Sheriff candidates debate experience

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000

About the candidates

LEE CANNON, 54, was elected as sheriff of Pasco County in 1992. A native of Land O'Lakes, he received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Tampa and a law degree from Nova University in Fort Lauderdale. Before he was elected, Cannon was a lawyer in private practice. For two years, he also worked as a legal adviser at the Pasco County Sheriff's Office under former Sheriff Jim Gillum. Cannon was also a

[Times photo: Janel Schroeder] Candidate for sheriff Bob White, left, and incumbent Sheriff Lee Cannon greet each other before their Oct. 18 debate.

prosecutor with the Hillsborough State Attorney's office and started his law enforcement career as an officer with the Tampa Police Department. Cannon is married and he and his wife, Jeane, have two grown children.

BOB WHITE, 50, is making his first bid for elected office. A New Port Richey resident, White is a sergeant in the Clearwater office of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. White received his associate's degree in criminal justice from Pasco-Hernando Community College. His law enforcement career began with the Brooksville Police Department. He then went to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office, after which he spent four years as a trooper with the Florida Highway Patrol. In 1977, he went to work as a special agent with the Department of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, where he stayed for four years. In 1981, he was hired as a branch manager and operations officer with the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Brooksville. In 1987, he returned to the Department of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. He and his wife, Diane, have one daughter.

Debates have long played a key role in American political life. In that spirit, the Pasco Times continues its tradition of offering candidates for public office a forum to question each other on matters they think important to the voters. Today's installment is a debate between the candidates for Pasco County sheriff: incumbent Lee Cannon, a Democrat, and Bob White, a Republican. They met Oct. 23 at the Times office in Port Richey.

Question

WHITE: Sheriff, throughout your administration, newspapers have reported you've blamed other people for all types of incidents that have occurred under your leadership. You've blamed neighbors for drug-plagued Pine Hill, blamed a young lady for the tragic death of a close friend, blamed a circuit judge for the acquittal of a drug suspect, blamed Commissioner Pat Mulieri for your lack of answers when she was merely participating, or rather practicing, due diligence as a public servant. Sheriff, when would you stop blaming other people and begin to take responsibility on yourself?

Answer

CANNON: I think if you go back and look at each one of those things, the Pine Hill, the girl, all those have turned out to be positive. The reaction I got over the situation with the young lady at school is, once everybody realized that she knew at eight o'clock that morning that man had a gun, or that boy had a gun, and she didn't tell anybody. My, my statements that day were for her not to be blaming people was the situation, it wasn't me blaming her -- me asking her not to blame people. The incident with the judge, we looked at the situation and we know that rulings sometimes get us upset and we looked at the way that the courts rule, I'm a very strong advocate for my personnel so I advocate very strongly for them. All the other situations -- the issue with Commissioner Mulieri, she canceled two meetings with me and did not have a pre-budget meeting with me as she's done in every year past and I know for a fact -- knew for a fact that morning -- that Mr. Collins was trying to influence her all week to make that attack on me and whenever I got the 45-minute-beforehand memo about demanding all this information I knew that they were trying to take the raise away from the deputies or try to put me on the spot on the raise and I went to defend it and did so very well. All the other issues that you were talking about have all been in sincere honesty. I have defended the Sheriff's Office and been a strong advocate for the people of Pasco County, and have made a lot of strides because of that strong advocacy.

Rebuttal

WHITE: Sheriff, don't you think that you would get more with sugar than you do with vinegar and perhaps an outstretched hand and the willingness to work and to cooperate with other people might get you more distance and might get you more bang for your buck, as it were?

Question

CANNON: Mr. White, you have stated that the Pasco County deputies are only report writers and that you have -- you would have them do more investigations. Do you understand the distinction between preliminary investigations and latent investigations, and do you have any concept of the average service time a deputy now spends on a citizen's call for service, and what latent investigations by deputies would have on pro-active patrol and response time?

Answer

WHITE: What I'd like to see is the deputy sheriff to have more investigative opportunity and responsibility in his own right. I would like to see deputies arrive at the scene of a crime and be able to work it to the point that they can actually clear it, if that occurs still in their zone. I think that would send less investigations up to the detective bureau and I'd have them employ solvability factors that would allow them to clear more cases which would not bog down the process in the investigation bureau and the detective bureau and the -- indeed the deputies' investigation is the foundation of the criminal investigation process. That's where it all begins and the more opportunity they have, the more resources they have, to conduct those investigations the better. Experts agree that there are three areas that increase the ability to make apprehensions, and that is that the deputy gets there in time to catch the perpetrator; or if he gets there in time to have the witnesses or the victims identify the perpetrator; or if he gets there in time to collect the evidence that he needs to make the case. A properly staffed and directed patrol unit would increase that -- would increase the possibility and apprehension rates would go up.

