Mark Whisenant, Flagler County Sheriff Candidate: The Live Interview

Mark Whisenant is a candidate for Flagler County Sheriff. He faces five opponents in the Aug. 30 Republican primary: Donald Fleming, John Lamb, Jerry O’Gara, Rick Staly, and Chris Yates. The winner of that primary will face the winner of a Democratic primary featuring two candidates, plus one independent candidate who will also appear on the Nov. 8, general election ballot, Thomas Dougherty. Dougherty is running a self-funded and not very visible campaign.

The Aug. 30 vote is a closed primary: only registered Democrats may vote for the Democratic candidate of their choice, only registered Republicans may vote for the Republican candidate of their choice. Independents and voters registered with minor parties do not get a vote in this particular race until the Nov. 8 general election. Independent voters do get to vote in several other local races that are non-partisan or that will be the equivalent of a general election, including school board, Palm Coast City Council and supervisor of elections.
Of the nine candidates for sheriff, only two, Manfre and Don Fleming, have won elections before. The sheriff’s office has been led by one or the other for the past 16 years, starting with Manfre from 2001 to 2004, then Fleming for eight years, then Manfre again starting in 2013. The race has drawn the most candidates for any single local office, and generated the most expensive campaigns, with total fund-raising (and loans from candidates to themselves) exceeding $200,000 between them, as of mid-July.

The sheriff is paid $126,123 a year. The salary is set by the state based on the county’s population, but paid out of local dollars. The winner will serve a four-year term, controlling a current budget of $25 million, 255 full-time employees and 30 part-time employees.

FlaglerLive submitted identical questions to all candidates, with the understanding that additional questions might be tailored to candidates individually and some follow-up questions may be asked, with all exchanges on the record. The Live Interview’s aim is to elicit as much candor and transparency as possible. We have asked candidates to refrain from making campaign speeches or make lists of accomplishments. We have also asked candidates to reasonably document any claim or accusation. Undocumented claims are edited out. Answers are also edited for length, redundancy, relevance and, where possible, accuracy. If a candidate does not answer a question or appears to be evading a question, that’s noted.

But it’s ultimately up to the reader to judge the quality and sincerity of a candidate’s answers.

The Questions in Summary: Quick Links

• Basics
• What qualifies you to run?
• Character and temperament
• Temptations
• Priorities
• Policing needs
• Sheriff’s evaluation
• Turnover
• Police shootings
• Black fears
• War on drugs and pot
• Jail
• Best police agency
• Internal affairs

The Basics: Mark Whisenant

Place and Date of Birth: Not provided.
Current job: Not provided.
Party Affiliation: Republican
Net Worth and Financial Disclosure: Not provided.
Resume: Not provided. 
Website: Not provided.

1. What qualifies you to be the sheriff?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

2. Describe your character and temperament, and what people you’ve worked with—or citizens you’ve interacted with—would say are your most serious personal flaws, in so far as how they affect your job. What do you do to address those flaws?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

3. What is the most dangerous thing or temptation about a sheriff’s power, and how do you intend to control it?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

4. Raising morale and pay aside, what are your three priorities as sheriff that will directly affect the public and visibly improve public safety?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

5. Give us your geographically precise and documented summary of where you see the county’s and Palm Coast’s greatest law enforcement needs, how those needs compare with the way personnel is currently assigned, and what you would do differently, if anything.

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

6. Putting aside ethical issues that have affected the current and previous sheriff—and that have been amply treated in the press and elsewhere—what are three community-related issues the sheriff has handled well, and three that he’s handled poorly.

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

7. Turnover has been steep. The average years of experience of deputies on the street has fallen, exposing the public to generally younger, possibly more gung-ho but less seasoned deputies. To what do you attribute the turnover, and what specific steps will you take to reduce turn-over and add experience to our streets?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

8. Since Sheriff Manfre took over, not a single individual has been killed, shot, or shot at by a Flagler County deputy in Flagler County. (One individual shot himself in a stand-off with deputies in November 2013, and ex-Flagler deputy Daniel Ruddell was shot at last November as he attempted to flee from deputies, including Flagler deputies, in St. Johns County). But there were at least four documented instances of armed individuals who were peacefully apprehended after stand-offs or confrontations. That’s in contrast with numerous police shootings in Volusia and St. Johns over the same period, at a time when police have been under greater scrutiny because of such shootings. To what do you attribute the way Flagler deputies have bucked the trend, and what will you do to ensure that this, as opposed to a more violent, norm, continues?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

9. Ta-Nehisi Coates tells his teen-age son, in his National Book Award-winning “Between the World and Me” (2015): “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made. That is a philosophy of the disembodied, of a people who control nothing, who can protect nothing, who are made to fear not just the criminals among them but the police who lord over them with all the moral authority of a protection racket.” Is Coates wrong? Putting what Coates tells his son in the context of a county that was last to desegregate in Florida, and that still has an overwhelmingly white sheriff’s office, tell us how you’d reassure parents of young black men in this community.

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

10. If you were to give a grade to the war on drugs as it’s been conducted since Nixon, what would that grade be, and why? Putting aside what the law is at the moment, do you think casual pot users—the occasional reefer smoker, the person caught with a few joints—should be criminally charged and jailed, as opposed to issued civil citations? What role should officer discretion play in criminally charging casual pot users?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

11. The Flagler County jail’s bed space has now more than doubled, though for the past decade, including the years of somewhat higher crime during the housing boom years, it served the county’s needs. Despite an increasing population, crime is not increasing apace. Diversionary programs are also helping. But jail beds have a way of abhorring emptiness. What will you do to keep beds from getting filled just because they’re there?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

12. In your opinion, and your own places of employment past and present aside, what is the best example of a Police or Sheriff Department in the United States, and why? Please be precise in your choice of agency.

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

13. If you have been the subject of one or more Internal Affairs investigation or its equivalent, or a use of force complaint, please tell us in what agency, when, what the circumstances or issues were, and what the disposition was in those cases.

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates

14. Customized question for Mark Whisenant: You declined to answer these questions. It’s your prerogative. But what does that say about your ability to contend fairly and objectively with anyone, citizen, cop, union organization, government representative, business owner or media representative, with whom you may have differences? If you are unwilling to engage with a mere reporter’s written questions from the comfort of your own desk in your own time, how are residents, or the men and women under your command, to expect you–as this county’s most powerful law enforcement chief–will engage with crisis situations on your feet, when the questions you will have to answer will be less friendly, often unpredictable, a lot more critical and rarely of your choosing? What does having to even ask you this 14th question say about your ability to be transparent, and your ability to lead an agency within the demanding parameters of Florida’s Sunshine law?

Mark Whisenant did not answer the question.

Jump to other candidates’ answer: Dougherty | Fleming | Jones | Lamb | Manfre | O’Gara | Staly | Whisenant | Yates