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Drawing settles Port Richey race
By MATTHEW WAITE © St. Petersburg Times, published April 26, 2001 PORT RICHEY -- Bill Bennett got lucky Tuesday night. Twice. Bennett won the last seat on the Port Richey City Council after he drew a film canister from a basket that contained a piece of paper that read "Alpha 1st Elected." In a rarity in elected government, that piece of paper broke the tie between Bennett and Dale Massad, two weeks after 369 voters cast ballots for each of them. Before more than 60 people in the City Council chambers, City Manager Vince Lupo took out a 1972 silver dollar from his personal coin collection and asked the candidates to decide who got to call heads or tails in the air. Bennett deferred to Sandra Spaldi, a member of the city's Planning and Zoning Board who stood in for Massad. He is on vacation in Oklahoma. Spaldi called heads. It was tails. That gave Bennett the right to choose a canister first. He and Spaldi opened them at the same time, and Bennett came up with the winner. Bennett said he was nervous, but didn't have any lucky charms with him for help. "It's a little different," Bennett said of his win. "Bizarre may be a good word for it." But it was over, he said, and people have moved on from the bitter campaign just completed. "I hope we can get to business and go on," he said. Spaldi said the process was fair, and that Massad wouldn't disappear from politics. "Dale will continue to work with the city, especially the canals," she said of Massad's main campaign issue of cleaning up the city's waterways. "I don't think this is going to stop him." The selection of Bennett ends an unusual election. Bennett will serve one year, the rest of the term of Tom Brown, who abruptly resigned in October. His departure set up an election where the top vote-getter, who turned out to be Phyllis Grae, would serve a two-year term, and the second-place candidate would serve one. How the city got its second-place finisher was rare. When the ballots first were counted, Massad had won the seat, beating Bennett by a vote. The margin, however, fell within the margin for an automatic recount. When that was done, Bennett and Massad tied at 369. When they were recounted again on Wednesday, this time by hand at Bennett's request, the number stuck: 369. State law, and the city's charter, both say ties are broken by drawing lots. But even the mayor's race looked for a time like it was going to go on longer than April 10. On Monday, the deadline for Bob Leggiere to contest his nine-vote loss to Mayor Eloise Taylor came and went with no challenge.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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