Another link in unbroken buddy style of grooming new sheriff
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published November 10, 2003
Each county in this part of Florida, save for one, has been through a heck of a sheriff's election in its modern history. Sheriffs tend to last, but now and then one of them gets kicked out in a big upset.
In Pinellas County, incumbent Everett Rice is about to retire. He first got his job by kicking out the controversial Gerry Coleman in 1988.
In Citrus County, former sheriff Charlie Dean, now a state representative, became sheriff by beating 28-year incumbent B.R. Quinn back in 1980. Since Dean retired in 1996, the sheriff has been Jeff Dawsy, who is about to seek a third term.
Hernando County has a colorful history: A traveling auto-parts salesman named Sim Lowman got talked into running for sheriff back in 1948. He ended up serving for 24 years. The candidate who beat Lowman in 1972, Melvin Kelly, tried to handpick a successor, but Kelly's man lost in an upset to Tom Mylander in 1984. Mylander retired in 2000, giving way to current Sheriff Richard Nugent.
Pasco County, for the longest time, seemed to make a sport out of electing wacky sheriffs and then trying to run them off. The current sheriff in Pasco, Bob White, was elected in 2000. So far he seems fairly boring in comparison, which is a compliment.
Only one county around here has had neither an election upset, nor anything even approaching a competitive sheriff's race, in more than three decades.
In Hillsborough County, just three men have been sheriff since 1965: Malcolm Beard (1965-1978), Walter Heinrich (1978-1992) and Cal Henderson (1992-present).
The principal reason for this stability has been that each sheriff carefully groomed a successor. There was never any serious question about who was going to take over when the Old Man retired. Each crown prince became the consensus choice of the local political community.
With Henderson retiring after the 2004 election, the pattern is shaping up again. Henderson's chief deputy, 44-year-old David Gee, has the sheriff's blessing and the inside track. To the extent that money is a yardstick of these things, Gee has raised $353,204, more than three times his closest rival.
Gee is one of three Republicans in the race; there's also at least one Democrat running. One of the Republican rivals, former deputy Kevin Fitzpatrick, told me that long years without real electoral competition has been bad for the Sheriff's Office.
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"We haven't had a legitimate race since 1964," Fitzpatrick said. To put that date in context, he pointed out, that was the same year the Civil Rights Act passed.
"The practice of handing the sheriff's job from one person to the next allows for little philosophical change," Fitzpatrick said. After all, a sheriff is naturally going to choose someone of similar bent, he said.
The Democratic candidate, lawyer Michael Trentalange, and the other Republican candidate, retired FBI agent Lane Bonner, have voiced similar sentiments.
"I think the process is undemocratic," Trentalange earlier told St. Petersburg Times reporter Tamara Lush. "That concerns me. There is a reason why there is supposed to be a democratic election so the people can speak in more than just a ceremonial way."
Gee replies that he is his own man, determined to make his own improvements. For example, he wants to modernize and systemize the process of promotions, instead of the traditional, pick-one-and-offend-everybody-else method.
In other counties, it usually has taken controversy for a sheriff to get kicked out, or the chosen successor to be upset.
Hillsborough has not quite had a major scandal, but lesser flaps have added up in Henderson's closing years. Detectives were accused of nearly making up the evidence in the Aisenberg kidnapping case. A controversial major, now retired, made a habit of hanging around the powerful and showing up in the wrong places. Sheriff's employees played peripheral roles in courthouse scandals.
Are these problems enough to break the chain? Not by themselves, and not if Gee makes clear that he represents just enough change. Absent a widespread voter dissatisfaction with the dynasty run by Beard, Heinrich and Henderson, the task for Gee's challengers will be even tougher.
