Pachota wins race for Venice mayor and Howard wins City Council Seat 5

VENICE – Incumbent Venice City Council member Nick Pachota beat Frankie Abbruzzino to become the next mayor of Venice, winning about 58% of the vote in Tuesday's election.

The post he won is technically Seat 7 on the council.

In the race for Seat 5 between two political newcomers, Rick Howard finished with about 51% of the vote to defeat Ron Smith, who finished with 49%.

The winners will join Rachel Frank, who was unopposed in her bid to win a three-year term in Seat 6, and Dick Longo, who was unopposed in his bid for the one remaining year in Seat 2 . The newcomers will comprise the board with current council members Jim Boldt, Mitzie Fielder and Helen Moore.

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Pachota, who completed a three-year term in Seat 5, announced his bid for mayor in January. Incumbent Ron Feinsod waited until just before the mid-August filing deadline to reveal he would not seek a second term.

“It’s overwhelming,” Pachota said of his victory. “After announcing back in January and to have come this long in an election it’s overwhelming.

“What’s the most touching is the support I’ve received from so many members of the community.

‘“I’ve kept it positive. I'm just so humbled to have so many people supporting me.”

Still only 39, Pachota became a grandfather on Monday and became the second youngest mayor ever elected in the city of Venice. The first city mayor, Edward Worthington was 40, while the sixth mayor, Frank Raeburn, was 29 when he took office.

Abbruzzino – who has multiple businesses, including medical billing and real estate, is best known for his Suncoast News and Scoop website and Facebook pages. He was making his third bid to become mayor. In the first one he lost a maverick campaign against incumbent John Holic.

The second one was a messy three-way race that included Feinsod and former council member Bob Daniels.

Pachota – whose family owns the Venice Pier Group, which operates Sharky’s on the Pier and Fins at Sharky’s, as well as Siesta Beach Eats and Snook Haven – has spent time on the campaign trail explaining the City Council’s reasoning behind approval of the latest rewrite of the city’s land development codes

That rewrite included controversial sections on height in the downtown corridor that helped spur the formation of a citizen's group, Venice Unites, now conducting a petition drive to repeal the entire document.

Pachota has expressed an interest in finding an amicable solution. He said one of the biggest things he would like to do is resolve the animosity raised by the passage of those regulations.

He called it a good document but said, “the citizens want us to tweak it and clean it and I think we can do that.”

Howard said of his win in Seat 5, “It boils down to the voters and the candidates that they believe in that are going to do the right things for the city and the right things for the residents.”

One message that resonated with him from the campaign trail was concern about taxes.

“When I'm walking, knocking on doors, that’s one of the top issues I’m hearing from everybody,” he added. “Sarasota County, they reduced their millage rate slightly and Venice has not and I hear this all the time.”

Howard also recalled conversations he had with an 82-year-old Venice resident who worries about how long she’ll be able to live in the city, as her rent continues to increase.

“I think we need to address what it costs to live in the city of Venice and that;’s going to be one of my first priorities – that we are being very attentive to every dollar, every tax dollar that’s being spent, to make sure that we make Venice affordable,” he added.

Though the seven-member board is non-partisan, the Seat 5 race was marred by party politics as the Republican Party of Sarasota County unleashed a barrage of attack mailers and texts against Smith, a Democrat.

On the campaign trail, both candidates praised the virtues of Venice neighborhoods though Smith added a twist of calling out influential developer Pat Neal of Neal Communities, who Smith said tried to talk him into dropping out of the race and pledged to heavily back his opponent.

Florida First Initiative, a Tallahassee-based PAC chaired by William S. Jones – who has been linked to Neal in previous PAC endeavors – did send out mailers favoring both Howard and Pachota.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Venice City Council election results for mayor Seat 9 and Seat 5 races