Petition problems raise costs for council candidates
While all five who have declared are still in the race for the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council election, two of the candidates will have to shell out extra dough due to technical issues with their petitions.
The Town of Fort Myers Beach Town Clerk’s office confirmed this past week that the petitions of Forrest Critser and James Atterholt had been certified, allowing them to run for town council. Candidates Dan Allers and David Drumm said their petitions were rejected by the office of the Lee County Supervisor of Elections.
Town Council candidates who wished to qualify by petition and so avoid a $504 registration fee in addition to the $168 filing fee were required to submit their petitions with signatures (49 were required) to the Lee County Supervisor of Elections Office.
Lee election officials referred questions to the Town of Fort Myers Beach Clerk’s Office regarding the certification. Town officials in turn said the actions to reject the petitions were made by the elections office.
“The Supervisor of Elections makes a determination,” Town of Fort Myers Beach Attorney John Herin Jr. said. “Their attempt to pass on that responsibility to the town is not how it’s done. It’s in their hands. It’s not the responsibility of the town.”
Both Atterholt and Drumm provided emails from the county certifying their petitions.
Lee County Supervisor of Elections Systems Administrator Todd Putnam confirmed that Allers and Drumm had signature petitions. Putnam stated that the signatures of Drumm were marked invalid “at the direction of Fort Myers Beach.” Drumm said he was told by the office that he incorrectly marked himself as no-party affiliation rather than non-partisan. The town council’s elections are non-partisan races, i.e. held outside of a party process.
Allers said the reason his petition was not accepted was the way he paid the Election’s Office $6 by check to certify the signatures which was supposed to be done through a second treasurer’s form. Neither the office or town would confirm any details regarding the signatures collected by Allers. Putnam stated in an email “there were no petition sigs submitted for Dan Allers” though he confirmed that Allers had petitions.
Both Allers and Drumm will now need to pay the additional $504 to qualify for the ballot for a total of $672, rather than the $168 they would have owed if their signatures were confirmed. Both intend to make the payments. Council candidate Robert Burandt opted out of the process of collecting signatures and said he is planning to pay the $672 to qualify for the ballot. The qualifying period ends Jan. 10.
There are three seats on the town council up for grabs since Mayor Anita Cereceda is term-limited and council members Bruce Butcher and Joanne Shamp have announced they are not seeking another three-year term.
Allers ran for town council in the previous election and is a member of the town’s Local Planning Agency, along with Atterholt. Burandt is an attorney while Critser is semi-retired and Drumm owns Reflow Plumbing.
Drumm expressed some disappointment that the 68 signatures he collected from the community were not going to count, but said “the whole idea of collecting the signatures was to speak to people.”