Bradenton City Council candidates look to unseat and bring 'civility' to the board

Three seats are up for reelection in the Bradenton City Council, with candidates campaigning on pressing issues including bringing back curbside recycling, relocation of city hall, and enforcing transparency among city offices.

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Ward Four

Incumbent Bill Sanders has been known for having a strained dynamic with most of the city council and the mayor. Those challenging his seat said his ability to get along with others has gotten in the way of the city’s progress, but for Sanders, not backing down on certain issues is imperative to upholding transparency.

Sanders, 69, has been retired for the last 12 years and ran for the position in 2018 because he had trouble getting a street light fixed. He has served on the council since then.

He said his goals if reelected would include changing the culture and environment and city hall, including increased transparency. He’s concerned about conflicts of interest with developers and leaders at city hall and wants more of the city hall plans to be done “in the sunshine.”

“To go to this level of hiding or delaying stuff is to me just on the edge of criminal and unethical,” Sanders said.

Although he voted to remove curbside recycling, Sanders said it was a mistake, and if reelected he would work to bring it back.

“If you make a mistake, I was taught to say you’re sorry, correct it and move on,” Sanders said.

In May, several city hall employees raised concerns that Sanders created a hostile work environment, prompting one of the city's legal counsels to withdraw from her role.

His challenger, Kurt Landefield, 68, and his wife moved to Bradenton in 2016 from Ohio. Prior to that, he had worked for several advertising agencies, working as director of marketing and communications at the Akron Beacon Journal.

Landefield said he’s running for the position to remove Sanders. He said that this would be imperative to restore civility and effective representation for the ward. Because Sanders has a high level of distrust for the city hall, it’s difficult for him to have a working relationship with the rest of the council and mayor, Landefield said.

“My opponent has alienated himself from the mayor and the other members of the council,” Landefield said. “They don't like him. They don't like the way he treats people in chambers. And as a result, he is isolated and ineffective.”

He said that his years of experience serving on the HOA have strengthened his ability to bring people together and find solutions that work best for the city.

In 2019, the mayor of Bradenton appointed Landefield to the City Planning Commission, which he still serves on. As a member of an HOA board and city planning commission, he’s attended almost every city council meeting from the last four years, Landefield said.

Police issues Landefield is most focused on include maintaining a high quality of life for residents who may be experiencing skyrocketing costs and expensive housing, as the area continues to grow. For Landefield, this includes water quality, transportation, and housing costs.

Another candidate for the seat, Lisa Gonzalez-Moore, 47, works as a transactional attorney and owns her own firm since 2017, where she mostly focuses on real estate and corporate law. She’s been practicing for the last 20 years.

She’s been involved in the local bar and has served as president and treasurer for the Florida Association of Women Lawyers. She has also served on the Manatee County Library Board Foundation.

She’s been thinking about running for this position for a few years after residents in the area were looking for a different style of leadership, Gonzalez-Moore said.

“There was a general sense of discontentment that we’ve been waiting for so long – East Bradenton should be the next up-and-coming area, but we found it was kind of languishing,” Gonzalez-Moore said.

She said that the streets are neglected in terms of maintenance, and potholes take forever to get fixed. She said that she could be of use with the purchase of property for the new city hall with her background in real estate law.

Infrastructure really was the catalyst for her involvement in the race, but she said that she’s focused on long-term strategic plans for the city.

She said that although Sanders is well-intentioned, conflicts between personalities at city hall have led to stagnation in results or progress.

“I believe I have a skill set to raise issues and then collaborate to figure out the possible solutions, and hopefully, bring it home with a result,” Gonzalez-Moore said.

Ward Two

David M. Levin, 37, works contractually with several companies in the technology and insurance spaces to assist in the back end of web pages.

He is a veteran and served in the Army reserves from 2005 and 2010.

He and his wife planted their roots in Bradenton, where Levin is pursuing a law degree at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in Tampa. They have three kids together.

Levin decided to run because of the city’s recycling program, but he said that he realized that there was a serious entanglement between developers and lawyers in the city hall. He’s concerned about Marianne Barnebey’s husband being a city attorney.

He said that the police department needs new leadership, referencing a survey in March that showed that officers were dissatisfied with leadership.

When it comes to the city council dynamics, Levin said that the attitude of agreeing for the sake of getting along isn’t helpful in getting things done at city hall.

“If they worked on cleaning up the homeless problem and workforce housing as they do on ousting Sanders, there would be less homeless people and more workforce housing," Levin said.

Marianne Barnebey, 65, was born and raised in Manatee County. She attended Manatee Junior College and High Point University in North Carolina, where she studied nonprofit agency administration.

Barnebey was elected in 1998 and served on the Bradenton City Council until 2014, when she stepped away from the council until June 2020 when she filled former Mayor Gene Brown’s seat after he was elected as mayor.

She said that she’s running for reelection because she loves this city.

“Bradenton helped raise me and educate me, serving is a way to pay back the investment that our community gave to me,” Barnebey said.

She said that one of the things she is most proud of as a member of the council is that her record shows that she listens to citizens.

“We are elected as non-partisans. To me, that means I have 57,000 bosses, and it’s very important to me that we incorporate the citizens and their thoughts,” Barnebey said.

Ward Three

Josh Crane is running unopposed in ward three. He will be taking over the seat previously held by Patrick Roff.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Bradenton City Council candidates look to bring 'civility'