Rebuttal

CANNON: That doesn't exactly answer my questions that I have stated because the uniformed patrol deputies are spending approximately a little over 30 minutes on average on calls for service. The preliminary investigative process is intended to first save lives and protect property, then to secure evidence, witnesses and make an arrest whenever possible and appropriate. Latent investigations require much more time and would require a tremendous amount of additional uniformed personnel on road patrol. In addition, latent investigations often require travel to an area that can be far outside a deputy's assigned zone and because of the working errors . . .

TIMEKEEPER: Time . . . time.

CANNON: . . . the deputies the fact that they spend most of the time in the vehicle.

WHITE: It was my impression that we couldn't read our responses, we just had to have questions.

MODERATOR: That's right.

WHITE: Well the sheriff is reading his responses -- are you not, sir?

CANNON: Absolutely. I didn't see that anywhere in there that it says you can't read it, my letter did not say that.

MODERATOR: Well, I can get a copy. Didn't you get a letter from Alisa (Times reporter Alisa Ulferts)?

CANNON: (looking at his copy of the letter) That's correct. Are we ready?

MODERATOR: Would you refrain from reading your answers?

CANNON: Not a problem.

MODERATOR: I think it said you can write down your questions.

CANNON: Right. It says you can write them down. Are we ready? Mr. White, you have stated on many occasions and have quoted, been quoted in the newspaper, the Tampa Tribune on October 11 of this year, that employees don't leave their jobs for better pay but because of working conditions. . .

TIMEKEEPER: Oh, I'm sorry, this is Mr. White's question.

MODERATOR: Who asked the first question?

WHITE: I did.

MODERATOR: Okay, so it's your turn. I'm sorry, can you start again? Usually the candidates are better at keeping track than I am.

WHITE: This is going to be interesting to see how this runs in the print with the tape going off.

Question

WHITE: Sheriff, you've pushed for a $100-million tax and according to widely publicized newspaper reports, you used data that was so flawed, a University of Florida criminologist said that you were either lying or you were so unsophisticated that you didn't know what you were doing. Several inaccuracies were cited -- backup times, response times, calls for service, times deputies spend on calls, and errors about crime rate. Sheriff, knowing that you used a widespread campaign and misinformation paid for by tax dollars to influence voters, how do you expect citizens and your employees to trust your future decisions and leadership?

Answer

CANNON: First, it wasn't paid for by tax dollars. It was raised -- it was paid for by independent money that was raised for the MSTU, and second it wasn't $100-million -- that was the budget that would have been reviewed every year. The MSTU -- the misunderstanding that you have, Mr. White, is an MSTU is not a locked-in-solid budget. It's a designated sum of money given to the deputies. That way you can reduce the ad valorem tax on the other side and have a designated sum of money as an MSTU to the sheriff's office and that's what we were trying to accomplish. That is reviewed each year by the commissioners to see if it needs to go up or down as the designated needs of the sheriff's office are that year. The information that we use came from our computer-aided dispatch -- it was a new system that we were using at the time, and yes, we did not have as sophisticated of people operating it or understanding the data as we should have had. Hindsight is always 20/20 and if we were to do it again we'd go out and hire the necessary experts and use some of the money that we raised to hire experts to analyze the data. That's where the information was. Nobody did anything intentional; it was all good, from-the-heart information that everybody was trying to put out -- it was just that the data we were getting from our computer system was incorrect.

Rebuttal

WHITE: Sheriff, I believe that those numbers should have been on your desk on a weekly basis. You should have been instinctively and inherently known what your cost for service times were, what the dep. . . -- what time the deputies spend on calls and the backup times, because otherwise how would you know how to deploy your resources? In law enforcement we call that proof.

Question

CANNON: Mr. White, you've stated on many occasions that have been quoted in the newspaper, the Tampa Tribune, October the 11th of this year that employees don't leave their jobs for better pay but because of working conditions. Please tell the voters of Pasco County why you left your jobs at the Brooksville Police Department and Sumter County Sheriff's Office, private banking where you served for about six years, and as an agent for the state beverage.

