{"id":43473,"date":"2019-06-18T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T17:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43473"},"modified":"2019-06-18T13:49:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T17:49:17","slug":"governor-ponders-choice-to-fill-kikers-seat-on-the-lee-county-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/06\/governor-ponders-choice-to-fill-kikers-seat-on-the-lee-county-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor ponders choice to fill Kiker\u2019s seat on the Lee county commission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Florida Gov. Desantis told reporters last week that staff members have reviewed the applications for the post <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It has been eight weeks since Lee County Commissioner Larry Kiker died\nafter a battle with cancer and Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to choose a\nsuccessor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourteen people\nhave applied for the position. Desantis told reporters last week that staff\nmembers have reviewed the applications for the post, but he wanted to interview\ncandidates before making an announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor Attonito<\/strong> is a project manager for Spherio Personnel Services,\na temporary staffing agency and a “stay at home Mom who has other\nadministrative positions. She was elected, under the name Eleanor\n“Peaches” Attonito, to the governing council in the\nborough of Madison, N.J. in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dick\nAnderson<\/strong> lost a narrow race to Kiker in 2016 by three-quarters of a percentage\npoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His 2016 campaign\nwas based on environmental concerns and his application for the Kiker seat\nstresses those same issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson said that\nhis motivation is concern that the current generation of leaders “will\npreside over irreversible damage to our unique waterways and the natural\nlandscape” with short-sighted decision making.  He is a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former principal\nplanner for Lee County, Anderson has been in Florida for more than 40 years and\ngraduated from high school in Illinois and received a master’s degree in\neducation and urban and regional planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurence\nGillis,<\/strong> a\nCape Coral resident, is an attorney and former prosecutor in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is the only\napplicant for the position who is registered to vote as a Libertarian and\nstates in his application that his party principles will guide him if he\nbecomes the new member of the commission. “I am committed to lean and\nfrugal government that intrudes as minimally as possible into the lives of our\nresidents.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gillis was a\nresident of the New Hampshire seacoast when he moved his permanent address\nto Florida in 2008. He is an Army veteran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian\nFarrar<\/strong> of\nEstero, a native of Troy, New York, owns BCF Management Group, a land use\nconsulting and contracting business and worked briefly for the Florida\nDepartment of Transportation in the late 1980s.  He is an elected member,\nand current president, of Bonita Springs Utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farrar describes\nhimself as a fiscal conservative and “a strong supporter of small and\nlimited government.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fred\nForbes,<\/strong> a\ncurrent Bonita Springs city councilman and a former Bonita fire commissioner,\nis a retired civil engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Republican,\nForbes says he believes he would make “significant contribution as a\ncounty commissioner to improve water quality, reduce flooding and ensuring that\nall development is ‘smart’ development.”  He is a native of Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Albion<\/strong>, who served as a county\ncommissioner for three terms in the 1990s and 2000s, also served as president\nof the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce from 2008-12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Albion\nis a commercial real estate broker with Cushman & Wakefield, a national\nbrokerage and development concern with an office in Fort Myers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Lynn,\nMass., Albion is a Republican who lists among his qualifications a fiscally\nconservative approach to budgeting and that he’s an advocate of “private\nproperty rights.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karl\nDeigert<\/strong>,\npresident of the Matlacha Civic Association, has been a water quality\nadvocate who said he has tried to “seek solutions to the Florida Water\nQuality issues through advocacy.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is a trained\nFlorida master naturalist and holds a Coast Guard license as a captain on\nun-inspected vessels carrying up to six people.  He said his “science-based\neducation creates high level understanding” of Florida environmental\nissues.  Deigert is a registered Democrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christin\nCollins<\/strong>is\ndirector of health and wellness at Lee Health, which she joined in 2010 as a\ndevelopment director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins did not\naddress policy issues in her application, but said she will “would embrace\nthis appointment to continue the connectivity of Southwest\nFlorida.” Collins said she was approached by “a number of\ncommunity members” to seek appointment to the vacancy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a former\ngeography teacher, real estate agent and flight attendant. Collins is a\nRepublican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Todd Truax<\/strong> is a former Democratic\ncandidate for Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A graduate of\nCleveland State University with a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve\nUniversity, also in Cleveland, he came to Florida in 1998.  His career\nincludes top management positions in several health and rehabilitation\nfacilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truax said that he\nhas worked with members of the county commission “advocating for clean\nwater, planned development, infrastructure issues and budgeting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Batos<\/strong>, a village council member and\nformer mayor of Estero, moved permanently to Florida nearly 18 years ago from\nNew York where he worked as an executive in the food and beverage industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batos says his\nexperience in budgeting and management in both business and government\nbudgeting “will help make Lee County more financially responsible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican Batos\nhas endorsements from each of his council colleagues in Estero as well as from\nBonita Springs City Council members Amy Quaremba and Peter O’Flinn and Sanibel\nMayor Kevin Ruane, who is a candidate for another commission seat next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is the former\nchair of the Estero Council of Community Leaders and was an early advocate of\nvillage incorporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael\nDreikorn<\/strong> of Bokeelia is seeking appointment to Kiker’s seat, and is an\nannounced candidate for the seat that will be vacated by John Manning next\nyear. He holds a doctorate of education from George Washington University and\nhas written a number of scholarly articles about aviation and defense issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Matlacha\/Pine\nIsland fire commissioner, the Republican Dreikorn calls himself an independent\nconservative who bases “decisions on data, while balancing urgency with\npublic input.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paula\nKiker,<\/strong> the\nwidow of the late Commissioner Larry Kiker, has served as president of the\nRealtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach, and has owned and\noperated Lahaina Realty at Fort Myers Beach since 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that she\nwas “engaged” in her husband’s policy and operational positions\nduring his 12 years in public office as a commissioner and as mayor of Fort\nMyers Beach, where they lived for many years before moving to south Fort\nMyers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiker is a member\nof the Republican party and came to Florida from Illinois. She called for\nbalancing “our economic growth and the need for lower taxes with our need\nto maintain our waterways and environment.”  She has also filed to\nrun for a full term in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew\nRoepstorff <\/strong>is an attorney, who is of counsel in the Fort Myers office of the statewide\nlaw firm Gray Robinson, and a former assistant state attorney.   \n   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has been a\nmember of the county Land Development Code Advisory Committee who said he will\n“foster the responsible and historically conservative approach to small\ncounty government.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Fort Myers native\nand graduate of Bishop Verot High School, Roepstorff is a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria\nPeters<\/strong> is\na currently a state employee, having served as an operations manager and\ncommunity liason with the Florida Department of Transportation. In that\ncapacity, she has represented FDOT on committees in Collier County. Her\nreferences include a Collier County commissioner and a Naples City Council\nmember. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a resident\nof Fort Myers, a native of Connecticut, a Republican, and holds an\nundergraduate degree from Clark University and a law degree from Cooley Law\nSchool in Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters said it is a “lifelong\npassion” to make a difference “for short- and long-term goals of the\ncommunity regarding education, environment, business and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been eight weeks since Lee County Commissioner Larry Kiker died after a battle with cancer and Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to choose a successor.  Fourteen people have… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}