Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Campaign 2024 - Tallahassee Seat 2 City Commission Candidate Dot Inman-Johnson

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Campaign 2024 - Tallahassee Seat 2 City Commission Candidate Dot Inman-Johnson · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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Prior to the City of Tallahassee moving to an elected mayor position, city commissioners
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used to rotate into the chair for a year at a time. Dot Inman
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Johnson was formerly a city commissioner who once rotated into that seat as mayor.
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She's back running for City Commission seat two against incumbent Curtis Richardson. I had
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a nice long visit with Dot and we talked over a lot of different things.
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Here's our conversation. I can't remember the last time you and I have
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seen each other. It's been a minute. So let's reset for our listeners
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your career and elected office. Because you've held office before. Remind everybody of
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when you last served, what area you served, and a little bit about
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your background. Well, I was first elected to the Tallahassee City Commission in
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nineteen eighty six. I had served three month term filling an unexpired vacancy that
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was left by James Ford. And I served until nineteen ninety four. And
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I was the first black female elected to the Tallahassee City Commission and served two
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terms as mayor. It was at a time when a term was only one
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year and it wasn't an elected mayor, and I think it was like that
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up until the time. I think Maddocks it was a rotating position. Correct,
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it was rotating, but it rotated to me twice, okay, and
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I made the best of that rotation because I got a lot done during those
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two years. Now, take me back to that decision to say yes,
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I'll serve to fill out this term. What was it that drew you to
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the world of politics. I understand that it's a little different now than it
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was then, with social media and so many things that swirl around the political
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divide in our country, But back then, what was it that drew you
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to it? Well, there wasn't anything that drew me to the city Commission.
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I had run county wide for the school board. I was a school
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teacher. I talked for twenty eight years, and I was on the first
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collective bargaining team for Leon Classroom Teachers Association. And I wasn't happy with what
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the school board was doing, not supporting its teachers and it should, and
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also not supporting the schools and the children in those schools. There were schools
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that had pretty much anything they needed in communities of means, and there were
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schools in the county that had almost nothing, and I was on the Parent
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Advisory Committee for the Leon County school Board and I had done a study,
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an equity study of all of the schools with my committee and released it.
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I think it went into a drawer and nobody ever looked at it again.
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But it compared the schools across several criteria, comparing resources that the schools had
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versus teachers, the number that had advanced degrees, and the number of children
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who were Title one children, and the general income of the zone the different
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children were in, meaning they were getting resources in addition to what they got
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in the schools. And it was about ten areas across the spreadsheet, and
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it really opened some eyes if people took the time to read it. And
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a lot of parents were concerned about that, and a lot of teachers were
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concerned about that. And so I chose to run for school board to try
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to make change to that, not because I wanted to be in politics,
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okay, And I think the outcome of that election, it may have been
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one of the first county wide elections that a black person had run for.
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On election night, I had won by a slight margin, and at that
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time, the canvassing board would meet a few days later and count the absentee
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votes. We knew we would not win that race because we knew the absentee
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votes were going to go against me. But when they counted the absentee votes,
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I had lost by about the same margin that I had won a few
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days earlier, which meant it was almost evenly split the vote. And my
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campaign was so impressed by that that when James Ford resigned his seat, I
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forget which seat he ran for, either to run for superintendent or county Commission
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one another, and the City Commission, when he lost, decided it would
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be an unfair incumbency to just give him back his seat after he had resigned.
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The election was going to be held in February. That was when City
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Commission elections were held in February, and this was November, and so they
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asked for nominations to feel the unexpired term for the City Commission and I wasn't
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interested. I had gone back to my classroom and I was happily taking care
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of my children, and somebody told me, have you read the paper this
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morning? And I said no, I haven't had time, and they says,
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well, did you know you've been nominated. And I was very upset
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with my campaign because I knew somebody in my campaign had done it. Did
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anyone own up to it? As a group they owned up to it,
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they didn't own up to which person had done it and were being called by
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John Osmond When I got home and I was cooking dinner on the day they
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were the four city commissioners were making the decision. I think it was Carol
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Bellamy, Kent Spriggs, Hurly Rudd and Jack McLean were the four who were
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making the decisions. And then I was cooking dinner, trying trying to get
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things ready for my family after work, and John Osmond called me up and
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said, uh, Dot, are you watching the city commission meeting? And
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I said no, I'm taking care of my family. And he says,
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you need to turn on the TV and watch. And I said I don't
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have time, John. He says, turn on the TV. So I
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turned on the TV. John can be that way, Uh huh and uh.
