Sheriff Gregory Tony, in the gold-plated hard hat, at training center groundbreaking with several county commissioners last December. Here’s what Tony told the several dozen assembled amid a drizzle for the groundbreaking: “In order for us to sustain that high level of training and response that this community deserves and expects, this training center must go up.” BSO has said funding would come from BSO’s capital reserves. It would feature an indoor gun ranges, an auditorium, labs and classrooms for the sheriff’s Fire Rescue division, a training tower, administrative offices and a memorial in the lobby to the 17 people who died in the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The training center as described would be a seven-floor, 80,000 square foot facility with a two-story training center and five-story parking garage. Tony spent another $1,015 on 50 “Custom Golden Shovel Paperweights” and $4,049 to buy 432 “Silver Himalayan Tumblers” – 20 ounce – emblazoned with the words “BSO Regional Training Center,” and the logos of both BSO and Broward County, according to invoices from a Fort Lauderdale awards manufacturer. The cost to Broward’s taxpayers: $9,445.īut that’s not all. “Hard hats are for ceremonial presentations only as they do not meet safety requirements,” an invoice cautions. Sheriff Gregory Tony, center, and BSO staff Paid vendor invoices obtained by Florida Bulldog show that in the days before the groundbreaking, Sheriff Tony spent thousands of dollars to purchase 50 engraved, gold-painted ceremonial shovels 49 personalized, green “hard hats” for VIPs, and a single gold-plated hard hat for himself. The sheriff spent lavishly to ballyhoo the new training center. “For the first time in BSO history, construction for a state-of-the-art Regional Training Center is underway which will provide for more intensive, frequent training to address today’s public safety challenges,” Tony wrote shortly after the ceremony. 19, 2019 groundbreaking was a big deal that Tony relentlessly hyped in advance and after the fact. Nine months later, work on the $34-million project has yet to begin, and Tony’s being sued by an electrical contractor who says the sheriff stiffed him for tens of thousands of dollars in work preparing for the groundbreaking. One month after filing for election late last year, Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony staged an elaborate groundbreaking ceremony for what he said would be BSO’s new training center adjacent to the sheriff’s Fort Lauderdale headquarters. Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, in the gold-plated hard hat, joins in a round table salute with gold-painted shovels to members of his training center groundbreaking committee, command staff and design team last December.
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