{"id":48643,"date":"2021-05-08T12:40:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T16:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=48643"},"modified":"2021-05-08T12:41:06","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T16:41:06","slug":"fort-myers-councilman-proposes-dissolving-fort-myers-police-and-having-the-sheriffs-office-take-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/05\/fort-myers-councilman-proposes-dissolving-fort-myers-police-and-having-the-sheriffs-office-take-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Myers Councilman proposes dissolving Fort Myers police and having the Sheriff\u2019s Office take over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Fred Burson, Fort Myers Ward 5 Councilman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

 A Fort Myers Councilman has started a discussion about dissolving the Fort Myers Police Department for the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office to take over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just purely based on the fact that (Fort Myers Police) Chief Diggs may leave,\u201d said Fred Burson, Fort Myers Ward 5 Councilman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, Chief Diggs applied to become the police chief in Columbus, Ohio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diggs is one of 34 applicants, but if he landed the job, Burson wants to turn the city over to Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cInstead of just hiring another individual that we don\u2019t know, Sheriff Carmine, he does a great job, so why not look at him,\u201d Burson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Myers Police said in a statement on Thursday that this is the first time they\u2019re hearing about the proposal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The police union is ready to fight back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe PBA is not only strongly against turning law enforcement services over the sheriff, but we will fight the measure with whatever it takes,\u201d said President of Gulf Coast PBA Matt Sellers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This idea isn\u2019t a new one. In 2013, voters were given the chance to dissolve the Fort Myers Police Department and let the Sheriff\u2019s Office take over but nearly 69% of voters turned it down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 A Fort Myers Councilman has started a discussion about dissolving the Fort Myers Police Department for the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office to take over. \u201cIt\u2019s just purely based on the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48643"}],"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=48643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}