City Commission Seat 4/Mayor

The Leon County Democratic Environmental Caucus endorses Kristin Dozier.

We endorsed Kristin Dozier before the primary and we continue to urge voters to choose her.  

In just one term as mayor, John Dailey has become the dominant figure in the city.  He can often count on two commissioners, Curtis Richardson and Dianne Williams-Cox, to support what he wants.  His 3-2 majority is so secure that he often ignores whatever the other two commissioners, Jeremy Matlow and Jack Porter, have to say.  Even seemingly uncontroversial suggestions from Matlow and Porter, such as delaying a vote to give neighbors a chance to negotiate with a developer, get rejected without comment.  And Mayor Dailey has a solid alliance with the city manager, so he rarely disagrees with staff recommendations.  

We have been disappointed by many of the mayor’s decisions, including selling multiple city-owned properties without a bid and using Blueprint money for unintended purposes, such as the FSU stadium repairs.  His meeting management style favors endorsing staff recommendations over thoughtful discussion.  What Mayor Dailey has used his power to accomplish includes an extended FAMU Way, with a beautiful skate park, but at the expense of the destruction of a historic Black neighborhood, Boynton Still, and the loss of dozens of mature oak trees.  

Kristin Dozier has years of experience as a County Commissioner.  Anyone who’s watched many county commission meetings has seen her thinking through an issue as she talks about it.  Her message is, these are complicated decisions with potentially unintended consequences that we should consider carefully before we decide.  A city commission led by Kristin Dozier will no doubt feature longer, but more interesting meetings. 

On the big issues, Commissioner Dozier has not always voted as we wished.  On the plus side, she voted not to plow FAMU Way through the Boynton Still neighborhood and she led the opposition to the Doak Campbell stadium give-away.  But she also voted for the FSU Convention Center and for the Northeast Gateway.  We support Kristin Dozier for mayor not because we expect her to vote how we want every time, but because we trust her to make the best decision she can, without excessive regard to the wishes of the big developers and other insiders.  We believe she wants to protect the environment – she’s a founder of Sustainable Tallahassee.   And we believe she wants to make life better for those who are struggling, and to really root out corruption and insider influence.  

Some ideas Dozier would like the city to pursue include: rewarding employees for identifying ways to be more efficient; using some Blueprint money as a revolving loan fund, rather than making grants, to help more businesses; providing county land for homeless shelters and/or affordable housing; more re-entry programs and workforce training; programs to help students expelled from school; reviving Mental Health Court.  She’s a long-time supporter of the Commission on Women and Girls, and she’s in favor of the Council on Men and Boys proposed by the sheriff to figure out the best ways to divert young men from violent crime.  She wants to reform the comp plan amendment process to better address the environment and transportation.

We think Kristin Dozier is the mayor Tallahassee needs.  She has earned our endorsement.