Answer

WHITE: I left. Actually, when I came to Florida, I was applying for the Florida Highway Patrol so I was waiting to get hired by the patrol. I didn't like the politics and small-town police work so I went to the Sheriff's Office, found out that it was still small-town politics in the Sheriff's Office. In the meantime I was hired by the Florida Highway Patrol. When I was with the Florida Highway Patrol, I wanted to -- to get out of uniform and go into investigations, so I went to Florida Alcohol and Tobacco. After being there for a while and working around the state and in undercover capacity quite a bit I decided -- got a job offer to go into banking and I went into banking. After 51/2 years or so of that I went to -- I went back into law enforcement. The savings and loan industry began to be in trouble and I didn't have a degree in finance, so I went back into law enforcement and I'm still employed -- I've been employed with the Florida Alcohol and Tobacco for about 17 years total. I've got 22 years in state law enforcement and approximately a year with the police department and sheriff's office.

Rebuttal

CANNON: So your answer that people don't leave their job for working conditions is incorrect as you've just stated, because you have said you left (a) job for working conditions and that included salaries and. . . small-town politics that you included. Jumping from job to job and never really advancing yourself in any of those jobs is not the type of qualification that would lead one to manage almost 1,000 people and $53-million. As you have accurately said you changed jobs because you didn't like what was going on.

MODERATOR: Your question.

Question

WHITE: My question? Sheriff, Pasco voters rejected and said no to your $100-million tax increase by 78 percent -- 4 to 1. As reported in the St. Pete Times September 2 of '98, you stated maybe they would like a sales tax. You also stated that anyone who would oppose and vote no for your tax was shallow. Sheriff, are you saying that the people of Pasco County are so shallow and uneducated that they are unable to determine their needs for their community or are you just out of touch with the voters? Those seniors on fixed incomes and families living month to month that you're unable to respond to their need for law enforcement protection.

Answer

CANNON: If you look at the number of people who voted in that election, only 13 percent of the voters of Pasco County voted in that election. Out of that 13 percent, we got an awful large amount of votes. We did not win but if you look at it, almost 90 percent of the people either voted for or did not come out and vote against an MSTU. It was a type of tax that people really were not concerned about, but those that were spoke in numbers and came out and we certainly have to honor their -- their vote. When we look at how we service the seniors in this county -- the seniors are the ones who demand law enforcement and want it and we certainly accept that it has to be within their funding mechanism. That's the reason that I proposed the sales tax because the sales tax is more fair to everybody. Everybody that I talked to, even those that said they did not vote for the tax, said they would vote for a sales tax because it was fair and would be paid by everybody in the county, even those visiting the county. So that's why I tried to get the law changed in Tallahassee but ran into political opposition. In fact your big supporter, the one who's funding your campaign right now, is the one who refused to change that sales tax so that it would be a fair tax for the people and including the citizens -- the senior citizens -- it would have been fair to them.

Rebuttal

WHITE: Sheriff, that's a very misleading statement that your opponent and my chief funder -- I know you're alluding to Mike Fasano. You're misleading the people again. Mike Fasano is not my chief fundraiser. Indeed, a newspaper report in the St. Pete Times said that out of my $39,000, $7,000 was assisted in being raised by Fasano, but indeed a thousand of that came from the Florida Police Benevolent Association and that was money that was a result of their endorsement of me -- the 30,000 law enforcement corrections officers for me.

Question

CANNON: Mr. White, you've stated on prior occasions that you will increase the number of deputies on patrol by 27 cents without hiring additional personnel. You have stated that this would be accomplished by eliminating other assignments and administrative positions. It is important that you be specific and explain to the voters which services you meant to eliminate and why and how you intend to replace those services to the public performed by the positions you would eliminate.

Answer

WHITE: The St. Petersburg Times consultant said that there was too many people doing other things than actually out protecting and serving people. There's 186 full-time equivalency positions as deputy sheriffs. The consultant also said that there was enough deputies in the Sheriff's Office to give you the coverage and the response times that you claim that you need. Those were your numbers that you have given.

Now, I believe that all we have to do is is mobilize those people and there's a certain amountage -- there's a certain percentage of any organization that has unfilled positions which frees up rate money when you have people that leave, that money is sitting there because that position is fully funded. We can move people out of administrative positions, we can move them out of middle management positions and turn those positions into deputy sheriffs. Government does that on a regular basis and you as sheriff with the power that the sheriff has, has the ability to do that, take those positions that are vacant and use that money for deputies positions.

But I think what's more important is, Sheriff Cannon, what is your plan? You still have the 186 FTE's and there's only about 130 in patrol, and you've not come forward with any sort of a plan or articulated any plan to put more deputies on the street and to provide more protection and more service to the people of Pasco County. I think that's what's more important because you're in the Sheriff's Office and I am outside the Sheriff's Office and just looking at the numbers -- 186 FTE's and 132 in patrol -- there is a big gap.

