Sheriff Gregory Tony wants this debate framed as “facts, not emotion.”

That framing is incomplete.

The real issue is not whether facts matter.
It is who controls the process that produces them.

Imperfect Studies Are Normal. Process Capture Is Not.

For the avoidance of doubt: feasibility studies can be incomplete, poorly scoped, or wrong. That is not a scandal. That is the starting condition for nearly every serious governance decision.

The question is not whether the city’s study was perfect.
The question is who controls the correction when it is not.

When an incumbent provider publicly discredits a study mid-stream, reframes inquiry as a public-safety risk, and then offers a replacement process that includes a contract extension, the issue stops being math.

It becomes structure.

Infrastructure Still Has Vendors

The Broward Sheriff’s Office is not a software plugin. It is real infrastructure: labor contracts, pensions, specialized units, institutional knowledge, and operational scale.

That reality makes independent review more important, not less.

Infrastructure providers remain vendors. And vendors—no matter how embedded—do not design or fund the audits that determine their own renewal.

That rule exists precisely because the stakes are high.

Public Safety Is Not a Procedural Veto

Invoking “the safety of 87,000 residents” is rhetorically powerful. It is also governance-dangerous.

When the chief law-enforcement officer frames exploration of alternatives as potentially unsafe, the implicit message is obvious:

Deviation itself is risky.

At that moment, elected officials are no longer weighing options. They are managing fear. That is the definition of a chilling effect—and it does not require malicious intent to function.

Intent is irrelevant.
Reasonable perception is enough.

Nothing Is Free in Governance

The taxpayer-friendly argument goes like this:
If BSO pays for a new feasibility study, the city gets a $100,000+ service for free.

That framing is incomplete.

A study paid for by the incumbent provider is not free. It is prepaid—through delay, leverage, and narrative control. The invoice may read $0. The opportunity cost does not.

Time extensions matter.
Process resets matter.
Who frames “risk” matters.

About the ICMA List—Competent, Conservative, and Constraining

The International City/County Management Association list is not corrupt. It is professionally competent and risk-averse by design.

That is the point.

ICMA-recommended firms are oriented toward stability and continuity. Their mandate is not disruption. That does not make them wrong—but it does mean their orientation matters when a city is evaluating structural exit from a long-standing arrangement.

Governance outcomes are shaped by who is allowed to ask which questions.

This Is Not About Motive

This critique does not require bad faith, malice, or improper intent. Systems fail even when everyone believes they are acting responsibly.

The failure here is structural.

Once the incumbent provider:

• reframes inquiry as danger,
• funds the corrective study,
• influences the pause,
• and extends the contract,

the city’s exit option is no longer neutral. It is procedurally constrained.

At that point, “choice” becomes theoretical.

Why This Is a REVOLT Training Case Study

This debate will be taught, not litigated.

As an example of how:

• vendor leverage quietly reshapes governance,
• “more study” becomes a delay mechanism,
• and independence can be neutralized without a single explicit threat.

Cities do not exist to validate their vendors.
Vendors exist to serve at the city’s discretion.

Anything less is not partnership.
It is capture.

And Deerfield Beach deserves a process strong enough to withstand its largest vendor’s discomfort.

REVOLT Training
We do not debate personalities.
We stress-test systems until the failure reveals itself.

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