David V. Sells, Sarasota, in response to Susan Nilon's "Nonpartisan Doesn't Mean Nonpartisan" column in the March 14 edition of SRQ Daily

My wife and I moved to Sarasota a little over a year ago and live in District 2.   We were planning to vote in the upcoming election and asked our politically active friends who they planned to support.  They indicated they were planning to support the Democratic candidate running for Commissioner in District 2.  We thought this was odd as commissioners are supposedly nonpartisan.  We decided to attend the all candidates forum at the Sarasota Garden Club to hear the views of the various candidates for this office.  

We were surprised there was such a small turnout (perhaps 40 people or so) to view the forum and wondered if this was an indication that Sarasotans are indifferent to the difficult issues that will face the five Commissioners over the next four years.  Even more surprising and shocking to us was that the Democrat running for District 2 Commissioner performed the worst by far of the four candidates that were present.  In our opinion, her answers were sometimes evasive, always long-winded, filled with meaningless platitudes and showed a very limited depth of understanding of the issues the Sarasota City Commission has faced in the past and will face in the future.

Regardless of her intentions, we feel that this candidate lacks the background and skills necessary to deal with the complex issues that will come before the City Commission over the next four years.  Sarasota deserves better.  We do feel, however, that based on the performances we observed, the two Commissioners who were appointed to fill vacancies last November were the most qualified of the four candidates at the forum.  I would be happy to discuss my views with anyone who is interested. 

As a footnote, we recently received a flyer from the Sarasota County Democratic Party identifying Liz Alpert as the only Democrat in the race and showing a sample ballot marked to vote for her.  We are extremely disappointed that the Democratic Party introduced partisanship into this election. 

David V. Sells, Sarasota, in response to Susan Nilon's "Nonpartisan Doesn't Mean Nonpartisan" column in the March 14 edition of SRQ Daily