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They had narrowed because there was a long list in the paper of people
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who had been nominated. A lot of them were past elected officials and leaders
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in the community, and they had narrowed the list down to five, and
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I was one of the five. What were you thinking at that point,
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oh no or hmm. I was thinking, I'm going to finish cooking dinner,
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and because it just wasn't in my mind that this was something I would
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be doing. Okay, And I went back to the kitchen and cooking,
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and John called again and he says, are you still watching? And I
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said, He says, go and look, and it was down to three,
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I think, and I was still in the running. And then because
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each of the commissioners had their favorite of the five that had ended up in
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the running, and I don't know whose favorite I was, but when people
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realized their favorite wasn't going to make it, they started throwing their vote to
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their second choice or their third choice. And to make a long story short,
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I ended up being the person who was appointed. And the appointment came
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with a condition that I could not run for the seat because they had told
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James they could not give him an unfair incumbency, and so they also could
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not give me an incumbency by allowing me to run for the seat in February.
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And I abided by the condition, and so the February election happened.
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Then in December, Hurly Rudd decided he would stepped down from the City Commission
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and run for the Florida Legislature. The House of Representatives and Progressives started approaching
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me and wanted me to run for that seat. I said, are you
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guys crazy. I mean, I'm not really interested in running for city Commission.
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I'm a teacher, I'm an educator. I'm interested in what's happening in
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the schools. And they were able to come together and convince me that I
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should do it because they wanted to have somebody there who was knowledgeable on the
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progressive issues and who would vote the right way on the progressive issues, and
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so I I was invited. Actually John Osmond and Willie Tolliver who ran our
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lawson's successful campaigns over and over again. Willie was very active in the Democratic
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Party at the time, and John and Willie got me on the phone on
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a Saturday morning and said, dot because I had I was vice chair of
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the Leon County Democratic Executive Committee at the time while John was chair. And
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they called me and said their group of folks getting together over in Lafayette Park
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and Willie and I are going because we think we have a candidate to run
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and as vice chair, you need to be there too. Can we pick
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you up? And I said yes, And so we went to the house
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in Lafayette Park and when I walked in the door, I knew I was
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the lamb for the slaughter. I was going to say, you just got
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set up, didn't you. I knew it when I walked in the door
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and everybody was there to convince me I had to change my mind and do
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this. And they had the people, I mean the folks who influenced in
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Tallahassee in that room, from environmental neighborhood, elected officials, the black community,
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the religious community, the whole group. And when I realized what was
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happening and they started in on me, I said, Okay, you know
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the only way I am going to do this is if everybody in this room
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commits before leaving to some role in the campaign, because you're not going to
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put me out there to work over Christmas Holidays with my family January and with
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less than three months to put together and run a campaign by myself. If
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you want me to do this, you're going to have to put some skin
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in the game too. And when I left that room, I had my
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campaign manager, my media person, my treasurer, the whole slew and in
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February we won in the primary without a runoff, and that was the beginning
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of my time as a city commissioner. Here we are now, and is
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it deja vous all over again? You're running for the city commission What about
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this time? What drew you to the race this time? What drew me
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to the race first was the fact that I was very unhappy with some things
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that are happening at the city when I served years ago, and Debbie Lightsey
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and I've talked about this, We were proud to be part of that government.
