Fort Pierce is running a special election in just a few weeks on November 4 to fill a vacancy for the District 2 seat after the unexpected resignation of former City Commissioner James Taylor following his arrest in July. WQCS sat down with each of the three candidates — Jamiebeth Galinis, Christopher Dzadovsky, and Donna Benton — and asked them a few questions to get to know them.
My first question for you each is, what is your connection to the city? Donna, let's start with you.
D: My grandparents moved here in the early ’50s, and my first trip — I was six weeks old — was in 1958.
Jamiebeth, how about you?
J: Well, I've lived here for 16 years. My husband and I relocated from Delray Beach 16 years ago when my girls were zero and one, and we just love it here. We have really grown our family here, and this is our home now.
Last but not least, Chris, what's your answer?
C: In 2001, I got hurt as a volunteer firefighter and was recovering from my injuries. At that point, U.S. Airways was not going to take me back because I couldn't meet the physical requirements. So friends of mine who lived here were my customers in Key Largo, and they said, “Come down for a visit.” I came down in February of 2003 and then bought a house. I made a contract on building a townhouse on the beach, returned to Fort Pierce on April 9 of 2003, and then started going back to school at IRSC.
And during that time, I was asked to put whatever papers we were doing to try and target them for things that were going on in Fort Pierce and make it real as opposed to just a paper. So I did that. I got involved in nonprofits — the Jazz Society — and I was the crime watch captain for Hibiscus Park. I did cleanups and created the Neighborhood Enhancement Action Team so that our neighbors could actually have things done that they weren’t able to physically do. And so I got a lot of notoriety.
And then somewhere along the line in 2006, I was asked to run for mayor. So I ran for mayor. I came in third, even though no one knew me and I had no background except for my experience in Hibiscus Park and the Jazz Society, etc. So I lost, and a city commissioner, Eddie Beck, called me and said, “Hey, there's a seat open for the county commission that you should run for.”
And so I talked to my team, and as part of that, they said, “Well, we already invested a bunch of money for this race. You’ve got name recognition now — do it.” And so we did, and we won. I have been invested since day one — even, little did I know, before I ever got here in Fort Pierce.
And what do you each love most about the city?
J: I have found the city to be very welcoming in terms of coming here, knowing no one. We have built a very robust network of friends — friends who feel like family. I enjoy that the city really does seem to invest in things that are very community-focused, like the parades and the fireworks and those kinds of things that everyone can enjoy throughout the year. I definitely love the Saturday markets — probably one of our favorite things to do every week — and things along that line.
Thank you, Jamiebeth. And Chris, what about you?
C: I mean, having been a diver for about 45, 48 years, fishing and diving is my life — and it had been until then. But it’s the quaintness, it’s the old Florida charm. I’ve been trying to maintain that and sustain that for Fort Pierce.
Donna, how about you?
D: I love the proximity to the coast — the beaches, fishing — just the uniqueness of Fort Pierce and its history.
Let's get down to brass tacks here. What would your vision be for Fort Pierce? Where would your priorities lie as commissioners?
C: My position is to reduce the amount of density, make the roadways more acceptable for levels of traffic. And the other is to be able to lower the cost of taxes and help the community — just a fundamental resetting of the administration of how City Hall works.
When I took office in the county, one of my positions back then was to implement online permitting and make that process smoother, clearer, and more understandable. Although that took a long time because technology needed to catch up, it’s the kind of critical thinking that I bring to the table to help make those changes.
Thank you, Chris. What about you, Donna?
D: My vision for Fort Pierce is, first of all, to put some integrity back into the seat and City Hall and create a viable city that’s thriving, where our neighborhoods are safe and maintained and our infrastructure is usable — where we can get rid of these potholes in a lot of the neighborhoods.
I look forward to working with the city and bringing everyone together along with responsible, smart growth. A South Beach Overlay really gave guidance to development, especially on the barrier island, and that has since changed in ways that have allowed some of this overdevelopment and the projects that have been submitted to be done. So, as far as my vision, I’m looking for a Fort Pierce that embraces our history and incorporates our uniqueness and our character with future managed growth.
And how about you, Jamiebeth?
J: Where do your priorities lie? Yeah, so I feel like my vision is pretty simple. First and foremost, I think we need to really focus on public safety. This is a big concern for many, many people within Fort Pierce. Our crime rates are too high for a city of our size and kind of don’t match up with other similarly sized cities.
So we need to be looking at that. We have an interim police chief, and we’re going to be looking for a new police chief here soon. I think that leadership and how they will run the department is going to be critical to the success of the department, as well as to the city as a whole. The police department makes up about one-third of our total budget, so it’s really a big, big job. We need to make sure whoever’s taking on that role and responsibility can not just do the policing side of the job but also the business side of running a department with a $21 million budget — which brings me to the money of the city. We have a $61 million budget. We do not have $60,000 to pay for this election. This is a really big concern for me.
I don’t think we’re spending tax dollars wisely. I don’t know that we’re watching where the money goes. And I know that we are not asking for ROIs when people come to the city and ask for money. So if somebody says, “I would like the city to give me $100,000 for X,” we don’t require them to do an ROI, and we also — from what I can tell — don’t follow up often, even if an ROI was provided, to see if they actually followed through on their commitments and where that money eventually went. We kind of have this whole subsystem in Fort Pierce where we have the equivalent of NGOs coming into the city, the city gives them money to do certain tasks, and I don’t know that we’re watching those tasks effectively.
