UPDATED: Willie Shaw Remains Sarasota Mayor, Suzanne Atwell Now Vice

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Friday May 15, 2015 12:44 pm

Following the swearing in of new City Commissioners Shellie Freeland Eddie and Liz Alpert, as well as swearing in CIty Commissioner Willie Shaw to a second term, the Sarasota City Commission named Shaw to a secone one-year term as mayor of Sarasota. City Commissioner Suzanne Atwell was selected as vice mayor.

The day also provided a chance for outgoing commissioners to take shots at media and for Shaw to defend the city after a change election.

The special meeting at City Hall started out with Shaw’s State of the City address, in which he seemed both to respond the apparent rebuke of the commission some read in the ouster of incumbents Stan Zimmerman and Eileen Normile while simultaneously expressing hope for the new commission moving forward. “This city for the past eight months or more has been out of the printed press as a confused, arguing, bickering city,” he said. “We were given the opportunity to once again govern. That we will and we have and will yet going forward.”

Eddie, in her first remarks as a commissioner, said she hoped the strife between city and county government would be healed by the change in guard. “There is no line between city and county,” she said. Alpert echoed similar sentiment, and promised to do her best to honor all facets of the community. “I’m grateful to voters and thankful for the opportunity to make Sarasota an even greater place to live, work and play,” she said.

Zimmerman and Normile on their way out took swipes at local media, labeling it dormant or inaccurate, respectively. “The fourth estate has become the enemy of public discourse,” Normile suggested. Zimmerman said reporters at all media outlets in town failed to do enough research on the background of his and Normile's opponents. "The local media was intellectually AWOL," he said.

But for all the sharp commentary, the new commission worked together in ways that defied voting blocs that might be inferred from the outgoing speeches. In the mayoral selections, Commissioner Susan Chapman, after making clear she did not desire the mayoral seat while she was engaged in litigation about a Sunshine Law allegation, nominated Shaw for a second term. Alpert supported naming Commissioner Suzanne Atwell as mayor, but Eddie supported staying with Shaw. Shaw in turn suggested Eddie as vice mayor, but the commission named Atwell to that role instead.

Chapman indeed sounded magnanimous about the election results, after an election cycle where her own leadership almost stood as a proxy to incumbent candidates as challengers confronted the status quo. While she thanked Normile and Zimmerman for, in her view, helping restore civility on the board, she also said she looked forward to working with the new, historic commission. "Never before has this commission had four women," she noted, "and equally important, never outside a District 1 has there been an African-American elected. Never before have we had two African-Americans on the commission. This is a great moment for the City of Sarasota. Now let's work together and make history."

Filed under Politics

Tags:   Eileen Normile  featured  Liz Alpert  Shellie Freeland Eddie  Stan Zimmerman  Susan Chapman  Suzanne Atwell  Willie Shaw

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