Having served eight years in public office and having lived in Citrus all her life, Sandra "Sam" Himmel is confident she is ready to lead the public schools as the next superintendent.
But those local ties have become a target for the race's two other candidates. Himmel, a Democrat, has faced a barrage of criticism over her actions or inactions as a School Board member and her close ties with the community.
In addition to touting their own credentials, Ted Sgouros, a Republican, and Ansel Briggs, who has no party affiliation, have peppered their campaign speeches with questions about why Himmel hasn't taken a leadership position on issues such as the construction debacle at Homosassa Elementary School.
Himmel's response: There have been many good things happening in the school district in recent years. "On the campaign trail," she said last week, "this is not what they're saying about me."
The winner will replace David Hickey, who is retiring from the school district after decades in teaching, coaching and administration - and a single term as superintendent.
Sgouros said he believes Himmel is rooted in a "good old boy" system that does not always make the best choices for the taxpayer. He points to a recent board decision to build a new agriculture barn at Crystal River High School.
To get the barn built by the start of the school year, the board agreed to hire a builder who required two provisions that Sgouros found strange: The builder could charge the district for any increase in the cost of materials, and he would face no penalty if the barn was not done on time.
"This is crazy," Sgouros said. The barn still isn't completed.
Allowing those kinds of demands makes the board look like "easy prey," he said.
Sgouros also questions the role played by the board's attorney, Richard "Spike" Fitzpatrick, who is related to Himmel by marriage. Sgouros believes Fitzpatrick has been too involved in leading the discussion and the action on the Homosassa school issue.
"He may be a good lawyer. I hear he is a good lawyer ... maybe he is just filling a void" in leadership, Sgouros said.
If elected, Sgouros said he would work to make the attorney fill the proper role: advising the board on legal issues.
Sgouros believes the builder on the Homosassa project broke his contract by failing to build the school additions correctly. Instead of allowing him to fix the problems, which is what the current board has done, Sgouros said the superintendent should have brought the board a cost analysis with several options.
He said the board should speak up more often and wield the power it has as a group. It should have called people before them to answer questions about the Homosassa school issue from the very beginning. "They should be the Blue Ribbon Committee," he said, rather than bringing in outsiders to look at what happened.
The district's budget problems also concern Sgouros. He said the board should know why the district has spent so much more in the past year but hasn't been given much information. "The accountability is not there," he said.
Sgouros, 57, said he entered the race because neither Himmel nor Briggs is qualified to run the school system. He believes that he is because he has served as superintendent of schools in small districts in Colorado and New York. He is a career educator with numerous master's degrees in education and a doctorate from Columbia University.
He said the online master's degree in arts and organizational management that Himmel recently completed through Phoenix University is "weak," and that she does not have the experience to do all the things a superintendent must do. He said his credentials measured next to hers would be like comparing a Cadillac with a Soap Box Derby racer.
Sgouros said he is not worried that he has only been in the area a short time. Learning about the community is "easier than learning the part that (Himmel) has to learn" to be a superintendent of schools, he said.
While Sgouros touts his background as a lifelong student and educator, Briggs also sees his life history as a plus. But he has taken a very different route.
Briggs is best known as a frequent visitor to public boards as an activist. He also works as an advocate helping people who have trouble with government and other organizations. He has his bachelor's degree in community education and has worked with runaways and addicts, as well as working as a steeplejack and fisherman, among other things.
Briggs said he doesn't see Himmel showing strong leadership. He cites a suggestion he made last year that the board consider buying the former Brown Schools site near Beverly Hills as the location for the new Renaissance Center.
Instead of setting parameters for what kinds of property to look for to find a site for the school, the board asked the staff to decide what to look for in a site.
Accountability is also lacking because staff members' responsibilities are not outlined in writing. That omission has allowed everyone in the district who had some role in the Homosassa situation to avoid disciplinary action.
"Myself, I believe in accountability. I believe in holding myself accountable, holding my government accountable," he said.
The district should have raised a red flag when a bid came in at $250,000 less than the next nearest bid on the Homosassa project, Briggs said. The facilities staff should have known that, to do the job for so much less, "corners would have to be cut."
