![]() At the risk of ruining my Thursday, let’s talk about the sheriff’s race. I would usually need to conduct a dozen town hall meetings to get the variety of opinion expressed in last Friday’s blog about the photo of Sheriff Mike Prendergast in full SWAT gear glaring at Dennis Gene Himmel, who had just been arrested in a drug bust for dealing fentanyl. The blog made a point that the photo was a political setup, retribution against Himmel’s mother, Superintendent of Schools Sandra “Sam” Himmel, who has feuded publicly with Prendergast for many years. Now. You’d expect a blog like that to generate a comment or two. Not 400. That is a huge number by Just Wright Citrus standards. The closest was a month ago when a Facebook photo of a sign being installed at the new Starbucks generated over 200,000 looks and nearly 700 comments.
That was different. Because I tagged Starbucks, people came from all across the globe to tell us what wonderful or awful corporate citizens Starbucks is, and other Starbucks-related topics unrelated to whether it will cause Dunkin-like traffic backups on S.R. 44 (not that I’ve heard of). No, the Prendergast post was all local. The discussion totally focused on Citrus County, what it is, what it isn’t, and whether the man in the chair today is getting the job done or not. I’ve gone through the comments numerous times looking for patterns. Not the same comment rephrased by the same person over and over, but rather different people offering similar opinions in the same area. Here’s what I mean. One of my Chronicle roles was to facilitate our town hall meetings. We’d go into communities and ask folks what they like about the paper, what we could do better, and other suggestions. I always found these invaluable. We learned early, though, not to take every comment as gospel. We looked for consistent messages, folks making the same points whether in Pine Ridge or Floral City. That’s what I do. Every election is going to have outlier issues that are significant to small numbers of people. While not discounting those, it’s smart to pay attention to the stuff that rises to the top. So, some observations on your observations: — Many people didn’t care about the politics of Prendergast vs. Himmel and said the blowup overshadowed an important arrest. Some comments: “People actually die from fentanyl and others’ lives are forever changed because of the devastation left behind. Sorry, but the problem is NOT political.” “I’m a family member who has lost someone to fentanyl. With that being said, my mind goes to how thankful I am that a few more dealers are off the streets.” — Many people agreed the photo was a setup to make the sheriff look good. “The crime will/should be dealt with, but the Sheriff’s behavior is the silliest thing I have witnessed on the photo (and that menacing glare?). If there were other deputies there when the picture was taken, and the suspect is shackled and almost naked, why are you still wearing all that combat gear? Oh, of course, for a ‘photo op.’ Now it makes sense!” How all that plays out politically, I don’t know. Some people are drawn to that approach, and others are offended by it. We should be asking sheriff’s candidates how they’d do it differently. — A fair amount of criticism to my blog’s point, but not a whole lot of, oh I don’t know, actual praising of Prendergast, other than standing behind him on these drug arrests. “He truly has made a positive impact for our community taking drugs off the streets.” — Readers offered up support for all three opponents. “I have done my homework and after careful consideration of all, I decided Calvin Adams has the requirements to be a good sheriff for our community and will vote for him. I hope others will come to the same conclusion so we can go forward to become safer and stronger.” “Vote for Doug Alexander. He used to be a deputy and is a people person for sure. Look how much he has done for our community.” “David Vincent for Sheriff. He’s a good family man, very qualified, longtime resident…and won’t play these types of games.” We’re going to break this one down folks. Big decision is coming in a few months. That’s it for now. More to come, I’m sure. Join the discussion on our Facebook page. Enjoying the blog? Please consider supporting it at Venmo, PayPal, or Patreon. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMike Wright has written about Citrus County government and politics for 36 years. Archives
February 2025
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