A.G. Gancarski
Despite having raised more than $154,000, Jacksonville Republican Sheriff candidate Rob Schoonover is polling at a mere 4% in the latest UNF poll. As early voting began Monday, Jacksonville residents got a mailer from the Schoonover campaign touting his “courage in service.”
Schoonover contends he has “risked his life in service to us for over 33 years, being hospitalized twice with serious injuries” on the mailer. It includes his self-quote on that theme: “Let’s teach our children in solemn remembrance about our brave heroes who paid such a high price for our constitutional liberties.”
The interior of the mailer is a text-heavy triptych, which promotes three major concerns of the campaign.
The first — why restoring the beat patrol system matters — asserts that restoring the beat system “will entrust officers with high levels of responsibility and accountability as they focus their attention on specific neighborhoods.” That presents a contrast to the current grid patrol system, which Schoonover deems wasteful, forcing officers to spend “most of their working hours cut off from the public in their cars.”
The second section contends that Schoonover’s commitment to reforming the pension system to keep “executive appointees” from “leaving the force with millions of dollars under the status quo” is why “Schoonover isn’t the hand-picked, labor-union-backed candidate,” which seems a shot at Jimmy Holderfield, who has the support of numerous public sector labor unions, including the Fraternal Order of Police.
The third section contends that we need a “crime fighter as sheriff” because “Duval consistently ranks higher than other metropolitan Florida counties for violent crimes per capita” and Jacksonville is “widely considered one of America’s most dangerous cities,” a claim the flier does not substantiate. The mailer posits that Schoonover is “an agent of change.”
