Sheriff T.K. Waters Does Not Face Election Challenger, Full Term Ahead
JACKSONVILLE (FLV) – Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters will not face a challenger in Duval County’s spring elections for sheriff after the qualifying deadline passed Friday.
Waters is the only candidate who qualified for the spring election which is scheduled for March 21, 2023. Since there is not a challenger, Waters will be able to hold his position for a full four-year term.
Waters won against Democrat candidate Lakesha Burton in the race for Jacksonville Sheriff in the November runoff. Burton filed initial paperwork to become a candidate for a rematch with Waters for the spring 2023 election but did not complete qualifying paperwork, deciding not to run against Waters.
Burton made an announcement that she would not be running for sheriff and said, “quite frankly, I cannot win.”
“I think that we all can agree that the single most important thing right now is for our sheriff to be focused on making our city safer and not focused on a campaign, a campaign that quite frankly I cannot win,” Burton said.
Burton said she was “pleased” with some things Waters has done as sheriff so far, but said she thinks “we all should be demanding” that he come up with a “detailed plan” of addressing violent crimes in Jacksonville.
During the November election, Waters campaigned on adding more police officers to the streets, improving technology to fight violent crime, targeting violent criminals and gangs for prosecution, building trust through community outreach and effectively using taxpayer dollars.
He has spent 31 years in law enforcement and has served as the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Chief of Investigations since 2019. He created the office’s Violence Reduction Section and helped build the Custom Notification program.
In December, Waters announced a new Agency Transparency Policy for the first time in the history of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) that requires transparency from members of the department.
The new policy is to create “trust” between Jacksonville residents and JSO. It will provide information to the public related to JSO’s open data transparency website, officer’s body-worn cameras involving shooting incidents, criminal investigations of JSO members and public relation materials.
“Without members of our community reporting crimes and providing the information to solve those crimes, we cannot make Jacksonville a safer place for our citizens,” Waters said. “Trust is an essential element of creating an environment in which all Jacksonville citizens can thrive. Trust, it is earned and retained through openness and honesty and I promise this community that our agency will be forward facing and transparent as permissible under the law.”
Other candidates who filed initial paperwork but did not complete the qualifying paperwork to run for sheriff included Democrat Wayne Clark, Democrat Tony Cummings, Democrat Ken Jefferson and Republican Matthew Nemeth.
