Costa Vatikiotis elected Tarpon Springs Mayor as City Commission gets three new faces

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City Commissioner Costa Vatikiotis will replace the outgoing Mayor Chris Alahouzos in the North Pinellas city of Tarpon Springs.

Vatikiotis cleared 56% of the vote. His challenger, Robin Saenger, got almost 44%.

A Tarpon Springs native, Vatikiotis previously served as a city engineer and was the city manager before being elected to the City Commission in 2020. But the 73-year-old quickly set his sights on the Mayor’s office.

Alahouzos is leaving City Hall because of term limits. If Vatikiotis had waited out his Commission term to run for Mayor, he’d be 75 and facing an uphill battle against an incumbent.

“The way I answer is whether I believe it’s worth giving up three years of my life for Tarpon Springs at a time when I have a few years left in my life,” he told Suncoast News last week. “The answer is ‘yes.’ That’s how much Tarpon Springs means to me. God gave me a skill set and an education and has put me in the right spot at the right time to put our city back on track and make it what it should be as far as what residents want. There’s no one else who has the skill set to do that.”

One of Vatikiotis’ main concerns is development. Pinellas County is Florida’s most built out and Tarpon is one of the most built out cities in the county at 90%.

Part of the remaining 10% is a 74-acre swath of greenspace along the Anclote River. Developers unsuccessfully tried to turn the land into a Walmart nearly 20 years ago, but faced fierce pushback from organized residents. The city approved the development but the project was abandoned after years of lawsuits. History is repeating itself, with a new apartment development approved but still threatened.

As the project made its way through the bureaucratic process, Commission meetings were filled with angry and concerned residents opposing the project. On numerous occasions, meetings rolled well into the next morning.

In the end, Vatikiotis was the lone Commissioner to vote against the project.

Vatikiotis’ mayoral run meant his Seat 2 on the Commission was also on the ballot. That went to Craig Lunt, who bested Lisa Malamatos Benitez with 56% of the vote.

In the city’s closest race of the night, Michael Eisner acquired the Seat 3 position being vacated by Conner Donovan, who did not seek re-election. He beat George Koulianos by just 10 votes, or 0.18 percentage points. Townsend Tarapani also is not seeking re-election. His Seat 4 will be filled by Panagiotis Stavros Koulias, who received 52% of the vote to Jacqueline Turner‘s nearly 48%.