- April 22, 2024
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Jim Manfre
AGE: 54
FAMILY: married, three children
QUIRKY FACT: Wedding reception was at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C., at the site of the infamous break-in
BIO: Jim Manfre, the former sheriff of Flagler County from 2001 to 2005, is a graduate of Fordham University (Phi Beta Kappa, magnum cum laude) and St. John’s University School of Law. He spent four years as an investigator and trial preparation assistant for the Bronx and Kings counties, New York District Attorney and 12 years as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, N.Y. He has lived in Palm Coast since 1999 with his wife of 29 years, Cornelia, and three children, two of whom graduated from Flagler Palm Coast High School, and the third who entered FPC in 2011. Manfre also has an extensive community service background, including being a past president of the Flagler County Rotary Club.
What would you do differently with the budget in the next four years?
Because I was the sheriff for four years, I understand the budgetary process. ... The biggest growth in the budget over the past eight years has been in the patrol division; in fact, it’s doubled since the time that I was sheriff. ...
When I was there, only five people made over $60,000. You now have 40 people making over $60,000 as salaries. ... We also have areas in terms of vehicles; purchasing and maintaining vehicles. What this sheriff has chosen to do is put 25 SUVs into the fleet. SUVs cost more money, cost more to maintain, and obviously they get probably half the gas. ...
But the main thing that I bring is the same thing I brought last time: it’s a zero-based budgeting plan. In other words, what most poor administrators do is start with the budget we have now and they work up. ... In private industry, you start with a zero-based budget. ...
(The jail is) eventually going to cause a security problem, so that has to be dealt with as quickly as possible.
What steps would you take to make Flagler County a safer place to live?
I believe in a community. And in law enforcement, a community-oriented policy is more effective. For instance in Flagler County there’s 133 road deputies, there are 96,000 people. ... If you involve 96,000 people in your law enforcement process, you get a more complete process. That’s called Community Oriented Policing Policy. I instituted it when I was sheriff; this sheriff has evaporated it. And essentially what that is, is that you empower our patrol officers to go into our community and make positive contacts. It shouldn’t be the only time you meet with law enforcement officer, is when you’re in an accident. ...
And also, what I think is one of the important components is having community input into the operation of the Sheriff’s Office. We had a civilian advisory board that was made up of not my friends or people I knew, people from the community that elected to be on it. ...
The other component of it is crime statistics. ... You would see in the R-section, say on Rymfire, two or three car burglaries. And you start hitting that zone with additional manpower in that area. Presence is equal to crime prevention. So the use of the criminal statistics is a great way to drive down crime. ...
A huge component of community policing is the School Resource Officer Program, which I made the centerpiece and will again. For 40 hours a week, you have 80% of the perspective crime makers in our community in an environment. So rather than make the resource officer a cop in a school, you make them mentors, and you have to start early. ... So that’s what we did, an elementary school SRO was a way to communicate to students that we’re their friends, let us know if you have a problem. ... Also, the SROs were a part of our PAL program, they ran it. When I started, the PAL program had two sports, and we developed it into a countywide recreation league. ...
And our truancy program went out and found kids who were not attending school. We got them back in school. ...
What is one thing you would do differently from Sheriff Fleming?
The thing that I would change is the location and use of the Palm Coast precinct, the substation. ... I love the idea that the city has proposed, and the sheriff just rejected, putting it in where the city offices are (in City Marketplace). ... We’d have better rapport with the city management and the ordinance department, which works very closely with the Sheriff’s Office. And there would be a place where the community would come in and speak to it.
What makes you the most qualified to be sheriff?
I was a sheriff. I was there for four years; I took over a very similar operation. The previous sheriff had endured a lot of criticism, as this sheriff has. The operation had completely fallen apart, there had become a divide between the deputies and the administration, so I’ve done this already. ...
The first thing I did when I was sheriff the last time was I brought in a values coordinator. ... We had someone come in and talk about how you make difficult decisions in difficult circumstances; and how you expect high things from yourself and your administration. And I think that set the tone right from the beginning of what I expected from my deputies. And because of that, during my tenure we didn’t have any deputies investigated. Unfortunately, under this sheriff, nine deputies have either been arrested or investigated for a crime. ...
I involve myself in the community. I’ve been a Rotary member for 10 years ... I’ve served on the Flagler County Visioning Committee which created a development plan for the whole county. ... Plus I personally know every single elected official in this community. ...
My three-step plan is No. 1, restore high ethical standards. No. 2, get us back to community-oriented policing, and the third thing is to have a business approach to our budget. I think that’s what the community is looking for, is not just “I want to be the sheriff because I did something long ago in a far away community.”
