Photo: Fredd Atkins

Former Sarasota Mayor Fredd Atkins is running once again for Sarasota County Commission. And this time the lines are staying put. 

He announced this weekend he’s running in District 2. He made his decision to run, he said, after a referendum seeking to roll back single-member districts failed. But a seat at the county dais is something he’s wanted for years.

“I’ve been thinking about this all my adult life,” he said.

He noted he worked in the 1980s with the NAACP on a lawsuit that ultimately led to single-member district elections for Sarasota City Commission. In 1985, we won election as the first Black person elected in the city, and would become Sarasota’s first Mayor.

He had higher ambitions and ran years later for Sarasota County Commission countywide multiple times, most recently in 2016 when he lost to Republican Mike Moran. After single-member districts at the county level were approved by voters in 2018, Atkins filed to challenge Moran for a District 1 seat in 2020. But a controversial decision to redraw county lines ahead of the elections carved Atkins out of the district. When the lines were drawn in 2020, Atkins ended up in a Democrat-leaning seat. 

Still, Atkins wondered when county commissioners held a special election in March if it would mean the end of single-member districts before he could run again. “I don’t like running for recreation,” he said. “I want to win, and we are going to win this time.”

Of course, there’s a long road to that goal. Atkins faces Sarasota City Commissioner Hagen Brody and activist Mike Cosentino in a Democratic primary in August. The winner of that race will most likely face Republican incumbent City Commissioner Christian Ziegler in November, though Ziegler has yet to file for re-election.

But Atkins feels confident in large part because, unlike the last time he ran, the lines of District 2 create a constituency who knows him well. “It’s a citywide election with a little bit of the county sprinkled in to the electorate,” he said. “People will recognize my history and the work Fredd Atkins has done for us in the city of Sarasota, and the state of Florida will be rewarded by them acknowledging that I’m the best candidate for this position.” 

Photo: Fredd Atkins