Another Broward city is fed up with Sheriff Tony

SUN SENTINEL EDITORIAL

The quiet Broward suburb of Cooper City has relied on the Broward Sheriff’s Office for public safety for more than two decades. Ken Jenne was sheriff when BSO took over its police and fire departments in 2004.

Relations between the city and BSO have been tense at times. Sheriff Gregory Tony threatened to leave town five years ago in a dispute over pension benefits. But BSO is still there, and residents recently welcomed Capt. Andrea Tianga, a Cooper City native, as the new district police chief for its 36,000 residents.

The current fight is about Tony’s latest contract demands and what city leaders say is his refusal to communicate or provide backup documents, making negotiations impossible.

Things took a turn for the worse when City Manager Alex Rey asked commissioners to let him explore “options” such as joining forces with another city or starting its own police force.

City Commissioner Liza Mallozzi praised local officers, but criticized Tony’s demanding style.

“What I don’t support is Sheriff Tony,” Mallozzi said at a July 22 televised meeting. “I don’t like bullies.”

Frustrated cities

Cooper City is at least the fourth Broward city publicly at odds with Tony.

Pompano Beach, the largest of a dozen Broward cities served by BSO, hired a consultant to study the impact of parting ways with the sheriff.

When Deerfield Beach balked at Tony’s contract demands, he served notice that he would abandon the city on Sept. 30 without a new contract — needlessly scaring residents.

Tony refuses to meet with Deerfield Beach City Manager Rodney Brimlow, even though he spent decades at the sheriff’s office.

The city of Weston has tried repeatedly to organize a face-to-face meeting between cities and Tony.

“I did request a joint meeting with the contract cities and the sheriff on several occasions. The sheriff did not accept those invitations,” Weston City Manager Don Decker wrote in an email on Wednesday to the Editorial Board.

Stick together

We urge all 12 contract cities in Broward to stick together and begin with a public forum — and an invitation to Tony that he’s likely to ignore — to share their concerns and develop a coordinated strategy that’s in the best interest of taxpayers. The sheriff did not respond to an email request for comment.

A unified approach is important because some cities are among Broward’s smallest, including Dania Beach, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, North Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Parkland and West Park. Taken together, the 12 BSO cities account for nearly a third of Broward’s population of 2 million (the other two are Lauderdale Lakes and Tamarac).

Cities acknowledge rising health care premiums, pension benefits and other costs. But they claim Tony has ignored a contract provision that caps year-to-year spending increases at 5%, and they say he has not provided nearly enough data to justify his contract demands.

Tony wants every city to pay more to help implement the first year of a two-year program to raise deputies’ salaries by 10% as a way to reduce turnover in the sheriff’s office.

In Cooper City, Tony wants nearly $600,000 more next year for a total of about $34 million for combined police and fire-rescue services, but the city has no say on spending.

“They’re not willing to negotiate,” City Manager Rey told commissioners. “It is a one-way direction where they say, ‘This is it, period.’ I don’t know if, over the long term, that’s going to be productive and beneficial for Cooper City residents.”

Mallozzi, whose husband is a career law enforcement officer, wants an “itemized forensic audit” of BSO to justify every new dollar.

The contract cities are trapped, and Tony knows it. It’s politically unrealistic and financially burdensome for any city to build a police department, but the time has come for cities to consider with their neighbors.

Take Cooper City. It’s surrounded by three cities with local police forces: Davie, Hollywood and Pembroke Pines (the fourth, Southwest Ranches, is patrolled by Davie).

The problem is at the top

In most contract cities, local leaders and residents praise the work of BSO officers.

The problem is the man at the top. Simply put, Sheriff Tony does not practice what he preaches.

From his first day in office, Tony has promised to build “a culture of accountability.”

As his website says: “We not only correct areas needing improvement, but we also examine ourselves to determine if what we are doing is working and, if not, make it right.”

Whatever Tony is doing with his city partners, it is not working. It’s his job to make it right.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.