There’s a surprise shakeup in the Dunnellon Police Department. At Tuesday’s Law Enforcement Torch Run, Dunnellon Police Chief Joanne Black announced is resigning her position for personal reasons effective May 11.

In a surprise to the community along the Marion and Citrus County line, the City Manager decided the Marion County Sheriff’s Office will take over the department for a period of 30 days while the city figures out what to do next.

“I’m here to just run the day to day operations, make sure the City of Dunnellon receives quality professional care while the town and the City Council have a lot of choices to make,” said Lt. Brian Spivey from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Lt. Spivey admitted he was spending as much time on his first day on the job, doing an audit of the department as he was meeting people. 

“Coming in doing an inventory of their property and evidence to me feels like they are going to take over the department,” said Dunnellon resident Mike Hill.

After spending all day in meetings with the Sheriff’s Office, Dunnellon’s City Manager Eddie Esch returned to City Hall late Wednesday announcing the special meeting on quote “the future of the police department” had been cancelled, since the Sheriff had agreed to run the department free of charge for the first month.

Esch did say the City Council had already asked him to find out how much it would cost to have the Sheriff’s Office provide law enforcement permanently.

“There have been budget talks and things that need to be addressed, there’s options out there that need to be explored, but at this point it’s our intent to keep the police department intact and operational,” said Esch.

Chief Black has only cited personal reasons for leaving.  She will be paid the next two weeks, but cleaned out her office Wednesday and has no plans on coming back.

 “I have nothing but great things to say about her, this is a travesty and a loss to our community and people are devastated,” said Dunnellon resident Charlene Williams.

 The City of Dunnellon has also asked for estimates on the County running the fire and road departments.

Chief Joanne Black has been with the department for 18 years.