Sam Parker, and not James Calkins, will chair Santa Rosa County Commission in 2024
District 3 Commissioner James Calkins will have to win a second term in office if he ever wants to serve as chairman of Santa Rosa County's governing board.
In keeping with a time-honored annual tradition of having the board chairman step down and the vice chairman succeed him, Colten Wright passed his gavel Monday evening to Commissioner Sam Parker. The move was made without objection from fellow commission members.
New Chairman Parker then nominated Calkins to serve in 2023-24 as vice chairman, which, theoretically, would leave Calkins in line to serve as chair for 2024-25.
But he's been in that position before.
It was last year when Parker scrambled the order of things by nominating Wright to serve as chairman, bypassing Vice Chairman Calkins altogether. Wright then returned the favor by nominating Parker to be vice chairman, a move that left Calkins completely out of the leadership mix.
The irony of Parker's snub of Calkins was not lost on long-time Commissioner Bob Cole, who had just stepped away from the board after 20 years on the job when the mini-coup took place.
"Him not being elected chairman is kind of a slap in the face," Cole said at the time.
It was theorized at the time Calkins was passed over that a series of missteps in his first two years of office had led his fellow commissioners to reject him as a candidate for chairman. He has been no less controversial in 2023.
Calkins in May drew the ire of people of every political persuasion when he objected to a fellow commissioner's nomination of a woman for a Boating Advisory Committee based on the fact she was a registered Democrat. His comment that the Democratic Party is "the most evil party in the country" led 20 county residents to file complaints against him with the Florida Commission on Ethics.
In June Calkins' fellow commissioners chided him for "political grandstanding" when he attempted to coordinate a debate on the issue of pornography in schools, a topic outside of the County Commission's realm of authority.
And in August Calkins accused commissioners Wright, Parker and Kerry Smith of bid rigging. The three had decided to recalculate the commission's bid scoring system after Calkins succeeded in submarining the proposal of a candidate the rest of the board thought to be highly qualified.
Despite the continued controversy he has generated, Monday's decision to slot Calkins as vice chairman has again placed him in position to take the chairman's gavel in late 2024. But to do so must first win back his seat on the commission.
The backstory: Commissioner James Calkins passed over for Santa Rosa board chairmanship
Two opponents have signed on to run for the District 3 seat and Calkins has not yet pre-filed to run himself. Jerry Couey, a citizen activist from Milton, finished second to Calkins in the 2020 race for the same seat. Rhett Rowell is a political newcomer who works as a teacher and coach at Jay High School.
Both Couey and Rowell have done reasonably well raising money thus far in preparation for the upcoming political campaign. Couey has accumulated $16,950 and Rowell $28,261. Rowell has also snagged endorsements from former U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller and former Sheriff Wendell Hall.
But should Calkins enter the race, as he's expected to do, he has proven adept at raising political capital. His finance report from the 2020 race show total contributions of $174,594, though more than $80,000 of that came out of his own pocket.
Calkins also received significant donations from companies tied to Edwin Henry, who heads Henry Homes. Henry was recently identified as the money man behind a smear campaign launched in 2022 in an effort to thwart eventual winner Kerry Smith's election to the County Commission.
Parker, the newly crowned new commission chairman, will also face an election challenge in 2024 that he'll have to win to complete his term at the helm. Aaron Williams, who presently serves on the Santa Rosa County Zoning Board, has pre-filed to run against Parker, who, like Calkins has not yet pre-filed to run for office.
Also like Calkins, Parker has created his share of controversy this year. Most recently county residents reacted strongly when they learned that, at a poorly attended budget workshop, the commissioner had convinced fellow board members to go along with him in delaying a discussion on the levying of county impact fees until October of 2024.
Many county residents favor the imposition of impact fees as a way to have developers cover some of the costs of needed infrastructure, like roads, as they rush to build in one of the state's fastest growing counties.
Parker also ran afoul of the citizenry in March when he was caught on video making an anti-Semitic remark and, purportedly, shaking down a store owner for a break on the price of a purchase.
Should he choose to run, Parker has also proven proficient at putting money in his campaign war chest. He raised $114,000 in 2020 and, also like Calkins, received large sums from Edwin Henry run corporate entities and other building business interests.
Parker did make a comment at a recent commission meeting that he might not run again. He is presently serving his third term in office.
Neither Calkins nor Parker could be reached for comment for this story.
Outgoing Chairman Colten Wright will return to service as the District 5 commissioner. He is also facing re-election this year, though no one has at this point stepped up to challenge him.
He said Tuesday he does intend to run for a second term and will likely wait until after the holidays to make his candidacy official.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Sam Parker chosen over James Calkins as Santa Rosa Commission chairman
