Voters reject Garvey

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2001

Former Clearwater mayor and longtime political figure Rita Garvey lost her bid to return to the City Commission on Tuesday.

But Garvey, who won 47.4 percent of the vote in losing to political newcomer Hoyt Hamilton, said she was encouraged by her showing. Hamilton, who won by 614 votes, will serve a one-year term.

Garvey, 55, spent 18 years on the Clearwater City Commission starting in 1980. In 1999 she lost a bid for a fifth term as mayor to Brian Aungst in a race that followed revelations of Garvey's alcoholism.

Hamilton, 42, "didn't run away with it," said Dee Fry, a friend of Garvey's who watched the election results with about a half-dozen people at Garvey's home.

Garvey, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to a drunken driving charge stemming from an accident in which she hit a parked van, said her personal problems probably were on some people's minds.

"There are some people that will assume I could not overcome them," Garvey said. "I was hoping they would realize everyone deserves another chance."

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