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We were proud to be part of that institution. I thought Dan Clayman
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was one of the best city managers this city has had, and he had
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a really good organization and he was determined to do what was right for this
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community. And even as much as I admired Dan, I still questioned him
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on things that were happening inside of government and had to be convinced a lot
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of times that what was being recommended by staff was the correct move for this
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community or I went another way. And people who were around then know that
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they might have thought I was a contrarian because sometimes I was the only vote
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for issues that I felt very strongly for or against. Uh huh, yeah,
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that I felt very strongly about. And I wasn't afraid to stand alone
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and vote for what I really believed in because I thought that was right for
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our community. But I was always civil, and when I had to vote
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alone and I knew the other votes were going another way, I didn't waste
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my time trying to convince them to come to my side. What I did
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was put together my facts, my research, so when we got to the
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city commission meeting, I would be talking to the public about my position and
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why I felt that position was the right position, and laying out the facts
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to support it. And many times the public put enough pressure on the other
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commissioners so that they ended up coming back and changing their vote around to where
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I was because they were convinced that what I was recommending was in the best
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interests of the public. And so, but I'm not happy with the way
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the City Commission today has pretty much handed off all of the leadership in running
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city government to the city manager, and they don't question appropriately what the city
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manager is doing and how and I'll give some examples. For instance, I
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was at the Capital Conservatives Forum last night with the other candidates, and I
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gave this example that recently the city manager came back and said that law enforcement
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complex over in the Northwood Center was going to cost taxpayers one hundred and thirty
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five million. Well, what a lot of people don't realize is that before
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COVID that contract was negotiated with the developer at forty million, and after COVID
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because COVID did cause a lot of hap and I could understand the price being
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driven up some because of the two years, almost three years of what we
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had to go through with COVID. Yeah, the delays, the inflation that's
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followed in the economy, and so forth. Absolutely, So when staff after
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COVID, the price had gone up to sixty million, which is about a
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fifty percent increase over the original contract. So that was a twenty million dollar
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change order. Then this year when staff came back and said now the project
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is going to cost one hundred and thirty thirty five million, and three of
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the commissioners, including the mayor, didn't seem to question how a sixty million
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dollar contract could go to over a one hundred percent increase. That concerned me
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because I've never heard of a change order on a construction project that was one
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hundred percent more than the total project cost. And there should have been a
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lot of questions by people beside the two commissioners who are in the minority on
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the City Commission, And I was very concerned that Curtis was not asking questions
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at a time when there had been repeated meetings by the City Commission where property
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tax increase was being recommended, an increase in the milage rate, and I
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think in the beginning they were talking about about twelve percent property tax increase,
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but when the property appraiser reassessed properties and added the increase the tax increased that
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that generated, they moved the amount down to eight point five percent because it
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was increased anyway, bringing in more tax dollars property values about the city.
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And so uh, while he was advocating that, I would think that all
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of the city commissioners would be concerned about how are we going to manage this
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when we have all of these priorities, affordable housing, aging out infrastructure in
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old parts of the city that need to be retrofitted, all of these crime
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and jobs all economic development, all of these things that we have to deal
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with and Tallahassee. A lot of people don't realize because Tallahassee is such a
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beautiful city, But Tallahassee has a poverty rate that fluctuates between nineteen and twenty
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five percent, meaning at the high end, one out of every four residents
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who live in Tallahassee are living in poverty, and at the lower end,
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one out of every five. And that's not data I would be proud of
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as a city leader and not take real priority action to try to correct.
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And a lot of the problems of the city come from people living in desperate
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situations and having no hope, and so they do things that those of us
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who can afford to take care of ourselves don't do, And so I was
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concerned about that. I was also concerned at the lack of civility at City
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Commission meetings, And of course that goes to all members. That goes to
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all members, but I sit in those City Commission meetings and I see how
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it happens. The mayor has the responsibility of making sure he is facilitating the
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meeting so that all of the commissioners feel their voices are being heard, and
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they are given a platform to tell their positions on the issues. And I
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watch John Daly and listen to it, and one of the things that he
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does that's totally against Robert's rules of order. When an issue of the city
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manager comes up, if emotion is made by the two commissioners who are in
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the minority, he immediately, without hearing from anybody on the commission he immediately
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stakes out his position and announces I will be voting against this motion. And
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he is sending his signal to Cox and Richardson that this is the way we're
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voting. And at least that's your perception of what he's doing. But if
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it happens over and over and over and over again, it's kind of hard
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not to have that perception. So one night, when I was at the
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meeting and he did that, I passed a note to the city attorney and
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the treasurer clerk and said, he's violating Robert's rules of order. The mayor
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should be the last person, not the first person, to announce the position,
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according to Robert's rules, to ensure all of the members of the body
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feel they have been given an opportunity to share their position. And she passed
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the note to the mayor. The mayor said, well, we don't operate
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by Robert's rules of order. We have I can't remember how he put it,
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but the interpretation was they kind of pick and choose parts of Robert's rules
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and order of order that they follow, and that kind of stock me.
