Life Without a Police Department
The city of Waldo developed a national reputation over 10 years ago for being one of America’s worst speed traps. Now that the police force has been disbanded, can the town survive without it?
Speeding tickets brought some revenue to the town, and enforcement led to both safer traffic and town conditions. Waldo did not have a fatality in the city limits for almost 17 years, but since the police department closed, there have been four fatalities: three car accidents and one pedestrian accident, City Manager Kim Worley said. The Waldo police department officially closed on Oct. 1, 2014. Now the town is overseen by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. For Waldo, running a police department was too expensive, Worley said. Initially, one of Waldo’s police officers made an accusation that their chief was assigning a quota to write a certain amount of tickets a day, Worley said. This prompted an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to see if Waldo’s tickets were being written out of order. The chief told his officers they needed to collect 12 pieces of paper during a 12-hour shift, so he could check their productivity. Two of the papers had to be citizen introductions, but with different citizens each time, Worley said. “His thing was in a small town, citizens need to be comfortable with who you are, so if they need help or have a medical issue and police officers arrive first, they want them to be comfortable, especially the older citizens,” Worley said. While the investigation determined that former Waldo Police Chief Mike Szabo was enforcing a ticket quota, the action was not considered a criminal offense. The investigation also found all speeding tickets were valid, Worley said. Shortly after, Szabo and Corporal Kenneth Smith resigned, although neither were charged, Worley said. “Had it not been a money issue with the new computers and redoing the whole office, all we would have had to do was advertise for a new chief, and that would’ve been fine,” Worley said. “We weren’t capable of doing that though. We weren’t offering enough money. Some of them were getting $10 an hour, and that’s just crazy for that position.” During the inquest, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement audit found the police department needed to switch over to a new computer and technology system, along with a full-time IT person, Worley said. “That’s $100,000 right off the board,” Worley said. “And the building was so old there was no way to bring it up to code for all the security things they wanted.” Waldo was spending about $350,000 per year on the police department. “The bottom line was we just knew we couldn’t afford it anymore,” Worley said. “It’s hard when you don’t have a whole lot of money to be able to afford what you need, especially with all the unfunded mandates.” Waldo receives $175,000 a year in property taxes. So, to fund the police department, the town would put in anywhere between $60,000 to $90,000 from the general funds and the difference came in from revenue off of traffic tickets. “You need a lot more businesses to come into a city so you can maintain fire and police,” Worley said. “Those are two super costly things for a town of 1,000. If you only have $175,000 coming in from property taxes, you can’t afford that.” Waldo did not receive the full amount of money from speeding tickets, though. “People were thinking we were getting $300 or $400 dollars per ticket, and that’s not how that works,” Worley said. “We got like $6 from a seat belt ticket.” Also during the investigation, the FDLE found Waldo has a speeding problem, Worley said. “You actually can go out on the road right now and see that we still do have one today,” Worley said. While speeding has always been an issue for Waldo, it has become increasingly worse since the police department shut down, Worley said. “The day the police department closed, on Facebook people were posting that you can speed through Waldo now, there’s no police department, so that was lovely,” Worley said. Alachua County Sheriff's Office is trying to cover Waldo as much as they can, but Sheriff Sadie Darnell doesn’t have a traffic unit, Worley said. “They are here, but not 24/7 like our guys were,” Worley said. “There’s traffic issues that aren’t covered anymore with not having your own police department, and you also have an increase in home burglaries and drug use. Not having your own police department hurts.” When the speed limit was enforced, it made a difference because people would follow the rules, Worley said. “That was the biggest thing,” Worley said. “People would say, if you go through Waldo, whatever you do, don’t speed.” The Florida Highway Patrol is conducting a traffic homicide investigation where resident Sharon Wilson was killed while crossing the street on Dec. 12, 2018, and the Florida Department of Transportation is doing a study on the roadway, Worley said. “Everyone was just devastated that one of our own was killed,” she said. “Everyone has been fussing about traffic forever, and they are like ‘Great, now we have to have a death to have them do a study.’ Everyone is extremely upset about it and upset as to how fast traffic is coming through Waldo.” Two major highways split Waldo in half – U.S. Highway 301 and Florida State Road 24, causing a large influx of traffic. “There are kids running around back and forth,” Worley said. “I’m grateful none have been hurt, but it can happen. I cross that road every morning when I come to work, and they are just flying by. We need it safe. That part is scary for your town.” Worley received an email in July 2018 from AAA saying Waldo is off the speed trap list. “The lady said ‘Well, aren’t you excited?’” during a conservation between Worley and the motoring group. “‘You’ve already done damage to us,’” she said. “It tarnishes the city. No matter where you go, if you say, ‘I’m from Waldo,’ people say ‘Oh, the speed trap.’ It puts a bad vibe out there about Waldo.” Worley is working to keep the speed limit on U.S. Highway 301 45 mph from city limit sign to city limit sign and remove the 55 mph. “In people’s minds it does look like a speed trap, I agree,” Worley said. “But we don’t set the speed limits. Plus, our police tried to work with people. They weren’t hiding, and everything was clearly marked.” Waldo is and always has been in one of the geographic patrol zones of ASO, so even when the police department was functioning, if someone were to call and request the sheriff’s office to respond, they would, Brett Rhodenizer, ASO spokesperson said. Currently, the incorporated area of Waldo is patrolled just like the rest of the unincorporated portions of the county. Deputies respond to calls of service from there, and they conduct traffic enforcement among the other duties a patrol deputy does daily, Rhodenizer said. There is not a deputy assigned specifically in Waldo, Rhodenizer said. It varies from day to day, and call to call, as to how many deputies patrol the city a day. “There’s not a deputy in the city limits of Waldo 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Rhodenizer said. “But we still work to be as responsive to the community as we have always been.” The zone Waldo inhabits is large, so depending on where the deputies are responding from in that zone, response times can be longer than someone who is assigned to that specific area, Rhodenizer said. “Are we there as often as both law enforcement and the community would like us to be there?” Rhodenizer said. “No, because we can’t service just the city of Waldo. If there’s a crash down near Orange Heights, or a boating accident on Lake Santa Fe, we have to go to that.” In 2018, the deputy assigned to that zone spent roughly 20 percent of his or her time on a call within the city limits of Waldo, Rhodenizer said. From 2017 to 2018, ASO handled more calls and spent more time in Waldo than the year before. It is a relatively even split in terms of calls initiated by the deputies, such as traffic stops, security checks and suspicious people checks, versus calls from citizens requesting assistance. Deputies in 2018 initiated 798 calls, while there were 924 requests for assistance from citizens in Waldo. “I think that’s a telling statistic,” Rhodenizer said. Other municipalities within the county contract for service with the sheriff’s office, providing additional revenue to ensure a deputy is within their city limits for a specific period of time, Rhodenizer said. But Waldo doesn’t have the capacity to do that right now. “We are working with them,” Rhodenizer said. “We have a great relationship with Waldo. If there’s an issue going on in the community, we are talking to them and directing assets where we can. If the city wants to pursue something like that, we can absolutely help and support them through that process.” When AAA named Waldo a speed trap in 1995, the city was trying to come up with a way to appease the automobile association, Jim DuBois, pastor of First Baptist Church said. “They were telling people not to travel through Waldo and the city was trying to get a better image,” DuBois said. DuBois became the unofficial liaison for the city and AAA during this time, he said. He met with some of the officials, most from the St. Petersburg office, on many occasions. “I know at one point the statistics that AAA had originally quoted were wrong,” DuBois said. “About 68 percent of the traffic tickets were for 15 mph or over the speed limit, and they were saying that people were getting tickets for 1 or 2 mph over.” DuBois said many citizens of Waldo approached AAA trying to get them to look more favorably on Waldo and route people through, so it would help with businesses. “I always figured someone from AAA must have had a bad experience with someone, but they never relented, never changed what they thought,” DuBois said. “They just spent lots of money to share it was a speed trap.” When AAA would give preferred and suggested routes, they would route people away from Waldo and tell them it was a speed trap, DuBois said. “I think it did tarnish Waldo’s reputation,” DuBois said. “It’s amazing how well known it became.” People frequently speed by the front of the church on U.S. Highway 301, DuBois said. There have been many near accidents with people leaving the church because of the number of speeders coming into Waldo from Gainesville and other locations. “I can tell you from my own personal opinion, I wish we were still known as a speed trap because people just speed through Waldo all day and night long,” DuBois said. “You can tell there’s no law enforcement.” People did not speed nearly as much when there was a police department, DuBois said. “We love our little town and wish we still had our police force but that’s part of life with small towns anymore,” he said. “It’s difficult for them to keep their head above water.” |
Story by McKenna Beery
Photo by Christopher Day |