Jody Armstrong, who fervently believes life in the town is as good as it gets, was appointed to the District 3 seat.
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN
Published November 16, 2003
REDINGTON SHORES - If this town had a chamber of commerce, Jody Armstrong might be the perfect person to run the organization.
To Armstrong, living in Redington Shores is about as good as it gets.
For a small town, said the law student and former airline administrator, the place offers some big returns. Low taxes. Friendly neighbors. Good restaurants. A beautiful beach.
"This is as good as small-town America as you can find in a tropical setting," Armstrong, 44, said Thursday.
On Wednesday, that enthusiasm won over most of the commission, which in a 3-1 vote appointed Armstrong to her first political office. The District 3 seat had been vacant since Oct. 7, when commissioners removed Mel Kaplani from office after determining he was not a permanent resident of the town.
Commissioner Lee Holmes said he was glad the seat had been filled. "It's important to the constituents as well as to the rest of the board," he said Friday.
Besides Armstrong, Lou Clabeaux, 79, also applied for the position. Clabeaux, a retired government administrator from Buffalo, N.Y., has lived in Redington Shores since 1982.
"Both candidates were highly qualified," Holmes said.
Armstrong was born and raised in Utica, N.Y. In 1978, after completing two years of college at State University of New York at Cobleskill, she and a friend moved to Clearwater Beach, where they worked on suntans and waited on tables.
The laid-back lifestyle soon came to an end when Armstrong began working in customer service for the airline industry. She worked for several carriers for six years before landing with USAirways in 1984, working at hubs in Washington, D.C., Syracuse, N.Y., Orlando and Tampa.
Armstrong said when she transferred to Tampa International Airport in 1999 there was no question of where she was going to live - on the beach. So she scouted neighborhoods on the barrier islands and schools for her teenage son. She enrolled Ryan, now 21, at Seminole High School and bought a home in Redington Shores.
"As soon as I pulled up, I knew," said Armstrong, recalling the day she first saw the house at 18012 Third St. E.
While working in Orlando, Armstrong earned a bachelor's degree in adult education at the University of Central Florida. In 2001, Armstrong resigned from USAirways to attend Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport. On Dec. 20, she said with enthusiasm, she will receive a law degree and a master's degree in business administration. She plans to specialize in estate planning.
Armstrong said she has been watching how the town of Redington Shores operates ever since she moved here. She said a neighbor suggested she run for office in March. She agreed, but she didn't have to wait that long after the District 3 seat became available last month.
"I love the way our town is run," she said. "We have a well-oiled machine. It's my turn. It's time to do my part. If I care this much about my community, I've got to show it."
And she would like more than four months to do so.
The town election is in March and the District 3 seat will be open. Armstrong said she would like to stay in office to work on two large projects: redeveloping Gulf Boulevard and upgrading the sewer system.
Now that the commission has all five members, the board soon will turn its attention to hiring a town administrator. Last August the commissioners hired consultant Bob Chambers to help them find and hire an administrator. Chambers, who lives in an unincorporated area near Seminole, has worked for 350 cities and counties in Florida. He has helped other Pinellas municipalities, including St. Pete Beach and Madeira Beach, find new city managers.
Chambers said Friday he has received 66 applications so far, including one from John Coffey, who recently was appointed interim city manager for Indian Rocks Beach. Redington Shores has budgeted a salary range of $40,000 to $60,000 annually for the position.
Currently, the town has a mayor/commissioner form of government, with each commissioner responsible for a specific set of town activities, such as public works, parks, public safety or finance.
"The workload for each of them has gotten so overwhelming that they need an administrator for the day-to-day affairs of running the town," Chambers said.
The future town administrator will assume these duties, and could recommend people for open positions, but the commission ultimately would be responsible for the actual hiring. The administrator would not supervise the town clerk, who is appointed directly by the commission.
If the commission eventually wants to convert to a strong city manager form of government, the residents would decide through a referendum since changing the form would require amending the town charter.
Chambers will present to the commissioners on Nov. 24 a list of five or six finalists. He'll talk to them about the hiring process at a workshop on Dec. 2. The following day, the commissioners will interview each of the candidates at a public meeting beginning at 1 p.m. A social will follow the meeting.
Each commissioner will privately interview each of the applicants before choosing a town administrator at a special meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 4. All public meetings will be at Town Hall, 17425 Gulf Blvd.
