2010 Gainesville City Commission Races Begin
Just when you thought you were going to overdose on national politics, our local Gainesville City Commission gets two candidates to file their papers.
First, our Mayor, Pegeen Hanrahan, is kept from running for re-election by term limits. Current District 4 city commissioner Craig Lowe, has filed to run for mayor. He is term-limited out of his seat, but he is allowed to run for what is, for all practical purposes, another city commission seat. So, term limits apparently have a loophole. The question I have is this: will Hanrahan run for Jack Donovan’s District 3 seat when he is term limited out in 2011? I believe she lives in that district. She was the District 3 commissioner when she was first elected back in 1999.
Next, Penny Wheat is back. She has filed to run for Lowe’s soon to be vacated District 4 seat. Wheat has been out of political office since she declined to run for re-election to the 3rd District seat of the Alachua County Commission. Although she has been out of office, I have seen her lurking at city candidate forums since then. She will be very hard to beat, although these city election are notoriously avoided by the electorate.
Stay tuned to this site for more local political news.
I hope somebody who is a fiscal conservative runs. It seems like we are going to run out of money real fast. I’m not sure the current comission has the talent to deal with that.
1What I’m hearing is that Hanrahan will run for Cynthia Chestnut’s seat on the county commission; Chestnut supposedly is not running again.
I would not be surprised if Clovis Watson runs for that seat as well but, that is pure speculation.
2