Applicants applying to represent District 3 on the Sarasota City Commission come from fields in law, technology and publishing, but now look toward service on the board as a potential next step in their lives. The group of people looking for the appointment to the board include: attorney Shelli Freeland Eddie, publisher and retired nurse Maryellin Kirkwood, retired tech support analyst Charles Senf and retired journalist Stan Zimmerman.

The seat is being vacated in November by Shannon Snyder, who under Florida's Resign-to-Run law had to submit an irrevocable resignation in order to run for Sarasota County Commission. He lost the Republican primary for the county seat in August, but did not apply for appointment to serve out the remainder of his term. Whoever gets the appointment will serve until May, at which point the winner of a city election will be sworn in.

Eddie, who serves on the Newtown Community Redevelopment Area Advisory Board, hopes to bring her leadership abilities from Freeland Eddie Law Group into the Commission chambers. "I saw an opportunity to provide new leadership and abilities," she said. She has closely followed issues with the homeless and wants the city to move forward in a way that keeps the community safe while making sure businesses are able to operate. She also strongly believes the CRA needs to be extended past its expiration in 2016, and is ready to have conversations with the county on that subject. 

Kirkwood, also a Sarasota Police Department volunteer, said she wants to restore a cooperative spirit on the Commission that "hasn't been there the last few years." She said the city's biggest issue right now is the fact it had to increase the city tax rate this year even while falling short to pay for assets like the Bobby Jones Golf Course. "We need to start being more creative in how we attract private funds, foundations funds, grant monies, just being aggressive in attracting addition funds," she said. "People have different concepts of what is benevolent and charitable but that also has to be constrained by what is possible financially."

Senf, president of the Terrace Gardens Neighborhood Association, has been a regular commenter on city issues for decades. He said he has been frustrated by a lack of transparency in processes like discarding city property. He is known for founding SarasotaVoices. "The uneven transparency evident over the course of hundreds of significant transactions our City Manager brings to the Commission for those essential three votes together with, as often as not, the relatively short notice the Commissioners are provided prior to being called upon to decide to spend a million here and another million there," he said, was one of the reasons he applied for the post.

Zimmerman, a long-time reporter in the area who most recently worked at The Sarasota News-Leader, is ready to move to the other side of the dais. “It’s not a decision to be taken lightly," he said. Zimmerman said he wants the city to be more forward-looking, and not spend as much effort doing postmortem analysis of past mistakes, noting an information technology investigation that led to a past city manager's resignation but did not conclude criminal wrongdoing. He has watched issues like the recent Bayfront discussions and has thoughts on preserving waterfront parts of that land for public uses.

Zimmerman said he intends to run for the Commission seat in the Spring whether he gets the appointment or not, while Senf has said will only serve to the end of the appointment in May and won't run on principle. Eddie and Kirkwood have made no decision yet on whether they will run in the Spring. An appointment will be made Nov. 19.