By Suzie Ziegler
ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — The now-former Escambia County sheriff spent $75,000 of taxpayer money to commission two life-size bronze statues, one of himself, during his final term in office, according to the Pensacola News Journal. Yes, really.
Current Sheriff Chip Simmons called the statue a “brash, narcissistic waste.”
“You don’t make a statue of yourself,” Simmons told the News Journal on Wednesday. “And you don’t use tax dollars to do it.”
Former sheriff David Morgan defended his decision, saying he intended the statue to be a monument to fallen officers.
The 6-foot-4-inch statue shows Morgan standing at attention and saluting. It was one of two sculptures in the order – the other being a statue of former Lt. Jason Potts and a K-9, according to the report. Potts led the agency’s K-9 unit during Morgan’s time as sheriff. The two statues each cost $37,500, according to WEAR-TV.
According to the News Journal, documents show that Morgan and Potts posed to have their likeness photographed from 360-degree angles. The photos were then mailed to a design company as models for the bronze replicas.
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“Doing bronze statues are pretty common,” Morgan told the News Journal. “Go to the Florida Sheriff’s Association. They have several of them out front. They’re depicting deputies and sheriffs and first responders.”
Simmons said he first learned about the order in May while preparing for a memorial ceremony honoring fallen deputies. Simmons said he had been looking into the idea of adding “generic” statues to the agency’s memorial.
“As soon as I found the paperwork, I instructed (ECSO risk manager) Marcus Faulkner to call the company and see if they could cancel this,” Simmons told reporters. “I instructed him to find out if the company could melt it down, make a bench out of it or if there was something that we could do with it.”
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But it was too late. The statues were already done.
The design company agreed to remove the statues’ bronze nametags that read “Morgan” and “Potts.” However, Simmons says the Morgan statue, with its “sheriff” patch and U.S. Air Force Medals, “is clearly him.”
Simmons says he’s looking into the possibility of melting it down and making something else with it.
“I have no words for this, but I have zero intention of placing this thing in front of our building,” Simmons said.