Christine Jordan Sexton
A bitter battle for control of the Tallahassee City Commission will have a sequel in November.
Capital city voters returned one incumbent on Tuesday, but another Commissioner only got enough votes to come in second place and force a runoff.
With all of the votes counted, incumbent Jacqueline “Jack” Porter defeated two challengers.
Curtis Richardson, meanwhile, came in second place to Dot Inman-Johnson. Inman-Johnson, however, fell short of the 50% mark needed to win the election outright. Inman-Johnson got nearly 47% of the vote, while Richardson got nearly 44% Two other candidates received 10%.
The Primary pitted progressive Democrats against establishment- and business-backed Democrats, with the former hoping to quash what has become a routine 3-2 split on major votes before the Tallahassee City Commission.
Porter is an ally of Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, while Richardson is an ally of current Mayor John Dailey and Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox.
Progressive Democrats pushed for Inman-Johnson, a former Mayor and longtime Democratic activist, believing she would join Porter and Matlow to oust the current City Manager, Reese Goad, who has worked for the city of Tallahassee for more than 20 years. Matlow has used a political committee he controls to boost both Inman-Johnson and Porter, and in one ad he contended that their victory would lead to a “balanced Commission” that would not be swayed by development interests.
Business-minded Democrats wanted to take out Porter, and threw their support behind Rudy Ferguson, a pastor and senior director of the Frontline Project, and Louis Dilbert, Director of a Florida A&M University center. Ferguson was 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 Demirel that has gotten money from local developers and the Florida Police Benevolent Association — sent out numerous mailers to registered Democrats.
The mailers touted Ferguson’s community service record while at the same time going after Porter, criticizing her for working with political committees affiliated with Republicans in 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 Inman-Johnson, Porter 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 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 was contentious contract negotiations between the firefighter union and the city of Tallahassee. Firefighters endorsed both Inman-Johnson and Porter, and during a forum Porter called it one of the most pressing issues going on at City Hall.
