Marco Island has a permanent police chief again, eight days after the council ruled out contracting the department away

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 5, 2026

A flat overhead photograph of five weathered horizontal wooden planks, greyed and sun bleached with visible grain, a few small screw heads and rust coloured staining. No people, no lettering, no signage and no place can be identified from it. A neutral surface texture used as an abstract illustration, not a photograph of Marco Island, its city hall or its police department.

Photo: Askara Svarga / Pexels

What it changes

The appointment itself is routine municipal business, and the reason it is worth a Southwest Florida resident's attention is what sat next to it eight days earlier. Marco Island runs its own police department, which a city of its size in Collier County is not obliged to do, and in July the council formally called off a study of contracting that department away. It had opened that study because of a number: the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research puts the city's first-year loss under Amendment 3, the homestead exemption measure on the November 3 ballot, at $1,074,700 in fiscal 2027-28, rising to $3,396,619 by fiscal 2031-32. The police department is the largest discretionary line a council hunting for roughly a million dollars would find, and the council looked straight at it before ruling it out. Filling the chief's post permanently is the practical confirmation of that decision. A department run by an interim chief through a budget season in which its own existence is under study is a department nobody can plan around, and a permanent appointment resolves that regardless of how the November vote goes. The date matters here too. Belardo takes the job on August 3, which places him in the chair for the two September millage hearings at which the money question actually gets settled, rather than arriving afterwards. For residents the practical detail is the least dramatic one: the search is over, the department is not being contracted out, and the money problem that prompted the question is still entirely unresolved and lands in the 2027-28 budget year rather than this one.

The City of Marco Island has a permanent police chief again.

City Manager Dr. Casey Lucius appointed Joseph Belardo Chief of Police effective Monday, August 3, according to a press release the city published on its own news page. Belardo had led the Marco Island Police Department as interim chief since May 27, closing a transition that ran a little over nine weeks.

An official swearing-in ceremony is set for Wednesday, August 12 at 2 p.m. The city says further details will be announced.

"Chief Belardo distinguished himself throughout a highly competitive selection process," Lucius said in the release. "His proven leadership, commitment to professional policing, and genuine dedication to the Marco Island community made him the clear choice to lead this outstanding department."

Belardo is not a newcomer to the island or to the rank. He began his career with the Schodack Police Department in New York, where he retired as chief of police in 2020, then joined the Marco Island Police Department in April of that year. He was promoted to sergeant in 2023 and lieutenant in 2025 before taking the interim post this spring. He holds two master's degrees, a Master of Science in Criminal Justice and a Master of Science in the Administration of Justice and Security, and he and his wife, Renee, ran Blue Wave Swim School, a youth water safety program.

"It is an incredible honor to be selected as the next Chief of Police for the Marco Island Police Department," Belardo said in the release, thanking Lucius, the City Council and the community.

What gives the appointment more weight than a personnel notice is what the council did eight days before it.

On July 27 the Marco Island City Council agreed that the police department would not be replaced, ending a study of whether to contract policing out to another agency. The council had opened that question for a budgetary reason rather than an operational one. The Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimates that Amendment 3, the homestead exemption measure going to voters on November 3, would cost the City of Marco Island $1,074,700 in fiscal 2027-28, its first year of impact, and $3,396,619 by fiscal 2031-32.

Marco Island runs its own police department where most municipalities of its size in Collier County rely on the sheriff. That makes the department the largest single discretionary line available to a council looking for about a million dollars, which is why it was examined at all, and why ruling it out leaves the search to fall on capital deferrals, reserves and the millage rate.

Seen against that, the sequence is straightforward. The council settled the question of whether there would be a department, and the city manager then settled the question of who runs it.

The timing puts Belardo in the chair before the budget hearings rather than after them. Amendment 3 needs 60 percent of the vote on November 3 to pass, and even if it does, the state's own table shows no impact on Marco Island in fiscal 2026-27. The first year that carries a figure is 2027-28.

Marco Island has a permanent police chief again, eight days after the council ruled out contracting the department away

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