Ex-mayor eager to get back a life before DUI

By ALICIA CALDWELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 3, 2001

Self-revelation doesn't come easily to Rita Garvey.

Nevertheless, the former mayor of Clearwater is doing a lot of it these days as she tries to convince voters she has overcome her alcohol problem and is fit to serve on the City Commission.

It would be easy to pound Garvey for the very public drunken driving episode in 1998 in which she plowed into a parked van on the way to a City Commission meeting. She registered an astonishing 0.335 blood alcohol level hours later -- four times the legal limit.

Her reticence until recently about her drinking would seem to be a continuation of the denial she engaged in shortly after the accident.

Back then, she said she had downed just one drink before the wreck. One drink? And a few weeks later, she said kicking alcohol was easy. Easy? Then, she refused to say who was counseling her. Refused?

Today, the denial has morphed into embarrassment that makes her blush the bright pink of a healing wound.

You ask her to answer critics who say she should reveal her counselor and she makes a note to ask the priest whether he would talk about her status. You ask her how she's dealing with her addiction, as well as the pressure of her husband's recent diagnosis of bone cancer, and she answers: "One day at a time."

"I'm not going to deny it," she said. "The DUI happened. I have to work constantly to overcome any temptations and any problems I have."

You quickly realize this is not a calculating politician. This is a 55-year-old woman given to button-down oxford shirts who made a career of going to every chicken dinner that came along. She wants her life back.

"I began to like chicken dinners," she says with a smile. "I appreciate a good one."

While Clearwater is at a crossroads in its civic life, as it struggles to reshape its downtown and find a piece of common ground big enough for neighborhood and business interests to share, Garvey hungers to be part of it.

"I guess I feel so strongly that decisions that were made for the community were wrong that I'm willing to go through this trial," she said.

It's not that Garvey thinks the questions about her alcohol problem are unfair so much as they are difficult for this Minnesota farm girl. While she calls many people her friends, she never has been one to liberally spill her most intimate thoughts and fears.

She just hopes that her alcohol problem is not the only thing people will ask her about. She wants to talk about fixing up the main library. About how to keep downtown vibrant.

But as the campaign gets under way, and she and opponents, beach concessionaire Hoyt Hamilton and municipal lawyer Paul Marino, begin attending candidate forums, her alcoholism is sure to come up.

How she handles it, said local political scientist Darryl Paulson, will be pivotal not only in whether she wins the one-year commission term, but also whether it becomes a perennial question.

"Voters are extremely forgiving of politicians in many ways," Paulson said. "But I think when a politician downplays it as she has done . . . it makes the task more difficult than it needs to be."

Garvey seemed to rise to that challenge, calling the Times this week to pass along the name of her counselor, Thomas Madden of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Dunedin. He was out of town and unavailable for comment Friday.

Alcohol dependency experts say getting honest and motivated are two huge factors in recovery. Garvey's desire is evident. And while the pain of ending an 18-year career in public office with a humiliating drunk-driving arrest registers on her face when she talks about it, she doesn't retreat from the questions.

The question for Clearwater voters on March 13 is whether it is too little, too late for this election.

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