Seven so far, some with recognizable names, will try to squeeze into three seats.
By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published November 27, 2003
TARPON SPRINGS - The race for City Commission has officially begun, and the ballot in March will include plenty of familiar names.
By Wednesday's qualifying deadline for next spring's city election, seven city residents had qualified to run for the City Commission. The 2004 campaign field now includes two candidates for mayor and five for two City Commission seats.
Former Mayor Anita Protos said Wednesday that she's ready to deliver on promises to her supporters to get back in the political game.
"I love campaigning. I love meeting the people and talking with them," Protos, 61, said.
"I'm excited about all the candidates who are running. They're good, intelligent people."
Protos will face former longtime city commissioner Beverley Billiris.
Billiris, 55, got a head start late last year after she announced plans to run for outgoing Mayor Frank DiDonato's seat and resigned as a city commissioner. Like Protos, she has regularly attended City Commission meetings in recent months and has been feeling out residents' concerns.
"Obviously, we need to look at our roads and sidewalks," Billiris said. "Our infrastructure strongly needs to be addressed, and water conservation will always be a challenge for our community."
Protos said she stands on her record. She served on the City Commission for 16 years until term limits ended her two-term tenure as mayor in April 1998. Her City Hall years saw plenty of controversy, including several heated debates about the future of the city's lease with Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital.
Past controversies aside, Protos said she looks forward to a good, clean race. She plans to make streetscape improvements and redevelopment of downtown Tarpon Springs a big part of her platform.
"A lot of projects were developed on my administration and most of them are finished, but there still is work to be done," she said.
Meanwhile, the race for two City Commission seats heated up this week as three previously undeclared candidates announced their intention to run.
City Commissioner Peter Nehr, who won his spot last year in a special election, will defend his seat against his rival in last year's race, Spanos Harding, 40. Lifelong Tarpon Springs resident Peter Kapsalis Lloyd, 54, will also run for the city's fourth commission seat.
Harding, a Tarpon Springs native who owns a propane sales and U-Haul rental business on U.S. 19, has made three unsuccessful bids for a seat on the commission. Though he received just 284 votes and came in a distant third in the special election in March, he's confident this year will be different.
"I feel that we need to have another viewpoint on the council," Harding said. "(Nehr) is running his way and I'll run a different way."
Lloyd, a semiretired stockbroker, is new to politics but said Wednesday he had been considering a run for months. Asked to identify issues important to him in this campaign, he had this to say:
"I felt I'd like to get involved in giving back to the city what they gave to me and my family. I really have no agenda because I don't know what they're (city residents) looking for."
Former City Commissioner Cindy Domino-Sanner, 52, has declared her intention to campaign for City Commissioner Karen Brayboy's soon-to-be-empty seat. She served as commissioner from April 1992 to 1998 and then dropped out of city politics for a year. She won a seat again and served from 1999 to 2002. Since then she has left her job at Crown Castle International, a cell phone tower company, and started a home inspection business.
Until recently Domino-Sanner, was the only one looking to replace Brayboy. But Tarpon Springs real estate agent Peter Dalacos, 49, joined the race for that seat this week, according to the city clerk's office.
Dalacos did not return a call to his home Wednesday afternoon. But he has long been a regular at City Commission meetings, frequently taking the podium during public comments to remark on everything from city sewage rates to development projects.
Starting this March, the city will run its election simultaneously with Pinellas County's. Tarpon Springs residents will now vote March 9 along with the rest of the county.
