Photo: CBS 12
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been telling you about two Palm Beach County School Board members who would be in favor of a law enforcement merger with the Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw is making it clear that he's with the members who are against that.
"First of all the School Board merger is not going to happen. Period. We can stop talking about that because I'm not going to do that."
But there is a merger that Bradshaw is entertaining and that's with the Boynton Beach Police Department, after some then-candidates for the City Commission were inquiring and have since been elected.
"And now you have a mayor and some commissioners and they have asked for an official proposal from us to see what the numbers are, to see what the organization would look like and to basically have an idea (about) whether they want to do it or not."
The sheriff says he'll have that proposal in 30 to 45 days.
The city is dealing with community outrage over the death of a 13-year old boy on a dirt bike as he was running from police and the Florida Highway Patrol has found the officer was not at fault. Internal Affairs is now investigating.
Bradshaw says he's not concerned about a merger happening in the middle of it.
"No, we've gone into other cities where there's been you know some tension going on, but we know how to resolve that. We do really good community policing. We know how to be accessible. We know how to resolve those issues."
The Sheriff's Office has already taken over policing in a dozen municipalities over the years and Bradshaw says all of those mergers have resulted in lower crime rates.
Next Friday, we'll hear from one of the new city commissioners who wants to know if a PBSO merger would be a positive thing for the community.