Election 2012 Race Analysis: Manatee County Commission: District 5 Republican Primary

In the District 5 Manatee County Commission Republican Primary, local jeweler Vanessa Baugh squares off with Wells Fargo Advisors exec John Colon for the nomination to run for the seat being vacated by Commissioner Donna Hayes.

The Baugh vs. Colon race seems to have devolved into a competition over who is more Manatee County. Colon struck first by pointing out in a televised forum that he's paid property taxes in Manatee for the last 12 years, while his opponent's home was in Sarasota. After Colon raised the issue of how deep Baugh's Manatee ties were, she responded with a mailer highlighting her involvement with groups like the Manatee Chamber of Commerce and Lakewood Ranch Kiwanis, while accusing Colon of claiming a homestead exemption in Sarasota, while noting his position as chair of the Sarasota Housing Authority (which operates in both Sarasota and Manatee County) and his employment there.

John Colon

Colon produced a letter from Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst saying that the exemption was solely for the benefit of Colon's mother, whom Colon had co-owned the property with, in addition to his Manatee County home. It then came out that Baugh had only stopped homesteading her Sarasota property in 2011 and has only been renting a property in Manatee since roughly about the same time she decided to run for office – though it should be noted that her jewelry business has been located in on Lakewood Ranch's Main Street in Manatee County for nearly seven years, and she has thus been paying significant taxes in the county.

Bottom line, the arguments seem petty. District 5 shares an enormous border with Sarasota County and the Lakewood Ranch community is literally split by the county line. Any business person serving clients in that community should be expected to have ties on both sides of University Parkway. Both candidates meet all of the criteria to be on the ballot and both have demonstrated a commitment to the communities in their district.

Another issue has been developer funding in their respective campaigns. Both candidates have accused the other of being sponsored by developers, but after examining campaign finance reports filed with the Supervisor of Elections, it's clear that both have enjoyed strong support from builder-related interests. Baugh has received much of her campaign cash from businesses related to Schroeder-Manatee Ranch (SMR), while Colon has received generous support from business interests related to Medallion Homes and its owner Carlos Beruff, who's been one of the most politically-active Republican donors in the area this cycle, even hosting fundraising events for Mitt Romney's visits.

Despite the campaign bickering, the two candidates have not been able to make deep distinctions on their positions.

Baugh told me that she'd like to see the county do more to diversify its economy and pledged to take an active roll in working to attract businesses to Manatee. She said that SMR's support should not be taken as a sign that she will be a ”vote for development“ and said that since SMR has essentially been her business's landlord, they are in a better position than anyone to understand her capabilities as a commissioner, which makes her proud of their support.

When asked if she felt growth paid for itself, Baugh said that she can only speak for Lakewood Ranch, where she feels that it has. Baugh said that she was originally in favor of the community's incorporation bid, but later changed her mind, considering the success the community had enjoyed under county rule, while growing uncertain that the things she felt were most valuable in the community would remain under a local government.

Colon said that he was proud to receive such strong support from developers and the business community at large, which he said demonstrated faith in his pro-business commitment. Colon also put economic diversity on the top of the list and said that his experience in finance and working with corporations would be an asset in understanding their needs and ”bringing them to the table“ – much more so, he argued, than Baugh's singular experience owning her own business.

Colon also said that he feels growth has been a good investment for the county and indicated that while the citizens and other stakeholders must be considered, the market is going to determine much of what we see in terms of new construction. Both took a ”case by case“ position on comp plan amendments and sounded flexible and sensitive toward the desires of developers to maintain productivity, while agreeing that town hall meetings and other public forums should be used to ensure residents' voices are being heard.

Vanessa Baugh

On phosphate mining, both candidates indicated that the controversial industry was here to stay and said that the focus needs to be on reclamation and making sure that mining companies fulfill their obligations in that arena. Both Colon and Baugh said that they had visited the Mosaic mining operations and were impressed. Mosaic also contributed the maximum corporate donation to Colon's campaign.

When asked, both candidates expressed concern over the decline of the county's urban core and the large number of vacant and foreclosed homes that still challenge the community. Both said that we should be looking at ways to incentivize rehabilitating such properties, but neither would go so far as to suggest that new construction density increases in the rural hamlets of Manatee were competing with, or discouraging such investments.  

Colon spent a great deal of time talking about Port Manatee and was well versed on the operations there. Again, he argued that his experience working with businesses would be an asset to the board.

”I have 25 years in finance working with small and medium-sized businesses – one client at a time,“ Colon told me. ”I can sit down with companies who are considering coming to Manatee County and work on a business plan to make it happen. If elected, I'll work actively with the MEDC (Manatee Economic Development Corporation) and the port to make sure that we're doing everything we can to get businesses to the table and work to diversify our economy.“

Baugh also mentioned the port as a great economic tool that needed to be fully utilized in order to achieve economic diversification.

”The port is a great economic engine,“ Baugh told me. ”We need to do more to get businesses to come here and attract corporations to move their headquarters here so that we can get away from over-reliance on real estate, agriculture and tourism. When the next crash comes, we don't want to have so much of our economy tied to just building new houses. We've seen what happens when that's the case.“

Both candidates talked about the trickle down of new businesses creating growth for support industries already in the area, and each consistently brought questions back to economic development from nearly every arena. Colon seemed more polished on a broader range of topics, while Baugh's positions indicated she might be more flexible and open to input that contrasted her own position, a strength in representative democracy.

In the end, there is not a lot to indicate that the candidates' votes would differ drastically and both seemed to have a stronger command of the issues than the incumbent, Commissioner Donna Hayes, who often struggles on more complicated issues like annexation, wetland mitigation and long-term planning. Both candidates declined to identify specific issues that the BOCC approved that they disagreed with. Colon has received a ringing endorsement from Hayes, who called him a ”trusted adviser“ and a ”statesman“ entirely capable of representing the district. Baugh has received the bulk of media and business group endorsements.

On August 14, Republican voters in District 5 will decide which candidate they would like to nominate to represent them on the Manatee County Commission. The winner will face-off with whoever prevails in the Democratic primary between Frank Archino and James Golden.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Duette and Parrish were in District 5, when they are in fact in District 1.