SHARE:
Your Move, Ken
Teacher knew best. The one-time "Boy Wonder" of Broward County politics and former Democratic state senator, now 53, has held the sheriff's office for just two years, but the buzz is about what he plans to do next. Ever since an initiative began moving through the Florida Legislature to create a strong mayor's job for the county, Jenne has been assumed to be maneuvering behind the scenes to get the job.
Jenne tells the audience at a Coconut Creek condominium association meeting, mostly retirees, that he knows they've heard he's working to be the county's first elected mayor. But Jenne assures them: "I'm not working very hard at it." He loves being sheriff, he says. As a state senator, he tells the seniors, he held one vote out of 40. As sheriff, he can be creative and "get something done."
Jenne does seem to love his job. But few are swayed by his denials of interest in a strong mayor's post. Broward, the most Democratic urban county in the state, already has a long history as a power center in statewide politics. And a strong mayor who's a Democrat could become a kingmaker for any Democrat with statewide ambitions. Whether Jenne runs or not, a race for a strong mayor's post would likely set off a game of musical chairs among the party's leaders.
Meanwhile, as the move to create a strong mayor develops, Jenne is "ideally located for his upwardly mobile ambitions," says consultant Tom Slade, the former state GOP party chief and an admirer of Jenne's brains and work ethic.
An only child, Jenne grew up in the central Palm Beach County city of Lake Worth with parents he describes in glowing terms. He says he has no idea what they did to build his self-esteem, but it clearly worked: At his high school commencement, graduates lined up by height, rather than by name. Jenne, who stands 5-foot-8, says he went to the front of the line with the taller kids. He says it was the first time he realized he wasn't as tall as most of the other students.
He graduated with a degree in political science from Florida Atlantic University when it was little more than a few buildings in some fields. He would make the school a pet cause in the Legislature. He got his law degree from Florida State University and his political degree from the late, legendary senator and congressman Claude Pepper, for whom he interned. Pepper worked him hard. "He was a very passionate person about government," Jenne says. "He looked on government as a ministry."
Batman and Robin
Jenne took up the ministry young. At 26, he became an assistant prosecutor. He and a fellow assistant prosecutor named Bob Butterworth, now Florida's attorney general, developed a reputation for prosecuting public corruption and were dubbed Batman and Robin. At 28, Jenne became executive director of a commission that rewrote Broward County's charter. He also became a county commissioner that year.
At 32, he won a state Senate seat -- and again, he made waves, pushing a batch of big-city issues like education, prisons and harsher DUI penalties. Then-Senate President Phil Lewis told Jenne the Legislature ends up being run by the 10 lawmakers who are smartest and work hardest. Jenne held a leadership post for nearly his entire 18 years in the Senate. He also won renown for toughness -- particularly in dealing with legislators from rural areas who didn't much care about the problems of Florida's more populated counties. "If someone wasn't standing up for urban Florida, they would have walked all over us," Jenne says. "Do I prefer being a nicer, kinder person who didn't have to get into a fight every other day on the floor? Absolutely."
Remarks a former senator who served with Jenne, "Ken can be your best friend or your worst enemy. And he hates to lose."
Jenne claims he didn't leave the Senate because of term limits, which would have forced him out this year. Instead, he says, he left "to run my own shop."
Jenne didn't have to start small. The Broward sheriff, with more than 4,000 jobs under patronage power, is the county's most powerful officeholder -- and the post has been a stepping stone. Sheriff Ed Stack became a congressman. Sheriff Butterworth became attorney general. Sheriff Nick Navarro became a media hound. When Sheriff Ron Cochran, a career police officer and administrator, died of cancer a year after being reelected in 1996, then-Gov. Lawton Chiles put Jenne in the job.
The job came with a million-dollar price tag, however, as a bit of Jenne's political expediency caught up with him. In 1993, Republican lawyer Bill Scherer of Fort Lauderdale stood to lose his firm's lucrative North Broward Hospital District business. State Senator Jenne joined the firm as a partner. The firm kept the business. When Jenne took the $136,000 sheriff's job, he sought $1 million from Scherer for Jenne's share of the law firm. Scherer refused, saying he had no contractual obligation to pay Jenne anything. Jenne doesn't talk about the breakup.
