Council elections: Gore bows out, Boback signs up
The qualifying period for the Fort Myers Beach Town Council elections in March will close this Friday, and one hat definitely won’t be in the ring again.
Mayor Tracey Gore has announced that she will not run for another term.
But her fellow incumbent, Councilmember Dennis Boback, isn’t ready to abdicate his spot in council chambers just yet.
He filed his election paperwork Friday and is preparing to defend his seat.
“When I ran in 2016, I never intended to do it twice,” Gore said.
“I think that we’ve accomplished more than what I was setting out to accomplish when I got elected.”
Those accomplishments, according to Gore, include the balancing of a more than $3 million deficit, the hiring of a town manager “that is experienced and responsive,” and the upgrading of community facilities like Bay Oaks Recreational Center.
“From the very beginning when Tracey and I got elected, the town was in very dire financial straits… And we turned that around in two-and-a-half years by making good decisions, making good hires… and I want to make sure that continues forward,” Boback said.
Gore and Boback won their seats in March 2016 by running on a platform to preserve the small-town character of Fort Myers Beach.
When TPI’s first resort proposal was brought forward in 2015, it seemed that town council was leaning toward approval.
“One day I was invited to someone’s house, and when I got there, it was a bunch of residents asking me to please run for council. I debated, because my daughter was in high school and I had a lot of volunteer responsibilities, as well as running my commercial shrimping business. I finally said yes, I’d do it for one three-year term,” Gore said.
The citizens put their faith in Gore’s knowledge of the town code, which she keeps in several three-ring binders on her desk at home, marked up and full of post-it notes.
“I was raised researching,” she said, crediting her mother, president of the Ostego Bay Foundation and unofficial historian of San Carlos Island, Joanne Semmer, with instilling that love of knowledge in her.
Gore won her seat with 1,336 votes and Boback with 867, in an election that inspired a massive turnout of 58 percent of voters, according to news accounts.
That was enough to turn the tide in the council and force TPI to rework its proposal, cutting down the size and scope of the project in order to be approved.
Though she is proud of the work she’s done on council, it certainly hasn’t been the breeziest of terms for Gore.
She faced attack ads accusing her of being “anti-growth” during her campaign, a controversy involving a secret audio tape and allegations of Sunshine Law violations from the Estero Island Taxpayers’ Association (of which she and Boback have been cleared by the State Attorney’s office), and an unprecedented water quality crisis on the beach that led her to join in a lawsuit with four other municipalities against the South Florida Water Management District.
In the face of these struggles, she remembered a word of advice that former mayor Dan Hughes gave her when she was elected.
“He said to me, half the people are going to love you, and half the people are going to hate you. And he’s absolutely right,” she said.
Her solution to this dilemma has been to stick to the comprehensive plan.
“As long as you follow what the code says and the rules say, then there’s no problem, you’re doing what the book says you’re supposed to do,” she said.
But politics have left Gore with little time for her family – she has a daughter in her first year of college in Orlando, and wants to be available to spend time with her husband, a shrimper whose visits home are few and far between.
She cites an obsessive dedication to her work as an obstacle to juggling her public and personal lives.
“I’m one of those people, if I do it, I’m 100 percent in. I can’t even go on vacation without answering my phoneWhen a resident calls me and they say, I have an issue, I will stay on that issue until it’s resolved. I’m from start to finish, period. And I can’t get rid of who I am,” she said.
Gore insists she will still be active in the community, but she wants to be a private citizen again for a while.
An advocate for term limits, she believes “everybody should run for office and serve a term,” and she’s not ruling out another term for herself in the future.
“I could run again in a year, in the next election if I wanted to. I’m not going to put that off the table if that is something that I’m able to do, but my family is going to come first,” she said.
Her advice for the next council is simple: follow the comprehensive plan, and always put citizens first.
She has some advice for citizens, too.
“Stay active and never become complacent if your quality of life is suffering. Most times whatever may be bothering you is something the council or town manager is unaware of… it is your elected officials’ responsibility to set the desired policies of the citizens, so make sure you let them know your desires,” she said.
Meanwhile, Boback is buckling in for the upcoming race.
“I think we’ve made a lot of headway, and I still think we have a little further to go. We’ve got the town, I believe, moving in the right direction, and I’d like to see that through,” he said.