The tension inside the chamber was palpable last week as County Commissioner Joe Earman sat on the dais and Sheriff Eric Flowers stood at the podium.
Only hours earlier – at 5 p.m. the day before on the Sheriff’s Office campus – Flowers was conducting a press conference to announce the arrest of Earman’s son, Sam, on stalking-related charges that prompted his firing.
Now, the following morning, Flowers was again asking the commission to further increase his budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, this time by allocating to him more than $2.5 million in unspent funds returned by the county’s constitutional officers, including the sheriff, and pulling another $964,000 from reserves.
“Tuesday was very strange,” Deryl Loar, a former three-term sheriff and the commission’s newly elected chairman, said of the Nov. 18 meeting. “Even Eric’s demeanor seemed different.”
To be sure, Flowers did not exhibit any of the same arrogance or combativeness that marked his previous appearances before the commission during the ongoing budget saga.
He seemed almost resigned to the fact that the fate of his budget will be decided in Tallahassee, where he filed an appeal to the governor-led Florida Administrative Commission.
“I’m tired of talking about the budget, tired of having this conversation, and this is an opportunity for us to end it today,” Flowers told the commission. “I’d really love to be able to move forward and get on to doing what we need to do.”
Again, however, the sheriff would leave disappointed, with both his appeal to the state and a lawsuit against the commission still pending.
The commissioners did vote unanimously to award Flowers an additional $495,000 to cover equipment purchases from the 2024-25 fiscal year that hadn’t yet been delivered.
But they rejected Commission Vice Chairman Laura Moss’ proposal to give back to the sheriff the full $1.4 million in unspent funds he had returned.
Not that it would have been enough to satisfy Flowers, anyway.
When Commissioner Susan Adams asked the sheriff if allowing him to take back the $1.4 million would end the conflict, Flowers replied: “No, ma’am, that doesn’t get us to where we need to be for our budget purposes.”
There was none of the previous drama.
Other than posing a question to County Administrator John Titkanich, Earman didn’t say much during the dais discussion of the sheriff’s budget – which came as no surprise to Loar.
In fact, the chairman said he didn’t expect Earman to even attend the meeting, because his son was scheduled for his first court appearance earlier that morning.
“Yeah, I was stunned to see him,” Loar said. “Everyone was.”
Earman, though, said he never considered skipping the meeting, despite his son’s arrest, Flowers’ press conference and verbal clashes with the sheriff at previous budget sessions.
He knew Flowers would be there, and he was prepared to accept the awkwardness of the moment.
“It was fine,” Earman said after the meeting. “Everybody was very supportive, and I knew I had the respect of the county staff and employees. There were no issues.
“What happens in my life doesn’t stop the county’s business,” he added. “Really, it was good for me to be there. I’m not going to hide from anything.”
Indeed, Earman believes the commissioners’ decision to not fully fund Flowers’ request for a $12.2 million budget increase was made in the best overall interests of the county.
“We did the right thing,” Earman said. “We gave him a $7 million increase. That should’ve been enough to operate the agency. But he’s not satisfied. He still wants the whole $12 million.
“How about you accept what we did for you this year, then prepare to start talking about next year?” he added. “He can still request budget amendments in the meantime. If he needs more funding for some compelling cause, he can come to us.
“We’ve done that for other constitutional officers in the past.”
Understandably, Earman was reluctant to comment on his son’s arrest on felony and misdemeanor charges alleging he criminally misused Sheriff’s Office computers and both stalked and cyber-stalked multiple women.
The arrest stemmed from a complaint filed in October by a woman who told detectives she feared the younger Earman’s persistent messaging could escalate into potentially dangerous behavior.
According to a 30-page arrest affidavit, Earman’s son – who was a deputy for 10 years – was sending unwanted, inappropriate and, in some cases, explicit messages and photos to at least one woman.
Earman’s son was arrested the morning of Nov. 17, when he turned himself in at the Sheriff’s Office. He was released from jail after posting a $30,000 bond, and he has hired Vero Beach defense attorney Andy Metcalf.
“My son is 35 years old, and he made mistakes,” Earman said. “We’ll get through this. … This will pass.”
Perhaps so, but not any time soon.
During his press conference, Flowers urged anyone who had similarly troubling interactions with Earman’s son to contact the Sheriff’s Office, saying, “We believe there are more victims.”
It’s possible, then, that additional charges could be forthcoming.
Still, the timing of the arrest – and subsequent press conference – is curious, given the sheriff knew he was to appear before the commission the next morning and that Earman had steadfastly refused to acquiesce to his all-or-nothing budget demand.
“If he wants to stick on $12 million,” Earman said in August, “let’s take it to Tallahassee.”
Earman also claimed Flowers didn’t meet with him individually to discuss the sheriff’s request prior to the budget hearings, putting the two men at odds throughout what became an adversarial and sometimes antagonistic process.
It’s fair to wonder, then, why Flowers felt compelled to execute the arrest warrant on that particular day and schedule a mugshot-adorned press conference the afternoon before his most recent appearance before the commission.
Could the sheriff have postponed those disturbing events until the next afternoon and spared Earman – a good man who has spent his adult life serving our community, first as a Fire Rescue first responder, then as commissioner – the indignity of facing the public so soon after his son’s embarrassing arrest?
Could he have waited one day to avoid placing Earman in such a difficult position?
Remember: Earman’s son was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 28, when he surrendered his badge, gun and vehicle. He knew he was under investigation.
Earman did not want to comment, which – at this point, under the current circumstances – was probably wise.
It’s better to leave his son’s defense to Metcalf and let the governor’s panel decide the merits of Flowers’ appeal.
Besides, just three days after the Earman-Flowers drama, our community was shaken by genuine tragedy: Sheriff’s Sergeant Terri Sweeting-Mashkow was fatally shot Friday morning while serving an eviction notice at Bermuda Club.
Sweeting-Mashkow, who was 47 and a 25-year Sheriff’s Office veteran, became the second deputy killed in the line of duty in the agency’s 100-year history.
Also shot was Deputy Tino Arizpe, who was struck in the shoulder, and David Long, a local locksmith who had accompanied deputies to the Governors Way home and was rushed to the trauma unit at Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce and died two days later.
The shooter, 37-year-old Michael Halberstam, was shot multiple times by deputies – including Sergeant Gary Farless, who escaped injury – and died Saturday afternoon at Lawnwood.
“It’s terrible,” Loar said of the incident. “We’re all grieving the death of Deputy Sweeting-Mashkow. That’s all that matters right now. I don’t want to talk about budgets or press conferences or anything else.”
Apparently, not everyone agrees.
Some of Flowers’ supporters on social media have tried to link the shooting to the commission’s refusal to fully fund the sheriff’s budget request, with at least one post stating the commissioners “have blood on their hands.”
That’s ridiculous, of course.
There’s no connection whatsoever between the sheriff’s budget and what happened at Bermuda Club, where three armed, trained and experienced deputies were sent to serve an eviction notice.
And before someone else cites the shooting to make the case that we need to better pay our law enforcement officers, you’ll get no argument here. Flowers should have used the budget increases the commission approved the past four years to raise the salaries of all his deputies, not just his upper echelon.
They all deserve to make more money.
In truth, however, no pay raise would be enough – not to $60,000 or $75,000 or $100,000-plus – because you can’t put a price on the lives of our first responders.
There, you can be sure, both Earman and Flowers would agree.