Moving on to some actionable plans. What do you guys hope to accomplish in your time as commissioners if you get elected?
J: We should have a dashboard for every single department, in my opinion. Any person in the city should be able to go onto our website, and there should be this dashboard that would show how each department is performing. Because what you don’t measure doesn’t matter. I just feel like there’s a lot of gap there — a lot of opportunity for the city to improve in those areas.
I want every department to have a publicly facing dashboard with, let’s say, four to eight goals, four to eight strategies, four to eight things that they are going to accomplish and where they are in that journey for accomplishing those goals.
I would want every single nonprofit or non-government agency that asks the city for money to have to include in their proposals an ROI, as well as some sort of cadence of updating the city as to how they’re doing with those goals — right? How are they spending our money? And then I would like to make sure that 100 percent of the money, we know where it’s going, and it’s going where it should go.
Thank you. What about you, Donna?
D: My priorities, first of all, are to make City Hall business-friendly — that businesses and residents alike can utilize City Hall to their benefit and that they are given direction on how they can make their businesses prosper, how Fort Pierce can help guide them, and promote quality jobs and quality companies coming in.
I want to work with Fort Pierce, the city manager, to bring positivity and just that business core sense of how City Hall should work with businesses to give them a good, friendly, quality experience.
Chris, what are your thoughts?
C: So, fundamental changes from a policy standpoint in the City of Fort Pierce are critical — everything from the planning and development area to the bid process, which we see now with the Little Jim Bridge project being challenged by five of the proposers. Then you also have the King’s Landing situation, which has been unresolved for five years.
You have the lawsuits for the boat condo, which has been brought to the city with some significant challenges where the title is clouded with a reverter clause in it to the state. And so all of those things should not have happened because you need to have an attorney — an attorney’s office that understands how these processes should work with clear, transparent, and final outcomes without having all these distractions and lawsuits.
Just to wrap things up, why don’t we answer the burning question here? What makes you stand apart from the other candidates?
Donna: Well, I was able to be First Lady of Fort Pierce for nine years when my husband was mayor, and he implemented the South Beach Overlay, which to me is very, very viable right now. I have experience — I’ve been in real estate for over 30 years here in the area, owned my own company for 23 of those years, and I’ve worked with City Hall daily from a business standpoint. I’ve been involved in our schools and in different organizations.
So I know Fort Pierce and I know its core. Just right now, like Little Jim Bridge — I used to go there with my grandpa. He was best friends with the owner. We need to keep Little Jim Bait and Tackle just what it is. It’s the character of what brings people to Fort Pierce and brings people together. I have a vision, just like when the city took away the Tiki Bar. We used to have a restaurant called Simonsen’s and Toucan’s that was on Fisherman’s Wharf. It would have been so much more productive and viable to keep the Tiki and put Crabby’s where Simonsen’s used to be. And we used to have the charter boats and where the fishermen would come in.
I mean, it would create more jobs instead of just exchanging jobs. It would have kept your downtown with a much better vision instead of a two-story concrete building. So, you know, I do have that vision being in real estate, working with developers. I sell Fort Pierce on a daily basis. I want people to get out of their cars and, instead of saying, “Oh my goodness, this is Fort Pierce,” I want them to get out of their cars and go, “Wow, this is a cool little town.”
Chris: I’ve invested at least 18 years of my professional career as a county commissioner — four terms as county commissioner — and I represented the entirety of the City of Fort Pierce.
Districts 1 and 2 were in my district. I moved a lot of opportunities for changing the elements and the contamination that was being dumped into the lagoon. I have been fighting for the environmental concerns of our community, keeping old Florida and maintaining preservation and conservation lands so that our children can have green space to see in the future. The fact is, I changed the economy of St. Lucie. When I took office, there was a recession. My very first budget, we lost over $14 billion in assessed value.
The very first budget, we had to find a shortfall of $54 million and then live off reserves for the following eight. So we changed the economic dynamic, which was rooftops, retirees, failing citrus, and tourism. My position was to turn it into a more 24/7, 365-days-a-year economy with a focus on intermodal distribution, manufacturing, marine, and aviation industries.
I was able to move forward with a foreign trade zone, which created opportunities for true investment from private investors to increase wages and strengthen the economy of the county as a whole. I was very successful with that, which gives me the opportunity to start on Nov. 5 if I get 50 plus one of the vote.
Jamiebeth: As an operational efficiency expert myself — as that is what I do for a career, helping improve processes, people, and programs — the city needs somebody like that. I think all of the people running have a really unique skill set, but I think the skill set the city needs right now in a commissioner is somebody who really has more of an operational excellence and operational background — somebody who's used to building out and using dashboards to make decisions.
Well, that's all the questions I have for you each. Thank you.
Fort Pierce residents living in District 2 will have a chance to cast their ballots starting as early as Oct. 25, with the election on Nov. 4. If no candidate wins a majority during Election Day, a runoff election is slated for January.