Confusing action with effort

From The Palm Beach Post:

Palm Beach County sheriff gets $1 million for violence prevention unit amid questions about civil liberties, care for mentally ill
Florida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.

Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch �prevention intervention� units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed.

The goal will be avoiding crime � and making sure law enforcement knows about potential powder kegs before tragedies occur, Bradshaw said. But the earmark, which is a one-time-only funding provision, provoked a debate Monday among mental health advocates and providers about the balance between civil liberties, privacy and protecting the public.

Nothing like getting a cushy $1,000,000 and using it to build up your department -- adding staff. And of course, this is a one-time grant so next year, Sheriff Bradshaw will be going around looking for another million to keep his kingdom running. Suck it up taxpayers -- you voted these people into office. How about using the staff you already have -- give them additional training to deal with mental issues. A bit more:

The $1 million Bradshaw won represents a third of what he had sought from the Legislature, but it�s a 10-fold bump from what was originally earmarked before House and Senate budget leaders finalized the state�s $74 billion budget over the weekend.

He wanted three million dollars? Talk about overreach. There are over 680 comments and the majority of them are against this. Terms like Nazi and Thought Police are used liberally...