A tale of two candidates … with decades of receipts

Glen Gibellina is a community activist running a grassroots campaign for Manatee County Commission against an incumbent who has consistently voted against the will of the community and in favor of the developers who fund his campaign. Unsurprisingly, he has found himself the victim of a well-funded and highly coordinated attack by dark-money PACs, pay-to-play media outlets, and hack consultants who lack the thinnest shred of integrity. Let’s take a closer look at the facts.

Twenty years ago, Gibellina, a Chicagoan and former saloon owner, was hitting rock bottom in his long struggle with alcoholism. He was in a bad marriage with a wife who was also a problem drinker. Together, they racked up an impressive number of calls for service and arrests via dueling allegations of domestic violence. Glen has never hidden from or kept secret his past. In fact, after choosing sobriety some 19 years ago, he has been almost evangelical in his support for others battling addiction, telling of his own troubled past and pathway to redemption as a source of inspiration for others fighting similar demons.

I’ve known Glen through his work as a political activist for the Manatee School Board, Manatee County Commission, and Bradenton City Council since 2011. I have heard him speak of his alcoholism and his continued commitment to working the program with the utmost humility. Today, he has an excellent relationship with his ex-wife and their daughter, both of whom support his campaign. His recovery has served as a beacon of hope in the local AA community, where he remains active. Gibellina’s is exactly the kind of story that should be celebrated. It speaks to his character, and to see him dragged through the mud in such a dishonest way speaks to the sort of politics the American people have clearly had more than enough of.

His opponent, Mike Rahn, and the dark-money PACs that support him are running a shamefully dishonest campaign, laughably attempting to pitch Rahn as some sort of sustainable-growth candidate, when the truth is he has consistently voted with developers while remaining deaf to the pleas of Manatee County residents.

Rahn, a mortgage broker, began his political career on the Manatee County Planning Commission. His voting record there reads like an audition for the role of developer darling, casting votes even for the most controversial developments in decades, Longbar Pointe (now Aqua by the Bay) and Gamble Creek Village among them.

Once on the BOCC, Rahn voted to eviscerate local wetland protections that his developer buddies had unsuccessfully sued Manatee County over. He voted for hundreds of millions of dollars in developer impact fee giveaways, and wants to get rid of the urban services boundary and have every square inch of land in the county zoned residential. He’s been a reliable yes vote on every single controversial development, regardless of how incompatible it is with the surrounding community. Yet his criminally dishonest mailers laughably state that he is “holding developers accountable" and "rescuing Manatee County from RUNAWAY GROWTH."

A former second Vice President of the Florida Home Builders Association and board member of the National Association of Home Builders, Rahn was also the President of the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association (BIA). In 2023, following the unceremonious dismissal of County Administrator Scott Hopes, Rahn moved to have the county hire his vacation buddy, BIA CEO Jon Mast, as interim administrator. The BIA had previously been exposed for passing along a “white paper” proposing developer-friendly edits to our land development code.

Mast ultimately withdrew. However, prior to Rahn’s move to install him in the top post, then acting administrator Lee Washington, a Marine Corps veteran of high integrity, alleged that Rahn and fellow friend of Mast, then-Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, had violated Sunshine Laws when they summoned him to lunch without telling him they had also invited Mast, whom Washington said he was urged to hire as deputy administrator. Washington balked, sealing his own fate, and leading to the effort to install Mast more directly. An MCSO investigation found probable cause, but State Attorney Ed Brodsky unsurprisingly declined to prosecute his fellow Manatee County Republicans.

Mike Rahn works for developers, even though he’s paid handsomely to work for the people of this community. Glen Gibellina works for the people of Manatee County, even though he hasn't been getting paid at all. Twenty years ago, Glen may have been an alcoholic crashing toward his rock bottom. However, at that same time, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported that Rahn said, "My job is to serve builders and help them fight for what’s best for our industry."

The difference is that over the next two decades, one of those men has changed.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch's new novel, Fish Kill, is currently available here, along with his previous books. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.