While the Citrus teachers union has endorsed Himmel, at least partially because she is connected in the community and the district, Briggs said he sees that in another way. "My opinion of that is maybe (she is) too well-connected," he said.
He took her to task for her close relationship with Fitzpatrick, whose brother is married to Himmel's sister. "Nobody can make a move without Spike, including Hickey," he said. "That's not the role of an attorney."
The board has not done its job to set policy and the superintendent has not carried it out, he said. "How can the district function properly?" Briggs asked. "They've allowed (Fitzpatrick) to be not just the sixth member of the board but now the de facto superintendent."
Briggs, 65, said that if he is elected, one of his first tasks will be to have a talk with every employee in the school district. He said he will not be afraid to make hard or unpopular decisions. "You have to be a toe stepper. You have to be able to step on toes," Briggs said.
He also favors establishing a light industrial arts training center for students, a stronger program at the Withlacoochee Technical Institute and a fuller partnership between the Marine Science Station and the Academy of Environmental Science.
Briggs has run for the job twice before, and he said this will be his final try. He also said his heart is in the race.
"I'm 65 years old. I don't need this. I should be retired, but I feel so strongly about education and how you bring all of the stakeholders to the table that I'm willing to put myself on the line one last time," Briggs said. "I think I have a lot to offer."
Himmel said she offers a mix of public service (from her time on the board), business experience (from running her family's office supply business for years) and educational background (as a former teacher.)
But mostly, she's a known quantity.
"Voters need to know what they are getting. They know me," Himmel said.
She dismisses critics who say she hasn't taken a leadership role on Homosassa. Himmel, 49, points to a series of actions she took to move the investigation forward - visits to the school, visits to the schools where Homosassa children had been temporarily moved and research she has conducted.
"I've been responsible to the public. I've been approachable," Himmel said of her tenure. "If I ranted and raved (at board meetings), they'd say she's only doing that because of political reasons."
As for the criticisms of her connections to Fitzpatrick and his involvement, Himmel said sound legal advice has been critical in the Homosassa issue. But she also said the attorney has stepped in to fill a leadership void.
"Spike has had to step up to the plate and give the board recommendations," she said. "Mr. Hickey has given us no recommendations."
The lesson she has learned is "how important it is for the superintendent to take a leadership role," she said.
Having been a board member at a time when the board regularly complained that it did not get the information it needed to make decisions, Himmel said she knows firsthand how important it will be to keep the School Board up to date with information.
Keeping the public and the staff informed is also a priority.
"Communications. I think a lot of things will be solved as we do that," she said.
Himmel points to the push she has made in recent years to make the budget more understandable by requiring departments to present their budgets separately to the board. She said she wants to build on that by providing budget summaries so that the board and the public can better understand the spending plan.
Himmel said she is confident that the workers on the educational side of the district office are doing their jobs, so her focus is the business side. Among her goals: to merge the facilities construction and maintenance departments.
She also is concerned that educators are in charge of key business departments in the district, and that educators may tend to protect their own. Himmel said she wants to be sure qualified people are in the right jobs.
Also in her platform, Himmel said she wants to push to provide more career preparation opportunities for students and is interested in building up the number of students attending the Withlacoochee Technical Institute.
"Other than Homosassa, they don't even know if there are other weaknesses," she said. Her time on the board has taught her what does and doesn't work.
Himmel said she is particularly concerned when Sgouros questions the quality of her online degree. She said he should know, as an educator, that computer-based instruction is the wave of the future. His focus on his own educational credentials might also strike some people as a message that "he might think you're not as smart as him."
That won't help him communicate with the vast majority of Citrus parents and educators who do not have doctorates, she said.
* * * * Democrat Sandra "Sam" Himmel, 49, says her eight years on the School Board and the recent school construction debacle taught her where the district needs more attention.
* Ansel Briggs, who has no party affiliation, has run twice before. The 65-year-old activist has a bachelor's degree in community education. He says a superintendent has "to be a toe stepper." * Republican Ted Sgouros, 57, is a career educator who was superintendent in small districts in Colorado and New York. He said he is running because his opponents aren't qualified.