Rebuttal

CANNON: As you've stated, you're not inside the Sheriff's Office and nor have you taken the time to analyze the Sheriff's Office and nor have any of your advisers obviously had enough comprehension of what we do to know that there are 201 deputies and corporals in the uniform operation bureau. They serve many different positions. What you're proposing could only be the 45 positions that you would have to create. You would have to eliminate the COP, which is the bicycle unit, you'd have to eliminate the STEP which is the DUI unit, you'd have to eliminate some of the school resource officers. If you did that you'd be taking away some vital services.

Question

WHITE: Sheriff, the editorial in the Tampa Tribune, January 25, 2000, stated that your comments were nothing but cheap shots amounting to conduct unbecoming a public official. You've been described as mean-spirited and you've shocked members of the legal community when you labeled a circuit judge a liar. The public has seen you as an angry, finger-pointing, defensive politician, disrespectful and smug, not the protector of the peace. Sheriff, will you continue to exhibit the same behavior attacking your opponent through negative campaigning, much like you have attacked others or will you begin to run a positive campaign?

Answer

CANNON: Well first, Mr. White, you're already misleading the public because you know there's not been anything negative out there. But if we look at it, what the endorsement of the Tampa Tribune said yesterday about you, that basically you were just a talker who was an unqualified candidate and I couldn't agree more with that. You refuse to answer anything with specifics. You don't have any information with specifics. And I don't really know how you're going to run a sheriff's office when you don't have the knowledge and ability, but you talk a good game. And I don't think that we need a good talker -- what we need is somebody who stands up and fights hard for the people of Pasco County to help reduce the crime, as I have done since I've been in office. We've reduced the crime, we've improved the technology, we've helped the people of this county enormously.

Rebuttal

WHITE: Well, crime is up 3.4 percent this quarter, and I couldn't agree with you more -- we do need somebody to do more than talk but we need somebody talking about something, and Sheriff, quite frankly I haven't seen a lot going on over the last few years. Certainly, not a lot since this campaign started. We need to do more to protect our people. We need to put more law enforcement officers on the street and I intend to do that when I become sheriff.

Question

CANNON: Mr. White, I came to the Pasco County Sheriff's office as an experienced law enforcement officer with almost 30 years of law enforcement and prosecution experience. As a past supervisor of major narcotic investigations with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, a juris doctorate degree and as an experienced prosecutor of major crime. I now have eight years experience as the Sheriff of Pasco County. I've been honored by being selected to the FBI National (unintelligible) Institute, Chairman of the Board of the Florida Sheriff's and Chairman of the Legislative Committee and Chairman of the Florida Corrections and vice-chair of the Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation. Pasco County Sheriff's Office has become a leader in the state of Florida.

TIMEKEEPER: Time.

CANNON: What experience, formal education and professional service do you offer the citizens of Pasco County? And please be specific.

Answer

WHITE: Sheriff, you look very good on paper. You are educated, you have a doctorate of jurisprudence, you're a good debater, you are qualified, no two ways about it. But quite frankly, Sheriff, you simply have not performed. The St. Petersburg Times has written about it, consultants have written about it, so all of your credentials has not profited Pasco County a single thing. Crime is up. Your people are leaving out the back door, you can't -- you can't maintain your work force. You don't have the faith and confidence of your people.

Sheriff, that means we've got to have a change. It means that somebody's got to come on board that will bring this department together so that the people can be protected and served.

I have about three years of college, four altogether, I don't have a degree. I've been to numerous police schools, I've worked numerous vice-type investigations and indeed I work in a special unit -- just like the special units that you alluded to that you say that I'm going to disband, which is not true. I -- I don't believe that Pasco County can go much longer with the state of morale -- the state of the people in the Sheriff's Office and have the productivity that's required in a sheriff's office as large as Pasco County's. We've got to do more, we've got to do it quickly.

Rebuttal

CANNON: Well, as you stated, you don't have much investigative -- your last number of years, most of what you do is administrative work, that's what the state beverage people do -- you don't do any criminal investigations. In fact, you just recently got arrest powers off the premises of where liquor is served. You have not proven to anybody that you have the abilities, in fact the endorsement yesterday, the St. Pete, I mean, excuse me, the Tampa Tribune, of me, stated that you don't have the qualifications. I have advanced the Sheriff's Office and the morale is better than it ever has been and they're serving the people . . .

TIMEKEEPER: Time.

CANNON: . . . well, and doing a wonderful job.

About the debate

The debate was held Oct. 18 at the Times office in Port Richey. The candidates asked each other four questions, in rotating order. Questions were limited to 30 seconds, with 90 seconds for answers and 30 seconds for rebuttals. The text is unedited, except for conversational words like "uh" and "um."

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