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Race Pits Former Council Members Against Each Other

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By TONY MARRERO Hernando Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 20, 2008

Updated:

BROOKSVILLE - One of this year's city council races pits two former council members against one another.

But Joe Johnston III, who was elected in 1993 and served three times as mayor before the end of his last term in 2006, said he looks at his decision to take the Group 3 seat from current Vice Mayor Frankie Burnett another way.

"I don't like to think I'm running against anybody," Johnston said in an interview this week. "I like to think I'm offering myself for service. If people think I have the best qualifications and I'm the best person for the job, then they should vote for me."

Johnston, who'd kept his intentions quiet until filing just a few days before the deadline last month, says he has the best qualifications of the three candidates: more than 50 years residing in the city, a dozen years on the council and 30 years of legal and title work at the firm started by his father, former state Sen. Joe Johnston, Jr.

Also in the race is Jason Sharp, a 31-year-old political novice and owner of a Brooksville lawn care business. Sharp did not return a call for comment.

Johnston, 56, said he's encouraged by the direction the city seems to be taking but wants to be there to help meet the challenges that will come when the rate of growth picks up again.

He admits the decision to run against his former colleague gave him pause. He says he has an amicable relationship with Burnett.

"Unfortunately, it's part of the process," he said.

But political strategy also factored in the decision.

Johnston could have run for the Group 2 seat currently held by Mayor David Pugh Jr., who needs to fend off two challengers to have a second term. Yvette Taylor, 38, is a member of the Brooksville Housing Authority board who works as a dispatcher at the Wal-Mart distribution center in Ridge Manor. Cecil Davis IV, 28, is the owner of Cecil Davis Enterprises Inc., a machining business on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Pugh and Johnston have many of the same supporters, Johnston said. Running against Pugh would essentially make them choose. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, with Davis.

There are fewer such "crossover" supporters between Burnett and Johnston, he said.

Johnston said the controversial proposal he made at the end of his term to turn South Brooksville, a historically African-American community, into an industrial park is not a major plank in his platform.

As part of the plan, the city would take advantage of grant money to build new residential developments for residents of the area and offer fair prices for the land. Johnston had said his main motivation was not industrial development but to improve the quality of life for residents in the area who are living in substandard housing.

Johnston said he still thinks the idea, which would require a cooperative effort with the county using state and federal money, is worth exploring.

"It's a problem that's been there and will be there," he said.

Burnett says he's not just the voice of South Brooksville.

When asked this week whether he was surprised by Johnston's bid, Burnett said: "In a way I was, and in a way I wasn't," he said.

There are certainly no hard feelings, he said. "I feel anybody that has a desire to run should take it on."

Burnett, a construction project manager consultant who said he isn't working much in this tough economy, said he'll emphasize his efforts over the last four years "to put people over politics." If reelected, he would work to bring industry to the city and foster smart growth through annexation.

Burnett, who is African-American, lives in South Brooksville and has worked to bring attention to that part of the city. But he bristles when asked if he worries his defeat would mean the loss of a voice for that area.

A question like that, he said, "makes me feel like I'm only there to represent the south Brooksville area. I represent all the people."

But the former NAACP Hernando chapter president acknowledges that most African-American constituents with concerns usually come to him first.

He opposes Johnston's proposal to transform the area to an industrial area. Instead, he said, city and county government should focus on a redevelopment plan that allows families who have resided there for generations and who want to stay to do so.

"I'm all for going in and doing what government should have been doing all along, redeveloping and preserving history."

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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