The campaigns for mayor and commissioner in Bradenton Beach turned to attack mode within the past week.
Both former Mayor Bill Shearon and Ward 3 Commissioner Janie Robertson posted letters to voters, attacking Mayor Jack Clarke.
Robertson called Clarke “secretive, lawless, manipulative, ruthless, untrustworthy, and unethical. I have never known any mayor as blatantly controlling. He fails miserably in the adherence to our city laws. He breaks them first, (then) instructs the city attorney to write new ones.”
The letters also explained each candidate’s reasons for seeking another term in office.
“I am honoring my promise to run for mayor to return transparency, evenhandedness, fiscal control and accountability” to city hall, wrote Shearon, who lost to Clarke by 13 votes May 19 in a recall election after losing the recall on the same ballot by eight votes. Shearon has said the recall effort was politically motivated.
Shearon’s first term as mayor was halted and Clarke was sworn into office in June.
“By now, we have all had a taste of the direction that Mayor Clarke is taking the city. It is not a good one,” Shearon wrote.
In the four months Clarke has been mayor, Shearon said he has “hired a city clerk who has no credentials, formal training or formal education for the job,” in reference to Terri Sanclemente. Shearon added that Clarke disrupted city operations and violated a city ordinance by placing former city treasurer Sheila Dalton and her deputy under Sanclemente’s supervision, resulting in their resignations.
Clarke has had two complaints against him at the Florida Commission on Ethics, Shearon wrote. One, based on his vote to pay a lawyer to defend his campaign for mayor, was dismissed. The other resulted from Clarke delegating himself and city attorney Ricinda Perry to negotiate the pier restaurant contract for the city in private. He added that Clarke proposed and approved deficit spending for the newly enacted city budget.
Robertson, who has been Ward 3 commissioner for eight of the past 10 years, wrote that she has seen her opponent, Ralph Cole, only once — Sept. 17 — at a commission meeting.
For the past two years, she wrote, she has been a minority vote. “However, I was able to fight successfully to secure our public beachfront property at First Street North, keeping it from becoming a private commercial parking lot after 5 p.m. daily.”
Robertson said Clarke was “an unknown” when he became commissioner with no opposition, no campaign and no votes. She said that in a “planned legal coup,” Clarke and others “manipulated him into the position of vice mayor and he immediately began forfeiture proceedings against Mayor Shearon. He kept his accusations secret for six months.”
Robertson wrote she hopes voters return Shearon to the office of mayor.
“This is government by Jack Clarke and for Jack Clarke,” Robertson wrote, “not the people.”
To view Bill Shearon’s campain letter click here
To view Janie Robertson’s campain letter click here