{"id":43121,"date":"2019-05-27T10:38:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T14:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43121"},"modified":"2019-05-27T10:38:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T14:38:24","slug":"jim-leavens-hopes-voters-value-experience-over-incumbency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/05\/jim-leavens-hopes-voters-value-experience-over-incumbency\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Leavens hopes voters value experience over incumbency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jim Leavens announced in January 2019 he’s running for Lee County Sheriff in 2020. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Retired major challenges sitting Sheriff Carmine Marceno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jacob Ogles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retired Major Jim Leavens<\/strong> spent 30 years in a Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office uniform. Can he now convince voters to fire the current Sheriff and put him in charge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The North Fort Myers Republican in January formally threw his hat<\/strong><\/a> into the ring to run the agency. He\u2019s challenging Sheriff Carmine Marceno<\/strong>, former Sheriff Mike Scott<\/strong>\u2019s hand-picked successor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMike Scott was a machine and was unbeatable. Everybody knows that,\u201d Leavens said. \u201cBut once he handed the reins over, Carmine is very beatable. I\u2019m just looking to educate voters. When they compare apples to apples, there\u2019s no way they can choose him [Marceno] over me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott retired before completing his fourth term as Sheriff, citing family concerns, according to the News-Press<\/a><\/strong>. Gov. Rick Scott <\/strong>afterward appointed Marceno, Scott\u2019s undersheriff at the time, NBC-2 reported<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marceno had been with the department in 2013 and has worked in other agencies since 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leavens, though, started his career in Lee County as a corrections officer in 1988 and retired as a major last year. That means his roots in the community run deeper and his career spans longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along the way, he oversaw road patrol, homicide, juvenile assessment and internal affairs for varying stints. A former deputy, detective and commander, he\u2019s worked almost every beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leavens, sitting in a Cape Coral restaurant with his wife, Angela<\/strong>, said it was a family decision to run. He knows running against an incumbent sheriff won\u2019t be easy. The man with the badge right now gets free publicity and enjoys connections with the most prominent political power players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he\u2019s quickly become a fixture of local Republican club meetings. This marks the first time Leavens ever ran for office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again, Marceno also stands before voters for the first time next year, and there are some personal issues for the incumbent\u00a0bound to draw scrutiny<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the record, Leavens still speaks highly of Scott, and says he regularly communicates with the former Sheriff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would certainly have done some things different, just like any two adults would have,\u201c Leavens said of Scott. \u201cIt\u2019s not disagreements, but we just have different opinions about things. That\u2019s it. He ran a good agency, and he cares a lot about his guys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Leavens said he has more disagreement about current policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s upset the Sheriff\u2019s Office just canceled its Project Lifesaver<\/a><\/strong> program, designed to track populations prone to wandering, like Alzheimer\u2019s patients. He said it helps speed up searches for missing persons wearing special bracelets. He worries searches will not have such positive outcomes once bracelets get returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout it, we\u2019re just going to find this person in a canal,\u201d he fears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost will also go up, with search teams and helicopters tracking people who could have been found quickly by a single deputy using the tracking system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s broader fiscal management issues to address as well, Leavens said. He fears the department has grown too top-heavy. As more officers have been promoted, that means few patrolmen on the roads. The agency also started cracking down on overtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t investigate homicides and certain sex crimes on 12-hour shifts,\u201d Leavens said. \u201cYou cant work two days and then say I\u2019ll come back to this in two days and leave the case. It doesn\u2019t work like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Sheriffs also weigh in on bigger picture political issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leavens said he\u2019s pro-life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s also a defender of the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what if the Florida Legislature or Congress passes a law he thinks infringes on that right? If the Constitution butts up against a law, he\u2019s not going to haul people in on that law, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you feel an arrest is not going to be prosecuted to the fullest in the State Attorney\u2019s Office, you don\u2019t have to make that arrest,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where your discretion comes in. If you know there\u2019s two laws fighting one another, that\u2019s not going to be a successful arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On arming teachers, he still needs to be convinced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s more important than known when to shoot is knowing when not to shoot,\u201d Leavens said. \u201cThat comes with training. And that comes with experience that you don\u2019t just get on the range.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He won\u2019t come down for or against the expanded Guardian program approved by the Legislature this year without further study. But he certainly has reservations about introducing guns in civilian hands when it comes to breaking up schoolyard brawls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Marceno has Scott on his side, Leavens recently picked up the endorsements of former Lee Sheriffs Rod Shoap <\/strong>and John McDougal<\/strong>. Still since announcing, he\u2019s pulled in just $14,320 for his campaign compared to Marceno\u2019s $102,225.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political newcomer has more than a year to change things, and predicts voters will ultimately elect for change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe norm in Lee County has been to elect a politician to Sheriff. I say, let\u2019s think outside the box,\u201d Leavens said. \u201cLet\u2019s make a cop the Sheriff and we can teach him about politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retired major challenges sitting Sheriff Carmine Marceno. By Jacob Ogles Retired Major Jim Leavens spent 30 years in a Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office uniform. Can he now convince voters to fire the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}