‘Not a good look:’ Deputies visit high schools to gather signatures for Sheriff Hardwick campaign

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — A local sheriff’s campaign for re-election broke school district policy on political activity according to a complaint obtained by Action News Jax.

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“To me this was a failure on multiple levels,” Kelly Harrison said. He is on Jim Priester’s campaign running for sheriff in St. Johns County against the incumbent Sheriff Rob Hardwick.

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Harrison filed a complaint with St. Johns County Schools with concerns about two off-duty youth resource deputies in plain clothes who went to five different schools on the same day in April to gather signatures from staff and students to help secure Hardwick’s spot on the ballot.

“Especially to have officers that are tasked with overseeing the very students that they likely approached — I think that’s a real conflict of interest,” Harrison said.

A representative for St. Johns County Schools told Action News Jax the actions did violate the district’s political activity guidelines and gave verbal warnings to those involved.

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“This is exactly what we do when there is a first occurrence of campaign activity on one of our campuses,” a representative said.

“A public official is supposed to draw a bright line between doing their public business and campaigning. It sounds like in this case that bright line has gotten kind of blurred,” Ben Wilcox, the research director at Integrity Florida, said. Integrity Florida is a non-partisan research institute.

Nease, Beachside, Creekside, Bartram Trail, and Tocoi Creek High Schools were all visited. According to the complaint, the deputies also never signed in at any of the schools which breaks another district policy.

“There’s no record of them ever being there — so if I hadn’t reached out to the school board to confirm it took place, nobody would ever know,” Harrison said.

The St. Johns Schools Board attorney told Harrison the deputies told him they “did not know they were violating District rules” and, “the officers and the campaign manager apologized and assured that it would not happen again.”

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The email also said Sheriff Hardwick “only learned about it after the fact and was also very apologetic.”

In a statement to Action News Jax, a member of the Hardwick campaign said, “As the campaign representative, I was notified of this alleged incident as reported in a complaint from the campaign manager of our opponent after the fact by the School District. The Sheriff and our campaign were unaware of the actions and as soon as we were notified, we made sure to direct our supporters to cease any such activity. No petitions gathered in this manner were submitted by the campaign for verification or used to qualify for the ballot. The school district advised that no further action was required or would be taken.”

Wilcox said it’s not necessarily illegal, but a question of public perception.

“As far public perception, it’s just not a good look,” Wilcox said. “it’s really important for an elected official or incumbent to be very careful when they’re using public resources.”

The Hardwick campaign responded with the following statement:

“As the campaign representative, I was notified of this alleged incident as reported in a complaint from the campaign manager of our opponent after the fact by the School District. The Sheriff and our campaign were unaware of the actions and as soon as we were notified, we made sure to direct our supporters to cease any such activity. No petitions gathered in this manner were submitted by the campaign for verification or used to qualify for the ballot. The school district advised that no further action was required or would be taken.”

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