Dissolving SPD?

[city limits]

Let me know how the implant feels when SPD gets the boot planted in its behind by SSO.

Shannon Snyder is the only city commissioner who is recommending that SPD be abolished. Paul Caragiulo sarcastically replied that if SPD is going to be abolished, then the entire city government should be dissolved.

Shannon Snyder is alone on this one. It was his idea. However, if the local Republican Party power-brokers decide that the SSO should take over city policing, then it can't be stopped.

It's all about money. So the county taking over city policing isn't going to save a dime of taxpayer dollars. It's going to increase the cost. That's what happened in Jacksonville in their merger in 1968. When Sarasota County took over the city fire department, the county lost billions of dollars. Would the county make another stupid financial decision like that again? Yes. The county is getting ready to spend 20 million taxpayer dollars to build a rowing park with a bulletproof VIP headquarters at University and I75. The county can't do a better job with money than what the city is doing right now. The city probably does a better job. However, the county can throw most of their financial burdens on the Florida Retirement System (complicated story there).

The Sarasota Republican Party decided that they would endorse Tom Knight at the last minute in the last sheriffs election. As a result, Knight raised over 130k in a little over 3 months. That's more money than any other sheriffs candidate has raised since the county was formed in 1921. Knight also got more money from corporation donations than any other sheriffs candidate in the history of sheriffs politics in Sarasota. Rich Republicans who own 10 or 15 corporations were making 10 or 15 donations -- all from the same person. Multiply that by Republican Party endorsements and you have cold hard cash. Corporate donations are illegal in the city, but they are LEGAL in the county. County politics makes city politics look like child's play.

Cash talks and BS walks.

I come from Chicago where politics is safer than Sarasota County.

[Guest]

I come from Chicago where politics is safer than Sarasota County.

Chicago, where corruption is King.

[safe house]

I come from Chicago where politics is safer than Sarasota County.

Chicago, where corruption is King.

In Chicago, they'll just up and kill you. Here in Sarasota County, they won't do that. They'll just bury you in concrete underneath a new school gym while it's being built. It's much safer down here.