the sheriff in making our community unsafe gets overlooked, and too often we take for granted that someone like Bob Gualtieri has to wear that badge. He doesn’t.

If we dream big, we can have true safety. We can have a sheriff who:

But realizing true safety will only happen if we demand it. That means reimagining who we believe should run the Sheriff’s Department. It means encouraging them to run, organizing our neighbors to support them, voting for them on November 3rd, and then holding them accountable each and every day after that. Florida law does not require that the Sheriff come from law enforcement. But no Democrat is in the race, and we need a candidate who believes in this community to register by June 8.

We can have real safety, but it starts with you.

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