“What I was looking for was somebody with big-city experience but willing to take on a small town, which we still consider ourselves a small town,” Mayor Linda Hudson said.
Hudson said they narrowed the search down to six qualified candidates, and it was 56-year-old Tampa police Maj. Diane Hobley-Burney who got the job.
“She stood out to me because she has an area of Tampa that mirrors Fort Pierce. It has a very affluent area and a very low socioeconomic area,” said Hudson, who said most of Fort Pierce’s violent crime comes from one poverty-ridden section of the city. “Her strategy is to gain the trust of the community and especially the area where the high crime is.” – READ MORE
