{"id":58686,"date":"2025-10-25T11:52:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T15:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=58686"},"modified":"2025-10-25T11:52:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T15:52:59","slug":"polk-county-florida-board-of-county-commissioners-and-staff-falling-asleep-in-the-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/10\/25\/polk-county-florida-board-of-county-commissioners-and-staff-falling-asleep-in-the-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County, Florida Board of County Commissioners and Staff falling asleep in the meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While Animal Advocates stood at the podium begging for change, some of Polk\u2019s \u201cleaders\u201d ( Commissioners Bill Braswell and County Attorney Randy Mink) sat there looking checked out \u2014 heads back, eyes closed , sleeping\u2014 like the mass killing crisis in this county is just background noise.<\/p>\n\n\n

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This is the county that under Polk County Animal Control managed by Sheriff Grady Judd killed or disposed of 6,273 animals in 2024.
More than any other shelter in the entire state of Florida.
2.5\u00d7 more than Miami-Dade \u2014 a county with three times the population.
Source: University of Florida Shelter Medicine
https:\/\/sheltermedicine.vetmed.ufl.edu\/research\/current-studies\/florida-animal-sheltering\/shelter-level-data<\/a>

This isn\u2019t a \u201cstray problem.\u201d
This is what happens when those in power refuse to enact humane ordinances, ignore advocates, and treat mass killing as routine \u201cpopulation control.\u201d

And while the numbers climb, they sit in their chairs \u2014 motionless. Disengaged.

These so-called leaders are an embarrassment to Polk County.

Polk County isn\u2019t just on the list \u2014 it\u2019s at the very top of a statewide body count.
That should fury every single taxpayer and every single person who loves animals.

\"\ud83d\uded1\"6,273 lives lost.
\"\ud83d\uded1\"Policies unchanged.
\"\ud83d\uded1\"Officials asleep at the wheel.
This is moral collapse on leadership All county commissioner and Sheriff Grady Judd.

This is why advocates keep showing up month after month. This is why we will not be silent.

Polk County leadership has blood on its hands.

\ud835\udc02\ud835\udc00\ud835\udc0b\ud835\udc0b \ud835\udc13\ud835\udc07\ud835\udc04\ud835\udc0c:
District 1 \u2013 Becky Troutman | (863) 534-6450 | BeckyTroutman@polk-county.net
District 2 \u2013 Rick Wilson | (863) 534-6434 | RickWilson@polk-county.net
District 3 \u2013 Bill Braswell | (863) 534-6050 | BillBraswell@polk-county.net
District 4 \u2013 Martha Santiago, Ed.D. | (863) 534-6422 | MarthaSantiago@polk-county.net
District 5 \u2013 Michael Scott | (863) 534-6049 | MichaelScott@polk-county.net

Grady Judd Animal Control 863-298-6200<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Animal Advocates stood at the podium begging for change, some of Polk\u2019s \u201cleaders\u201d ( Commissioners Bill Braswell and County Attorney Randy Mink) sat there looking checked out \u2014 heads… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcLzU2NjU0MzMyN182NzczMDM4MzIxMDU2MTFfNjAzODkzNDAwMTEwMDYyNzc5N19uLndlYnA_Zml0PTcyMCUyQzkzMyZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgQ291bnR5LCBGbG9yaWRhIEJvYXJkIG9mIENvdW50eSBDb21taXNzaW9uZXJzIGFuZCBTdGFmZiBmYWxsaW5nIGFzbGVlcCBpbiB0aGUgbWVldGluZ3MiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.I1zmMxDNTWUW-JmrWb1_FklR1SwpZJUm_g-HpFUsdkkMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":58687,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/566543327_677303832105611_6038934001100627797_n.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[12459,169],"class_list":["post-58686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-board-of-county-commissioners-and-staff-falling-asleep-in-the-meetings","tag-polk-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58689,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58686\/revisions\/58689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}