SoFla Guide Editors
Broward County may be about to sue its own sheriff over a locked door. On Tuesday morning, commissioners voted unanimously to authorize the County Attorney’s Office to pursue any and all necessary legal action against Sheriff Gregory Tony’s office to get into county-owned facilities used by BSO, NBC 6 South Florida reported. The spark was a Monday trip to BSO’s Research, Development and Training Center that ended with Mayor Mark Bogen and company standing outside.
The gym tour that never happened
Here is how it went down, according to CBS Miami. On Monday, October 12, Bogen showed up at the training center with two commissioners, several administrators and a group of supporters. A deputy met them at the entrance and delivered the message.
“We are told to tell you that all tours have to be scheduled through the office of the sheriff,” the deputy said, per CBS Miami.
Bogen made his pitch anyway. “We’d like to enter the building, and we’d like to only go to the gym, the unsecured area of the gym,” he said at the entrance, CBS Miami reported. No luck.
The mayor says he did try to book ahead. He told WSVN 7News he attempted to set up an appointment on Friday, October 9, but got no answer from Tony’s office before showing up Monday. “We sent many emails to the command staff saying we would like to view the gym and they don’t respond,” Bogen said, according to Local 10.
Tony’s position is that commissioners cannot walk into BSO facilities unannounced to conduct an inspection or audit, and he has called the commission’s actions a political stunt, NBC 6 reported. He put it more bluntly to CBS Miami: “No civilian under criminal investigation will be permitted to walk through these doors, whether they are focused on using a bathroom or if they want to go into a gym.”
Why a gym? Follow the money
The training center is not a random target. WSVN 7News reported that a 2024 county audit found the RDTC’s estimated costs more than doubled from its original $34 million price tag. Commissioners want to see what that money built.
That question sits inside a much bigger budget fight. According to CBS Miami, the commission approved a budget of roughly $885 million for BSO, about $50 million less than the sheriff requested. Commissioners are also filing public records requests to find out how Tony spent his budget, CBS Miami reported, and on October 9 the county launched an investigation into BSO spending, per WSVN 7News.
Bogen framed Tuesday’s vote as a transparency issue. “We have a sheriff who refuses to disclose things, fights our requests, locks his doors, hides in his office making videos, doesn’t show up at our meetings,” he said, via CBS Miami.
And his off-ramp is simple, at least in his telling. “Everything stops if they just open their books and say, ‘Here’s what we’re spending our money on.’ It’s that simple, folks,” Bogen said, according to Local 10.
The subpoenas hanging over all of this
Tony’s “under criminal investigation” line refers to something real. According to BSO, at the request of Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution, deputies began serving subpoenas on September 9 on the entire Broward County Commission, County Administrator Monica Cepero, the deputy county administrator and several other senior county officials, Local 10 reported. CBS Miami reported the subpoenas relate to the county’s feasibility study on whether to pull BSO out of law enforcement operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades.
The dominoes have been falling fast since then. On October 5, Tony announced on social media he was suspending budget negotiations with the county, citing that statewide prosecutor investigation, WLRN reported. The next day, commissioners unanimously voted to indefinitely defer BSO’s $5.8 million budget supplement request, which had been earmarked for dispatch service salaries, according to WLRN.
WLRN also noted the commission had previously voted to strip fire rescue services from BSO’s administration. So the relationship was already strained well before anyone was turned away from a gym.
What’s next
Tuesday’s emergency meeting ended with a 7-0 vote on Bogen’s motion, Local 10 reported. The authorization gives the county attorney the power to sue the sheriff if negotiations go nowhere, so this is a loaded weapon rather than a filed lawsuit, at least for now.
Tony’s reaction came quickly. WSVN 7News reported he posted on social media calling the vote a “foolish decision” that will cost hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. In a Facebook video, he added, per WLRN: “An attack on the Sheriff’s constitutional powers and authority will prompt a unified response from all 67 sheriffs.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, there was reportedly no confirmed date or agreement for when BSO would let county officials visit the RDTC voluntarily before any court action, according to WSVN 7News.
So the standoff boils down to this: the county says it owns the building and wants to see inside it. The sheriff says the people asking are under investigation and cannot just show up. Both sides say the other is wasting taxpayer money. Whether a judge ends up refereeing a dispute over who gets to look at a gym may depend on whether anyone picks up the phone first.
