Former police lieutenant running for District 27 Florida House seat

[Beckie Sirolli]

Former police Lt. Beckie Sirolli will face two opponents in the Republican primary election in August in an attempt to win the District 27 seat of the Florida House of Representatives.

Sirolli describes herself as a Conservative Christian and grassroots Republican putting “America First.”

She is opposed by Richard Gentry and Steve Shives in the GOP primary. The winner will take on Democrat Andy Ferrari and Libertarian Party candidate Dennis Simpson in the Nov. 5 general election.

Sirolli is the only candidate for District 27 with experience in law enforcement, and worked for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Leesburg Police Department and Fruitland Park Police Department during her 19-year career.

In 2014, Sirolli became the first female to earn the ranking of lieutenant in the Fruitland Park Police Department

“I spent a big part of my adult life protecting and serving, and I’ve got so much left in me,” Sirolli said.

State House District 27 encompasses parts of Marion, Lake and Volusia counties. The seat has been held since 2016 by Republican Stan McClain, who has reached his term limit.

Members of the Florida House of Representatives earn a starting salary of $29,697 a year, with the potential for annual increases.

Sirolli is a graduate of Vanguard High School, attended the Florida Law Enforcement Academy at the College of Central Florida and earned an associate degree from Columbia College.

While with the Marion County Sherriff’s Office from 1996 to 2004, Sirolli said she worked in the medical division of the Marion County Jail, the juvenile division and the patrol division. She resigned from the department in 2004 shortly after then-Sheriff Ed Dean was reelected. She then served on patrol for the Leesburg Police Department from 2005 until 2009, and then served at the Fruitland Park Police Department until her 2015 retirement.

Law enforcement runs in the Sirolli family—her husband, Carmen Sirolli, is a former captain of the Ocala Police Department, who retired in 2019 after 30 years of service to the department. The pair have four children, three of whom are also in law enforcement. Their daughter works at a correctional facility in New York, one of their sons works as an OPD sergeant, and another works as a Sumter County Sheriff’s Office sergeant.

Sirolli has taken a grassroots approach to her campaign, spending the past few months going door to door to speak with voters and inform them of her campaign.

“I know it’s hard, I know it’s hot out. I know it takes a lot of time,but just meeting people and letting them know that I want to represent them is very important to me, because how can I represent people if I don’t know what their biggest issues are?” Sirolli said.

As a Christian, Sirolli says she’s pro-life, but believes that there may be an exception when a woman’s life is in danger and every other option to save the baby’s life has been exhausted.

“I’m more opposed to abortions as birth control, that they’re not seeing the sanctity of how precious life is, when nobody’s advocating for that unborn child,” she said. “We must teach our girls and boys, first, about responsibility and morality. Abortion is not birth control.”

Given her experience in law enforcement, Sirolli strongly opposes restrictions on firearms but believes the right steps must be taken to ensure that people who own guns are trained on how to use them and that they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

“I’m for fewer regulations,” she said. “Guns are dangerous in the wrong hands, but if we restrict guns from law abiding citizens, then they’re going to be sitting ducks for the criminals who are going to have guns no matter what.”

She added that she believes teachers should be armed and trained to use a firearm to defend against school shootings.

If elected, Sirolli intends to focus on campaign finance reform by mitigating the influence that special interest groups have on legislators.

“When you pour millions and millions and millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of the elected officials, very soon, laws can pass that would benefit those special interest groups like Florida Power & Light,” Sirolli said.

Because of this, Sirolli said she tried not to garner donations from special interest groups or political action committees but from her own funds and donations from family and friends.

She has raised $26,230 for her campaign, $6,000 of which came from self-funded loans and $7,985 of which came from in-kind contributions. Sirolli said the money she has contributed from her own campaign came from savings and her and her husband’s retirement funds.

On her financial disclosure form, Sirolli’s net worth was listed as $918,833. In assets, Sirollilisted $614,567 in retirement funds from her husband, $9,712 in savings, and her Belleview home valued at just under $500,000. Her liabilities include a mortgage of $134,154 and auto loan of $6,150.

Thus far, Sirolli has been endorsed by the Lake County Election Integrity and Voter Protection Coalition, Lake 4 America, and Richard Mack, a former Graham County, Arizona sheriff and the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Police Officers Association.

Since her retirement from the Fruitland Park Police Department in 2015, Sirolli has owned a storefront in Belleview, volunteered with voting and elections, and was the caretaker for her mother for several years before she passed.

Through the hot months of summer until the August primary election, Sirolli said she intends to keep knocking on doors and meeting voters to share her story and garner support.

“It’s a teamwork thing,” she said. “It’s listening to the people and working with them, and then having a team in Tallahassee to be able to get things done.”