Kiker, Mandel win election for council
The most qualified candidates vying for the two available seats on the Fort Myers Beach Town Council are in. Larry Kiker and Alan Mandel collected the most individual votes among the three hopefuls on the ballot Tuesday to knock out long-shot candidate Joe Kosinski and become the newly elected officials for the Town.
Mandel, vice chairman of the Town’s Local Planning Agency, collected the most votes with 837 or 38.84 percent of the tallies, while Kiker, the Beach council’s current mayor who was looking for re-election to the council, received 784 votes or 36.38 percent of the vote. Kosinski, who had no prior experience working for the Beach or town government in general, amassed 534 votes or 24.78 percent of the vote. The plurality election format featured the top two vote-getters being elected without the need of a runoff.
Kiker, who is set to begin his second term in office, said he felt great after hearing the results of Tuesday’s election. He has amassed five consecutive years of town goverment experience, having served on the LPA and as vice-mayor of the council as well.
“It’s the beginning of another good three years, and I’m glad Alan is going to be there,” said Kiker. “I’m excited to sit with the new council and figure out how to conduct our businesses as effectively as we can. Having said that, I look forward to the meetings where we identify the issues, prioritize them and get some programs and projects in place to implement them. Obviously the next thing would be to follow that up with the budget to support or figure out how we’ll get the monies to operate and do the projects that need to be done.”
Mandel, the town’s all-round committee member, was nervous before he received news of the victory. He has chaired water utilty and fertilizer committees as well as being a member of the town budget committee during his five years of Beach service.
“I look forward to working with Larry and the other members of the council,” said Mandel. “The most important issues that we can start on right away are water utility and pedestrian safety. I think we can multi-task also. Two questions I have for the first issue is I want to know where we are with the rolling over of the existing debt and how we are going to fund the water utility. On pedestrian safety, I have some information I’ve been researching for use on Estero Boulevard. Obviously, we need to stay current on the stewardship of the Beach as well.”
The newly elected officials will be sworn in for their three-year terms at the next regular town council meeting on Monday, March 15, at 9 a.m.