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And then I watched the way when public members of the public come before the
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City Commission. And I'm not talking about me, because they've always treated me
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with civility and courtesy when I come to speak, but other members of the
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public they pick and choose who they will respond to. For instance, when
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someone comes up and speaks and asks a question, like, for instance,
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the Kagem Group Capital Area Justice Ministry that has been urging the city for over
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a year or more to put priority on affordable rental housing and set aside a
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certain amount of money each year to really focus on that need in our community.
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And when they come up and they ask, we've presented these recommendations,
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can we count on the city coming back with something, They don't respond.
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They don't respond at all. But if one of the people they favor comes
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up and does the three minutes and ask for something, it will usually be
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referred to staff, which is what we did back in the day. If
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people from the public came up and there was a legitimate issue and they ask
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to have something looked into, we would give them the courtesy of referring it
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to staff and having staff research it and bring something back to another meeting.
33:36
Well. In fairness, though, Dot, I've been over the years to
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county school board meetings, commission meetings of the city and the county. I've
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observed the exact same thing that you are describing. You're accurate in what you're
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describing from my perspective, but I've also seen the same thing happen to things
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that I've suggested on all three levels, where they've just said thank you and
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moved on, not responded, not asked a question, not referred. And
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so I don't read all that. But that doesn't make it right if they
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are doing it for some and not for others. If they're doing it for
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everybody, then that's just the process. But if they are doing it for
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some and not for others, that doesn't make it right. And then there
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was the issue with Somo Walls, and the developer had already received I think
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a one point six million dollar award and I don't know if it was from
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Blueprint or some other source for somewhre walls. And then when they realized they
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would have cost overruns, they went to the banking community and was turned down
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for the extra money needed, and they came to the city I think,
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to the CRE, the Community Redevelopment Agency, and asked for a one point
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eight million award for a private development, and Curtis made a speech about it,
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saying, well, this is going to help the south side. Well.
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Sommer Walls is located more closer to the downtown Redevelopment District than truly the
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southside Greater french Town south Side Redevelopment District. It's about two blocks outside of
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the Capital Complex and uh and it is right across the street from Proof Brewery.
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Put in Somo Walls will be a brewery. And I could not understand
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why we were giving one point eight million dollars of town payer money for a
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private developer to build a business immediately across the street from the same kind of
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business that that developer, that business owner had to use his own resources for.
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There should not have been a situation where they were helping one business person
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compete with another business person in this community, and I feel very strongly about
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that, and I really didn't think with all of the needs in our community,
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we should have been spending one point eight million dollars to help this private
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business owned build a brewery. Some call it picking winners and losers. Tell
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me this, what were your thoughts on the Amazon investment? The Amazon investment
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incentivizing Amazon building the facility, which obviously has brought jobs to the entire community,
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and certainly, honest, I wasn't paying attention with that, Okay,
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committee, No, the commission was investment. The commission was split for one
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on that one. The two commissioners you reference that are what you describe as
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in the minority. They split on that issue. But I was just curious
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if you had an opinion on it. Can you feel me in on what
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the investment was. It was incentivizing tax breaks and so forth in return for
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the jobs. Amazon has lived up to every marker that the city set and
38:53
the jobs obviously created. I think I think in the three two three to
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zero four zip code alone, I think it's better than two hunder than thirty
39:00
jobs from just in that area, so good paying jobs and all that.
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I was just curious if you had of you on it. Well, I'm
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glad to have Amazon. I hope they will continue to be a good corporate
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citizen of the community, not just providing the jobs because they need to provide
39:22
the jobs to deliver their product, but investing in other needs in the community
39:30
as well as a new resident of Tallahassee. But I don't disagree that we
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need it and Amazon well. Diversifying the economy from just the schools. The
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government structure is good for everybody in there. It's kind of the the rising
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tide lift all boats, and it provides wood paying jobs for people who are
40:04
not professionals and need jobs to lift themselves out of poverty. One of the
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things that I was concerned about that the city didn't think ahead on how a
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lot of people from those low income areas would get to those jobs and make
40:31
sure before the facility open that they had planned out bus routes, the timing
40:40
of bus routes, and everything so that people could take advantage of those opportunities.
