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Joanna ''Cookie'' Kennedy will face five other residents for the spot, which she left to run for state Senate.
By AMY WIMMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 24, 2002
INDIAN ROCKS BEACH -- Joanna "Cookie" Kennedy resigned her job as a city commissioner earlier this month to make a bid for state Senate.
Now, after losing the Senate race to Dennis Jones, Kennedy wants her old job back, but her position on one of the most controversial issues facing the city might keep her from regaining her seat.
Nine people applied to fill her old spot for the last four months of Kennedy's term. One person was disqualified because he is not a resident of Indian Rocks Beach; two others backed out because they want Kennedy to reclaim her seat.
That leaves six people in the running, and Commissioner James Palamara has one question for all of them: Will he or she vote to relocate the city's solid waste facility outside city limits?
"If I can get someone who's more in line with my thinking, why wouldn't I?" Palamara asked.
Palamara's question stems from a referendum earlier this year in Indian Rocks Beach, in which residents voted overwhelmingly to keep a one-acre property the city owns at 201 Second St.
City officials hoped to sell the waterfront property, which houses its solid waste operation, because it felt the industrial use was a waste of valuable land. When voters turned down the idea of selling it, the city explored relocating the industrial uses to another property, perhaps on the mainland, and turning the waterfront land into recreational space.
Palamara doesn't like the idea. He believes residents voted to keep the solid waste facility, as well as garbage trucks alongside it, on the property, not simply to keep the property in the city's hands.
Kennedy was among the majority of commissioners who encouraged City Manager Tom Brobeil to research options for locating the solid waste facility elsewhere. Both Palamara and Commissioner Jeremiah Carmody have expressed reservations about the plan.
The Indian Rocks Beach residents who will be considered for the commission appointment at Tuesday night's City Commission meeting are Michael W. Davis, who owns a real estate company; Patricia Emser, who works for Eckerd Corp.; Elizabeth "Betsy" McKenna, a charter boat captain who said in her application she plans to run for the seat in March; Edward Piniero, a former mayor and commissioner who has also served on several city boards; Stephen Small, president of Beach Technologies; and Kennedy. Larry Sandefer, who applied for the commission appointment, took himself out of consideration once Kennedy decided she wanted her seat back.
"As far as I'm concerned, she was duly elected," he said. "Whether or not you may agree with individual things or not, there's, like, three or four months left. I think it would probably be appropriate for her to finish that out."
Kennedy said she will respect the commission's decision, though only four days passed between her resignation and the day she applied to get her seat back.
"I think we have a really great commission, but on that specific issue, (Palamara) was definite in his attitudes," she said. "I would hope that one vote would not make their choice."