Christine Jordan Sexton
A long-running feud between progressive Democrats and establishment- and business-backed Democrats in Tallahassee is taking center stage in the Tuesday Primary in the capital city.
Voters will decide whether to keep two incumbents — Jacqueline “Jack” Porter and Curtis Richardson — who are on opposite sides of the schism and routinely part of a 3-2 split on major votes before the Tallahassee City Commission.
Even though the election is officially nonpartisan, the battle has generated a wave of mailers trying to motivate Democrats. It also has led to heated and bitter back-and-forth on social media between supporters on both sides.
A Porter win and a Richardson loss would likely trigger an upheaval at City Hall. Richardson, a former legislator and ally of current Mayor John Dailey, is being challenged by three candidates. One is Dot Inman-Johnson, a former Mayor and longtime Democratic activist who recently was part of a group that unsuccessfully sued over a redistricting map pushed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The anticipation is that Porter and Inman-Johnson would join with Commissioner Jeremy Matlow and oust the current City Manager. Matlow has used a political committee he controls to boost both Porter and Inman-Johnson and in one ad he contends their victory would lead to a “balanced Commission” that would not be swayed by development interests.
Porter is being challenged by Rudy Ferguson, a pastor and senior director of the Frontline Project, and Louis Dilbert, director of a Florida A&M University center. If no one gets more than 50% of the vote, then the top two will head to a November runoff, where turnout will be considerably higher due to the presidential race.
Ferguson has been aided by a political committee run by a local businessman who has openly feuded with Matlow and has contended that Matlow has a “neo-Socialist/anarchist agenda.” Both Matlow and Porter opposed using local tax dollars to assist developer Bugra Demirel to build a new retail and dining complex on Monroe Street just south of the Capitol building.
Grow Tallahassee, the committee led by Demriel that has gotten money from local developers, as well as the Florida Police Benevolent Association, has sent out numerous mailers to registered Democrats. The mailers tout Ferguson’s community service record while at the same time going after Porter, including pointing out that political committees affiliated with Republicans aided her first run for office.
One mailer displayed Porter’s picture next to pictures of former President Donald Trump and Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Matlow’s committee sent out its own mailer to Democratic voters that had the pictures of Porter, Inman-Johnson and Vice President Kamala Harris on one side and said “together, we can” on the opposite side.
A large chunk of funding for Matlow’s committee has come from a California group called Green Advocacy Project, a nonprofit organization whose leadership includes veterans of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign for President.
In the run-up to the Primary, the candidates have discussed issues such as affordable housing, crime, an increase in gun-related homicides, homelessness and economic development. But the personality conflicts and ongoing divide on the Commission have also been debated in forums this Summer.
Another flashpoint has been contentious contract negotiations between the firefighter union and the city of Tallahassee. Firefighters have endorsed both Porter and Inman-Johnson and during a forum Porter called it one of the most pressing issues going on at City Hall.