40:50
And worked through its community Human Service Partnership grants to try to direct money
41:00
for child early childcare for families or workers at Amazon, who would be working
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outside of the regular work hours and on weekends to have quality childcare for their
41:22
children, because most of the childcare centers are closed after Friday and on the
41:30
weekend and after five thirty or six o'clock in the evening. And a lot
41:39
of people, even for fast food jobs where they work odd hours, need
41:49
childcare that's at a different time that it's normally provided. So I wish that
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there had been some incentives for people to pick up the ball and do something
42:09
to help in that area. But tell me this. I had asked about
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what drew you back, and I want to just put a bow on that
42:20
question real quickly. You describe that you just saw things and you felt like
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I'm going to put words in your mouth. You could make a difference and
42:31
do things differently than the incumbent. Is that how it happened or was there
42:38
some recruiting that went on like happened the first time you went into office?
42:42
Was were there people that were saying, Dot, we need you to run
42:45
well. I made the decision in May of last year, and there was
42:55
some recruiting and I had said no, because I'm older, I'm retired,
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I have children and grandchildren, and my husband and I have empty nests and
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we kind of like to be able to do what we want when we want
43:23
to do it, and so it was a hard decision for me to make.
43:30
But Curtis had been, I guess, to me sleeping on the job.
43:45
He talked a lot about he and his wife choosing to buy a home
43:55
on the South Side, as if he was coming in on a white horse
44:02
and saving the South Side by buying a house there. He bought a house
44:09
in the Tuskegee Subdivision, which is an upper middle income subdivision off of Orange
44:22
Avenue that was built by former Commissioner Henry Lewis, and it's not really the
44:37
kind of life that most of the people on the South Side could afford.
44:45
But he was turning a deaf ear every time I came to the city commission
44:54
retreats and talked about the poverty rate going up and up and up, and
45:05
the city had to be serious about studying and doings, trying to do something
45:15
for people who were living in desperate poverty to give them some kind of quality
45:23
of life with how we reinvested in those low income neighborhoods and how we provided
45:36
housing. Now the Columbia Gardens complex that replaced the Orange Avenue projects was a
45:50
good step, and it was led by the Tallahassee Housing Authority, and they
46:00
deserve a tip of the hat for that. But I helped with the relocation
46:12
of those two hundred households who were in the Orange Avenue project so that that
46:22
development could happen. And I can tell you it was very difficult to find
46:31
decent housing for those families where the property management was willing to accept a voucher,
46:45
their Housing Authority vouchure, and so many of them, some of them,
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I won't say many, some felt they ended up having to accept housing
47:06
that was not better than the housing they had in the projects, and that
47:19
illustrates how difficult it is tallahasse He has a real high market rate for rent.
47:31
I don't know if it's because of the wealth of student housing developments where
47:38
you can do an apartment with four bedrooms and rent each apartment separately for about
47:47
the amount of money that a family would pay for rent, and then the
47:58
four people in the bedroom use the common space. But it's those kinds of
48:07
things and some ethical violations. I felt it was very, very unusual for
48:22
some of the city commissioners, including Curtis, to vote on things where they
48:32
got some benefit from it, like people who had worked their campaigns contributed major
48:45
money to their campaigns, and they did not recuse themselves when those folks came
48:54
before the commission or blueprint. Been an issue that has been discussed on my
49:01
radio program for about twenty years, and sadly those practices still aren't arrested,
49:08
and they control the ethics When a group of people came together to put a
49:19
referendum on the ballot, a ballot initiative up on creating a city ethics board
49:32
with a lot of the wrong people on it, uh huh, and with
49:39
the city commission having control over what they would oversee. Correct. So if
49:47
the commissioners are the ones violating conflict of interest and ethics, but the ethics
49:54
board can't investigate complain about them, then they have no teeth. You're preaching
50:07
to the choir, and my audience would be sitting right now nodding their head
50:12
up and down. Dot. I would argue that the whole ethics issue came
50:16
about because of my radio program. In the reporting of Steve Stewart at Talasi
50:21
Reports, it's the only reason why it happened. The local paper didn't do
50:24
anything about it. They were taking walks with sitting commissioners. The local TV
50:29
didn't do anything with it. And I've paid a price for it. I've
50:31
had people come in here from the city that tried to get me fired.
