Crowded, diverse field of 9 hope to become Gainesville's next mayor

Gainesville voters are going to see a host of new faces running for office in August, with three incumbents leaving their district seats.

A total of 18 candidates are vying for four City Commission seats, including nine eyeing the mayor's chair.

It's a crowded field full of diverse candidates for the first city election held in the fall, all of whom are looking to replace Mayor Lauren Poe, who is term-limited.

Among those who have qualified for the seat are two current commissioners, a former mayor, a former utility manager, the owner of a basketball team, a trans queer astrophysicist, a once-homeless tech expert, a disbarred attorney and a man banned from City Hall who refers to himself as the "People's Representative."

Though the election is set for Aug. 23, the volume of candidates may force a runoff if no one can reach more than 50% of the vote.

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Here are your candidates for mayor:

Gainesville City Commissioner Harvey Ward, who is a lifelong Gainesville resident, has served as a city commissioner since 2017 and acted as mayor pro tem in 2019 and 2020.

Ward is term-limited in his District 2 role. He is a graduate of Eastside High School, Santa Fe College and the University of Florida. He chaired the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency in 2019.

Next is Ed Bielarski, who served as the general manager of Gainesville Regional Utilities until he was fired in January by the City Commission. Ward voted to terminate Bielarski's contract with the city.

Bielarski played a pivotal role in helping the city exit a $2 billion obligation to the biomass plant contract, saving the city approximately $700 million at the time, an amount now grown to more than $900 million. He has also repeatedly asked the city to reduce its reliance on $38 million from the general fund transfer, though he has also argued for modest utility rate increases.

District 3 Commissioner David Arreola, who was first elected in 2017 at the age of 26, was the youngest person ever to be elected to the commission, and now could be the youngest to serve as mayor.

Arreola is a Gainesville native whose parents immigrated from Mexico and whose father worked at UF Health Shands. He attended Buchholz High School and Santa Fe College, before transferring to Flagler College in St. Augustine, where he earned his bachelor's degree in political science.

July Thomas was one of the first few candidates to file for office. She is a trans-queer astrophysicist and local activist for LGBTQ rights and issues throughout the Gainesville community.

Thomas was a computational astrophysics graduate student at UF before taking a leave of absence to run for office. Thomas studied and wrote research papers on black holes and their impacts across the universe.

Thomas is currently writing a series “Radical Gainesville History,”  which focuses on “addressing obvious gaps in the conventional histories of Gainesville.”

Gary Gordon announced his candidacy last week and has previously served on the commission from 1983 to 1986. He was was mayor-commissioner from 1985 to 1986.

Gordon is a local musician, radio show producer and playwright. He has taught screenwriting courses at Santa Fe Community College and for five years managed Hyde & Zeke Records in Gainesville.

From 1998 to 2017, he was the executive director of the Main Street Business Improvement Association in Santa Monica, California. In 2017, he returned to Gainesville and has been participating in local debates, particularly on housing.

Ansaun Fisher, Sr., a franchise owner of the Florida Allstars basketball team in Gainesville that is part of the American Basketball Association. He is the CEO of Fisher Enterprise, LLC, a business and development management company with an interest in sports and entertainment. He also coaches youth flag football and basketball at Possum Creek Park and coaches the Outeast Gainesville Kings youth football team.

Gabriel Hillel Kaimowitz filed for office this week. The former civil rights attorney is now disbarred and unsuccessfully ran for commissioner several times, most recently against Gail Johnson in 2021. He currently has an open warrant for his arrest for practicing law while disbarred, according to court records, but managed to file paperwork at City Hall this week. He has been known to send racist emails, attacking city employees and elected officials.

Donald Shepherd has filed to run for office once again in Gainesville, though he has never been successful. The former groundskeeper at UF, who is now retired, said he once worked in the finance department for the city and was a policeman in Rochester, New York.

He was a regular at commission meetings, but that ended in January when he was banned from City Hall for a year when he pushed his finger into Commissioner Arroela's chest, an action he says he has since apologized for. Shepherd often refers to himself as the "People's Representative."

Adam Rosenthal, who moved down to Gainesville in 2012, filed for mayor Friday morning. He moved to the area to work in the tech field after seeing an opportunity to work for start-up companies.

He said he was once homeless after losing his job in 2018, which he believes will serve him well in understanding issues in Gainesville.

Ward leads the other candidates in fundraising, having raised $34,930 and spent $11,047 in the race.

Bielarski follows closely behind, having raised $26,125 and spent $4,878. Arreola ranks third with $17,180 and spent $11,584. Thomas has raised $5,079 and spent $849. Gordon has raised $750 and spent nothing yet. The other candidates have raised no money.

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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville mayor's race heats up with 9 candidates running for office