As sheriff, Jenne has kept busy. He managed to increase the office's reach even as many expected it to shrink. With cities in Broward slated to annex unincorporated areas of the county by 2010, city police departments were expected to control much territory now patrolled by sheriff's deputies. Jenne, however, pitched cities to let his office provide patrol services. From 3,500 jobs and a $250-million budget when Jenne was sworn in, the sheriff's office has grown to 4,042 full-time jobs and a $307-million budget.
Thinking man's 'Cops'
Jenne also has introduced strict accountability to managing the county's police work -- through an ungainly named management approach called Powertrac -- Provide Objectives Where Enforcement Resources Target Responses Against Crime. Each Tuesday, the county's district and special unit chiefs take turns at a podium in a darkened room to answer for how they run their districts. They face Jenne and the office's ranking commanders, sitting in dark chairs around black-topped tables lit only by black desk lamps.
Questions cover everything from stopping a neighborhood burglary problem to how much overtime district deputies are drawing. It's a thinking man's "Cops," and Jenne can boast that major crimes -- violent offenses, burglaries and car theft -- in the county fell by nearly a third during his tenure.
Other Jenne innovations as sheriff include a special emphasis on picking up truants. After the state Department of Children and Families' Broward district made a series of poor judgments involving children at risk of neglect or abuse, the Broward sheriff's department also took over the task of determining whether children should be removed from dangerous homes and investigating potential foster parents.
Jenne isn't immune from charges of empire-building. Mostly, the specifics involve low-grade political overreaching: When the sheriff's department created a new logo, it came designed with Jenne's name, for example.
But the image-building has underscored the notion that Jenne has larger ambitions. The trend toward making local elected offices into more powerful positions is a national trend, as state legislators forced out of office by term limits remake local offices into more comfortable places for themselves to land.
Broward, with its 1.5-million people, has remained the largest urban county in the state without a strong mayor. A deal involving Hollywood real estate developer Michael Swerdlow may end up nudging the county into the national trend, however.
In 1997, Swerdlow convinced four members of the seven-member county commission to pay him $120 million for land appraised at $40 million and at $68.7 million. Proponents of a strong mayor suddenly had a cause célèbre -- such a deal would have been unthinkable with a strong mayor, they argue.
In Broward, Jenne's name is a presence, whether it's spoken or not, as the two sides have framed their arguments in terms of whether a strong mayor would prompt more dictatorship than leadership. The mayor would have veto power over the county commission and the authority to hire and fire 7,000 county workers, though many are protected by contracts.
Broward big money has taken sides. Notable pockets tapped to support creating a strong mayor include Fort Lauderdale billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga, investor and former Huizenga aide Steven R. Berrard, and millionaire entrepreneur and former Alamo Rent a Car owner Michael Egan. Butterworth's wife, Marta Prado, also is a donor.
Opposition to a strong mayor is tied to existing commissioners and includes lawyers and consultants. Big donors: Scherer, Jenne's former law firm partner, and prison operator Palm Beach Gardens-based Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Jenne fought off an attempt to have Wackenhut run one Broward jail facility and has been critical of its handling of another.
At least one group of Broward businesspeople holds "Stop Jenne'' strategy sessions, apparently fearing their businesses and contracts with the county will suffer if Jenne becomes strong mayor.
At press time, the strong mayor ballot question was under judicial review. Even if it fails to get on the primary ballot this month, it likely will return, along with discussion of Jenne's prospects. One who's given a chance of thwarting a Jenne candidacy: U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, a popular Hollywood Democrat.
The plot is thick with other possible twists as well, including talk of a return of Batman and Robin, with Butterworth, who faces term limits in 2002, going after the mayor's job and Jenne staying on as sheriff, pending a run for another office.
Jenne has one statewide campaign under his belt, having run for state treasurer in 1988. State Democratic Party Chairman Charles Whitehead says, "You get known and you make friends and you have an organization you can build statewide." He talks regularly to Jenne, who, he says, "has a great feel for the state and a great political mind."
Jenne, meanwhile, says all mayoral talk is premature. When strong mayor questions arise at condo association meetings and elsewhere, he talks up the importance of being sheriff. He tells a story about when Chiles named him Broward sheriff. The late governor, who knew something about the joys of leaving legislative service to be a chief executive, told Jenne, "you'll love this position because you're the one who gets the ball into play."