50:36
So I've dealt with this firsthand. You know what's interesting about all of this
50:40
is I don't have a personal dog in the fight with the city because there's
50:44
no representation that represents my views, my philosophies in any way, shape or
50:51
form. They just don't. And so a lot of the people that you're
50:54
going to be talking to through our sit down right here are people that are
50:59
feeling a little left out. They live in Kolarn, They live in parts
51:02
of the city that don't get a representation because there's no districts. It's the
51:08
only city in the state of Florida with a population over one hundred thousand that
51:13
doesn't have districts. It's the only one. And I will tell you Tallahassee
51:20
is the only city that is one city in a county. And the reason,
51:31
and I can say this with authority, that a lot of the community
51:39
in the past came up with single member districts was because there had never been
51:49
an opportunity for the black community to vote for oh I understand, a candidate
52:00
of their choice, and since reconstruction, there had never been a black candidate
52:08
elected. And that was in the school board and the County Commission, and
52:15
the late Anita Davis, when she was president of the NAACP, decided something
52:25
had to be done about that. She asked me to serve as her political
52:32
action chairperson. That was before the politics, and working with Anita, we
52:44
put together a campaign for single member districts for Leon County Commission. And we
52:52
tried to do it through negotiations with the County Commission because we weren't interested in
53:04
a lawsuit right and we got turned down at every turn. No matter what
53:15
arguments we made of justice and fairness, we got turned down. And so
53:24
we enlisted the help of plaintiffs for a potential lawsuit and the help of the
53:37
Legal Defense Fund for the National NAACP, And when it became clear that there
53:46
was going to be a serious challenge to the County Commission's position, we ended
53:57
up not having to go through months or years of a lawsuit because they agreed
54:07
to a plan that was acceptable to all parties where they would create five single
54:20
member districts and two at large. Now, that hasn't ever happened in the
54:27
city. Would you support it single member districts in the city. No.
54:34
I spoke strongly against it with the Charter Review Committee because people should not have
54:46
to depend on one person for their voices to be heard on the City Commission.
54:54
Unless absolutely necessary. It has never been necessary in the city. The
55:04
city has been electing of a diverse commission for as long as I have lived
55:15
in Tallahassee, and I moved here in December nineteen seventy one when James Ford
55:23
was city Commissioner and mayor. Okay, I'll let that stand, and there
55:30
I don't agree with you. Mind, there has never been the need to
55:36
do that. But that would be your opinion. There would be others that
55:39
live in parts of the community that don't have parks, that pay for their
55:45
electricity, that pay their taxes, and pay a good bit of taxes because
55:49
of the valuation of their properties. But they would say, we're not really
55:52
getting representation. What would you say to them? I think they are because
56:00
when I came to the commission, there are are older neighborhoods where people have
56:07
been paid maybe not as much as they did for their homes because their homes
56:13
are promptly bigger and more expensive, but have been paying taxes to the city
56:21
for decades and decades and decades and could not get curb gutter sidewalk, which
56:30
is ridiculous, had open ditches on both sides of the road leading to schools
56:38
where children had to walk in dangerous streets which is a narrowed and running things
56:45
at the time to get there. And we still have some of that.
56:52
I know, I'm aware of that. We still haven't and I fought as
56:57
hard as I could when I was there to get priority on those its communities
57:05
like College Terrace and some of the communities on the South Side and French Town
57:13
and places like that, and out near some of the rural areas that have
57:21
sidewalks to their schools today because of that fight and a program I developed called
57:30
the Mini Pass program, because when I ask when they were building the Governor
57:37
Square Boulevart, when the Governor Square mall was being built, and I asked,
57:46
Dan Clayman, why are we subsidizing the Governor Square Boulevart providing all of
58:04
the site, those sidewalks and everything for that when College Terrace has been coming
58:14
back to the city over and over again asking for street improvements and sidewalks and
58:22
drainage in their neighborhood and their being told no, or you have to put
58:30
a lean on your house and get one hundred percent petition signatures in your neighborhood
58:39
to do it. That should be part of what government provides for them as
58:46
part of all of those taxes they've been paying for all of those years.
58:53
And I had a problem with putting newer neighborhoods ahead of older neighborhoods that had
59:05
been waiting in line for a long long time. Well, it's not unrelated
59:09
to the school issue you mentioned at the very beginning. You know, you
59:13
should be bringing older schools that don't have resources up to code up to standard
59:19
before you're investing anything new in a newer school. Completely agree with you on
59:23
that, and that was part of my thinking. And that's why I think
59:34
people just have to wait their turn. I mean, and I don't feel
59:40
that newer well to do neighborhoods are being cheated because they have opinion influencers that
59:55
can come to the city Commission anytime and get on the agenda. Is the
1:00:02
guy who's low on the totem pole who needs the champion to speak for them
1:00:08
because they don't get the same attention when they come to the city Commission.
