Ahearn-Koch, Lobeck and Trice to face off in Sarasota City Commission at-large race

On Nov. 8, Sarasota citizens will get to choose their next two at-large city commissioners.

Their options include an incumbent (Jen Ahearn-Koch), a former president of the Rosemary District Association (Debbie Trice) and a long-time community activist (Dan Lobeck).

These candidates were the top three vote-getters of six candidates in the Aug. 23 primary election. Voters will choose the two winners for the seats from among the three candidates on Nov. 8.

Ahearn-Koch, Trice and Lobeck differ more in their style and demeanor than they do on political issues. They all want the city to scale back its use of administrative review, which is when city staff, not the City Commission, approve development projects. All three candidates also have concerns about the Sarasota Performing Arts Center proposal.

The Herald-Tribune interviewed each candidate about their backgrounds, philosophies and views. Summaries of these interviews are provided below.

On the issues: Sarasota City Commission candidates talk performing arts center, tax rate, more

More: What do Sarasota City Commission candidates have to say about affordable housing and the SPAC?

Jen Ahearn-Koch

Ahearn-Koch said she was introduced to Sarasota as a child, as her Tampa-based family owned a vacation home in the area. She and her mother moved permanently to Sarasota when she was a teenager, and she went on to graduate from Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School.

Though she spent much of her childhood in Tampa, she said she has always considered herself as being from Sarasota.

“Because there was always this sort of sense of community here,” she said.

After earning a master’s degree, Ahearn-Koch worked for several years in Paris, where she met her husband and had her first son. When the boy was a toddler, Ahearn-Koch and her husband decided to move to a smaller place – Sarasota.

She has since founded her own marketing company, served on the city of Sarasota’s Planning Board and held an at-large seat on the City Commission since 2017. She also was a founding member of STOP, a controlled-growth advocacy group in the city.

“The thing I love about her the most is just her genuine concern about community and just always watching out for the little guy,” said Pola Sommers, one of Ahearn-Koch’s neighbors, “and also just being very informed.”

Ahearn-Koch served as mayor of Sarasota from November 2019 to November 2020 – which included the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, the city declared a public health emergency, enacted a mask mandate and took other measures to try to keep residents safe.

As a commissioner, Ahearn-Koch has often voted against proposed zoning changes or comprehensive plan amendments that have drawn significant opposition from members of the public. Over the last two years, she has frequently been the "1" in 4-1 votes, including the approval of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' $92 million renovation plans. 

Last month, she and the other commissioners gave City Manager Marlon Brown a vote of confidence after he said he would "get up and leave this dais right now" because he felt that Ahearn-Koch had threatened him during the meeting.

The commission had decided earlier in the meeting to not allow Ahearn-Koch and Commissioner Hagen Brody to give presentations they had planned, prompting Ahearn-Koch to say, “I will not forget this.” Brown said she was "threatening" him, but she contended that she wasn't and that the comment was meant for herself.

When the Herald-Tribune asked Ahearn-Koch what she considered the most pressing issue facing the city, she said that “there is not one most pressing issue” and that the city is facing many such issues, including growth.

“As a city, as we continue to grow, you’re going to have this push-pull in all directions, and … all the items come into play,” she said. "Everything comes into play.”

“So growth is the over-arching issue, let’s say,” she continued. “And underneath it, it’s everything else. It’s affordable housing. It’s quality of life for neighborhoods. It’s business growth. It’s keeping businesses here.”

Dan Lobeck

The son of Salvation Army ministers, Lobeck said he spent his early years in Vermont before moving to south Florida at the age of 6. He graduated from the University of Florida’s law school and began his legal career in Fort Lauderdale, then moved to Sarasota in 1982.

For over 30 years, Lobeck has advocated for policies meant to protect neighborhoods, the environment and other community interests from “uncontrolled development,” according to a news release from his campaign. He is the long-time president of local citizens group Control Growth Now.

At City Commission meetings, Lobeck often speaks assertively about public interest issues. He criticized, for example, a proposed partnership agreement between the city and the Sarasota Performing Arts Center Foundation at a meeting on April 4. The two entities are planning to build a performing arts center along the Sarasota bayfront.

“Slow down this train before it becomes a trainwreck,” he asked the commissioners. “It’s on your backs.”

An email Lobeck sent to commissioners and many members of the public ahead of the April 4 meeting drew criticism from City Manager Marlon Brown.

“Mr. Lobeck is putting information in his email that has nothing to do with the existing Van Wezel to stir up opposition to the decision the City Commission will be considering on Monday, and to use his often cited words ‘I find it grossly disingenuous,’” Brown said in an email sent to the recipients of Lobeck’s email.

Virginia Hoffman, a local artist and activist who has known Lobeck for many years, said he has been “very consistent in his convictions” on land-use matters and how they affect Sarasota residents.

“Throughout the years, his approach and his commitment to where he stands has been very consistent, which I like a lot, because lots of people don’t stay so committed to a way of thinking and approaching things,” she said.

Lobeck has been subject to criticism over the years, though, because of his combative style and censures of the development industry, according to a 2004 Herald-Tribune article.

Asked about the most pressing issue facing the city, Lobeck said there are several such issues and affordable housing “is right up there.”

“I think we’re facing an affordable housing crisis, where our workforce and elderly on fixed incomes, other people of limited means, are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain having a place to live within the city,” he said, “and we don’t want everybody commuting in and commuting out.”

Debbie Trice

The daughter of two public school teachers, Trice grew up in New York City. When she was a teenager, the family moved into a middle-income apartment.

“I spent my teens and 20s in middle-income housing, and I’m aware of how that can work,” she said. “So that kind of knowledge and information is what prompted me to say, you know, ‘How come we’re not doing something like this in Sarasota?’”

After graduating from college, she worked at Metropolitan Life Insurance as a systems analyst and then at IBM in marketing and management roles. When she started at IBM, the office had many female technical specialists, but the salespeople and management were almost exclusively men, she said.

“I joined one other woman who was a salesperson in the office at that time,” she said.

Trice moved to Sarasota in 1997 to take care of her aging parents. Since then, she has done different kinds of community service here. She served on the Sarasota County Charter Review Board from 2006 to 2010 and on the board of directors of the Rosemary District Association from 2019 to 2022, first as secretary and then as president.

Anand Pallegar, a local entrepreneur, has worked with Trice in the Rosemary District Association.

“One thing I saw in Debbie overtime – this was a really impressive trait – was her willingness to change her point of view, specifically by seeking to understand,” he said.

Trice is opposed to the city's proposed sit-lie ordinance, which has been initially approved by the City Commission. It still needs to be approved in a second public hearing.

The ordinance would prevent people from sitting and lying on sidewalks in parts of downtown. Trice said she dislikes the philosophy behind the ordinance.

"The philosophy was, 'We don't want vagrants,'" she said in a July interview. "It's not illegal to be something. It's illegal to do things that are illegal."

Trice noted that the homeless individuals "have to have some place to go." She said she wants to invest money in "places for them to be – ideally homes."

As to what she considers the most pressing issue facing the city, Trice said it’s housing for people “across the board.”

“From homeless to low-income people who are in substandard housing to people who want to live here who are really being priced out of their homes,” she said, adding that the housing crisis also affects employers wanting to hire people.

Trice said that there won’t be a “quick solution” to the crisis, but she will, if elected, seek the city manager and city staff’s advice on what steps can be taken to address it in the short-term.

Anne Snabes covers city and county government for the Herald-Tribune. You can contact her at asnabes@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @a_snabes.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota City Commission election: Ahearn-Koch, Lobeck, Trice compete