6 candidates sign Sarasota County Clean Campaign Pledge

Grassroots advocacy group Citizens for Sarasota County inviting all candidates in contested races to do their part to ensure ‘honest, fair election’ focused on issues facing county voters

A Sarasota County grassroots advocacy group is inviting the 50 candidates in 17 contested races to sign the Sarasota County Clean Campaign Pledge.

Citizens for Sarasota County points out in a news release that the affected candidates are those seeking seats on the County Commission, the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board, the Sarasota County School Board, and the Sarasota County Charter Review Board.

The goal of Citizens for Sarasota County is to foster “a greater degree of integrity and accountability in our local elections,” as the organization’s founding members — Tom Matrullo, Cathy Antunes and Susan Schoettle — pointed out in their July 11 news release.

They cite “a history of Dark Money PACs [political action committees] and personal attacks in Sarasota County political campaigns” as the impetus for creating the Sarasota County Clean Campaign Pledge.

“For more than a decade, we have witnessed Dark Money PACs and hired political operatives from outside Sarasota County turn our local elections into mud-slinging free-for-alls that ignore local issues,” said Matrullo in the news release. “A similar Pledge used by Venice Thrives in the 2023 Venice City election led to two incumbents losing their seats after refusing to sign,” he added.

“Sarasota citizens feel we are not represented by our elected officials,” said Cathy Antunes, creator and founding member of Citizens for Sarasota County, in the release. “Thanks to the Citizens United decision of 2010, local campaigns are fueled by huge contributions from a handful of individuals and their affiliated companies,” Antunes pointed out in the release. “Local elections are also impacted by Dark Money PACs, which do their best to hide their donors from voters,” she added.

“When PACs use their deep pockets to boost their selected candidate by launching unsubstantiated negative and personal attacks against a rival, a political machine is shaping our lives, lands, roads, and ecology while residents wonder what happened to open, democratic representation,” Matrullo noted in the release.

“The Pledge will raise voters’ awareness of negative campaigning and focus discussion on issues of real concern to the voters of Sarasota County,” added Schoettle, a member of the Citizens for Sarasota County (CSC) Steering Committee, in the release.

“CSC has monitored County issues since 2014 via the Citizens for Sarasota Blog, The Detail — a local radio program — and a community group on Facebook with more than 4,400 members, the release points out.

Results of the Clean Campaign Pledge initiative “will be reported well ahead of the August Primaries,” the release notes.

On July 8 on the Facebook page, Schoettle wrote that two candidates already had committed to the pledge: Shari Thornton of Venice, who is running without party affiliation for the District 3 County Commission seat, and Sarasota Charles Bear, a Republican challenging outgoing County Commissioner Mike Moran in the Aug. 20 primary for the office of Sarasota County Tax Collector.

In response to a Sarasota News Leader request for an update prior to its publication of this week’s issue, Matrullo wrote in a July 18 email that the following candidates also have signed the pledge:

• Incumbent Tax Collector Barbara Ford-Coates, a Democrat.
• Nancy Ceci, the solitary Democratic candidate for the District 5 seat on the Charter Review Board.
• George Davis, the lone Democratic candidate seeking the at-large seat for District 3 on the Hospital Board.
• Vicki Lynn Nighswander, the only Democratic candidate seeking the District 1 seat on the Hospital Board.

Schoettle added in her July 8 post, “We hope many, if not all, of the other candidates will follow [the first two signatories, Thornton and Bear]. Let’s make this election focus on local issues of importance to County voters and keep it clean! If any candidates or others have questions or need more information, please email PublicGoodSarasota@gmail.com,” she added.

The following is the Sarasota County Clean Campaign Pledge:

“To do my part to ensure an honest, fair election that focuses on the issues facing Sarasota County voters, I pledge to:

1. “conduct my campaign accurately and honestly, keeping the focus on issues relevant to the voters of Sarasota County, Florida.

2. “not engage in character defamation of other candidates or participate in invasions of personal privacy unrelated to campaign issues and to publicly repudiate any campaign material, communications, or advertisements of other groups who engage in such activities.

3. “refuse both direct contributions and indirect support, e.g. in the form of advertising, communications, or mailers using my name or photo, from organizations that do not disclose the origins of their funding, such as dark money PACs.”

The news release explains, Citizens for Sarasota County is a coalition that was created “to promote ethical, responsive government that preserves and enhances Sarasota’s unique natural environment and cultural heritage while building a sound local economy based on effective stewardship and innovation.”

To follow conversations on the coalition’s Facebook page, click here.