1:00:16
Okay, let me ask this in closing, because I appreciate your time,
1:00:22
and I hope you've enjoyed our discussion. You early on, you've mentioned frequently
1:00:29
the two commissioners in the minority. I think everybody that is in certainly my
1:00:35
audience, would say there was zero reason to raise taxes. But at the
1:00:38
same time, remember that one of those two commissioners was in favor of raising
1:00:43
taxes, just wasn't in favor of raising taxes for police purposes. And I
1:00:47
don't disagree. I think that money should have been found elsewhere. Completely agree
1:00:52
with that. But you've mentioned them a few times. You also initially mentioned
1:00:59
that you were going to be the third vote with them. I didn't mention
1:01:02
that. I didn't say that I've been there before. When been there before?
1:01:10
You I'm not a novice, Oh there's no doubt. I'm a leader.
1:01:16
So I won't be taking orders from anybody, just like when I was
1:01:24
there before. Willing to be the one and willing to be the one to
1:01:32
do what I thought was the right thing. I'm the same dot, and
1:01:40
I feel with my experience, I know the turf. Okay, I know
1:01:47
the city Commission, I know what its job is, I know the charter,
1:01:54
and I can hit the ground running, and I think I would be
1:02:01
I would have the ability to bring sides together instead of this horrible divisiveness we
1:02:15
see on the City Commission right now. And I agree with you, and
1:02:20
interestingly enough, John Osmond agrees with you, though, would take a view
1:02:27
that where the minority commissioners are going frequently is the divisive side of this.
1:02:32
Again, I'm not in that world. I just observe it and talk about
1:02:37
it. And so I find it interesting that among Democrats elected to local office
1:02:44
there's now a division that's existing right now. And your belief is that you
1:02:49
can bridge that divide. I certainly can, and I think I still have
1:02:57
the respect, okay, of both sides even when we don't agree. Can
1:03:04
I ask you this, and I mean this sincerely, what about the other
1:03:13
feeling and divide? Yes, there's a little division within the like minded people
1:03:19
on most issues, but then there's forty to forty five percent of this community
1:03:22
that probably thinks a little closer like I do. What would you say to
1:03:28
us to make us part? I just feel part. I would say to
1:03:34
that part of the community that I don't divide the community by partisan politics,
1:03:40
because city government and the services that city government should provide has nothing to do
1:03:50
with whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. It has to do with fair
1:03:58
distribution of services and resources. To make sure that we have a quality community,
1:04:09
that we don't have a three two three four zip code that is one
1:04:15
of the poorest in the state. That we are making sure that the storm
1:04:24
water facilities don't age out and parts of our community get flooded, that we
1:04:32
are preserving our green spaces and natural resources while we are growing, and we
1:04:40
are growing smartly, not growing out so fast. By putting the last phase
1:04:48
of Willani into the works, to have to put infrastructure all the way out
1:04:58
to a part of the communit unity where there will not be a subdivision for
1:05:03
maybe several decades, where those people will be contributing to the tax base of
1:05:12
this community and having to use today's taxpayers' dollars to pay for that instead of
1:05:20
reinvesting that in helping small businesses in helping to upgrade the storm water and the
1:05:31
sewer infrastructure in the community, helping to make sure that we are providing the
1:05:42
kind of services in police and fire, and don't let me leave without saying
1:05:48
how angry I am with the City Commission for what they're doing to the firefighters.
1:05:57
Firefighters just like police a public safety employees. Absolutely they risk their lives
1:06:09
every time they go out. And they don't just go out to fires every
1:06:14
time there is a crisis that police have to arrive at, firefighters have to
1:06:23
go to. The only difference is they go unarmed into these dangerous situations and
1:06:32
firefighters a beginning firefighter earns forty four thousand dollars a year. The beginning police
1:06:43
officer earns sixty thousand dollars a year. There should not be that bigger gap
1:06:51
between those two departments where brave employees risking their lives on a daily basis,
1:07:03
and firefighters have been trying to negotiate a contract with the city since March of
1:07:11
last year, which means they have been in negotiations for a whole over a
1:07:18
year and they are about to enter another year without having their pay upgraded.
1:07:27
Like every other city employee. There is a hostile environment inside of city Hall
1:07:35
for many employees. There are more lawsuits that have been filed against the city
1:07:42
by employees past and present than I can remember, and something needs to be
1:07:50
done. Curtis says, the City Commission has nothing to do with collective mark
1:08:00
that's by choice, that is not the law. Because the City Commission is
1:08:10
the first group that has a say with its appointed officials. It's treasurer clerk,
1:08:16
it's financial people, it's city attorney and the city manager advising them on
1:08:26
the budget. We have moving in just like with any other issue, to
1:08:31
those negotiations and what kind of proposals and counter proposals can be made. And
1:08:43
when I was there, Curtis forgets that we've always had collective bargaining with firefighters
1:08:55
and police when I was there as well as now with him there, and
1:09:00
we held executive sessions of the City Commission to determine what our maximum offer could
1:09:10
be based on our budget, and we listened to all of our appointed officials.
1:09:17
A contract is a legal document. Why they would not have their top
1:09:25
legal mind, the city attorney sitting in with them on those executive sessions and
1:09:32
their top fiscal advisor or expert, Jim Cook sitting in on that I will
1:09:44
never know. And Jim Cook and Cassandra Jackson had to send an email knowing
1:09:53
they would go public to the city commissioners and saying, would you please put
1:10:00
off your vote on the police contract until the next meeting so we can have
1:10:09
an opportunity to share with you our concerns that will impact the government and make
1:10:18
whatever revisions we need to make. And the City commission at least the three
1:10:27
who are the controlling vote, ignored those two appointed officials and voted on what
1:10:38
the city manager recommended without hearing from them. Had they heard from Jim Cook,
1:10:45
they would have learned that this was going to put them way over budget,
1:10:50
it would require that kind of tax increase, and they could have taken
1:10:56
steps. Look, there's a lack of leadership to pool back. Yeah,
1:11:00
there's a lack of leadership in the city. Dot. There's no doubt.
1:11:03
You will find no argument from any from me on the pay of first responders
1:11:11
at any level. They're all underpaid. There's no doubting that. At the
1:11:15
same time, we have factions inside the city that are demonizing police and that
1:11:20
needs to stop. It just does I agree, And so you know,
1:11:25
hopefully you'll have the opportunity if if you are successful, to bridge that gap.
1:11:31
I would jokingly laugh and say, see, you need a few Republicans
1:11:34
in there to help shape things up. But we'll just leave that as a
1:11:38
funny that you and I could make on the future. But I hope some
1:11:43
Republicans can relate to the kinds of things I'm talking about, because, like
1:11:53
I said, this isn't Republican democrat. This is common sense and that's lacking
1:11:59
in a lot of areas though, and I think that's commission wide. I
1:12:02
don't think it's just the three. I think it exists in the two as
1:12:05
well. I think it's commission wide. A lack of common sense, the
1:12:09
vitriol is certainly commission wide. The lack of collegiality is commission wide. And
1:12:15
so I know that people that listen to my show are looking for that to
1:12:18
stop. But we'll see where it goes. I hope you've enjoyed our visit.
1:12:23
How would you like people to reach out and learn more about your campaign?
1:12:28
My My website is www. Dot for Tallahassee, dot com, Dot
1:12:40
for Tallahassee dot com. Uh huh, And it has a lot of information
1:12:45
that we didn't have time to go over that will give them insight about who
1:12:51
I am. But one thing that's coming up on the ballot the city Commission
1:12:59
asking the public to vote to give them a one hundred percent pay in prese.
1:13:09
That is crazy. They appointed their own committee the citizens, the charter
1:13:18
review committee I set in on all of those meetings, and their own committee
1:13:26
did not recommend that. They overrode the recommendation of their committee on the motion
1:13:36
of Cox with the votes of Daily and Richardson to put that on the ballot
1:13:45
because they wanted to earn ninety thousand dollars the city manager and his six assistant
1:14:00
more than Atlanta, more than Orlando. When you add all of that up,
1:14:04
just those seven people earn close to three million dollars when you add in
1:14:14
their benefits, and a lot more could be done if they were making more
1:14:19
reasoned decisions. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you