Venice council candidate claims influential developer twice asked him to drop out of race

VENICE – Ron Smith, one of two candidates in the race for Seat 5 on the Venice City Council, claims that developer Pat Neal asked him to drop out of the race, so his opponent, Rick Howard, would be unopposed.

“One of the largest developers in the area, Pat Neal, approached me and asked me to leave the race,” Smith, a 20th judicial circuit prosecutor who was once a Herald-Tribune city editor, said in a Sept. 6 phone interview. “He told me he’s putting all this money behind my opponent; he suggested he could get me a seat on the county Planning Commission if I stepped down and let his candidate win uncontested.”

Related: Venice voters to decide on race for mayor and one council seat

Earlier: Flynn explains interest in Sarasota politics

When contacted that night about Smith’s assertion, Neal, a one-time state senator and president of Neal Communities, replied, “No comment,” and repeated that statement five more times.

Neal, as Smith readily acknowledged, broke no laws by urging him to drop out of the race or by suggesting that he could get him on the Sarasota County Planning Commission, because that’s not within his power, since that board's members are appointed by the Sarasota County Commission.

Asked if Neal had ever attempted to have someone placed on the county planning board, County Commission Vice Chairman Ron Cutsinger replied, “Never.”

“Pat has never said anything to me about the Planning Commission,” he added.

Smith said Neal also boasted about candidates he backed being 38-3 in election contests and said he would throw all his money behind Smith's opponent, Howard.

Neal, a former state senator, has been influential in GOP politics and a leading fundraiser for Republican campaigns for years. He served on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ post-election transition team and contributed $125,000 to his political committee early on.

Once a crowded field

Republican Tanya Parus was the first candidate to declare a bid for Seat 5 on the nonpartisan City Council.

Howard, also a Republican, filed to run for the seat Aug. 12.

Smith, a Democrat, had originally filed to run for the one-year remaining on the term for Seat 2 but switched to run for Seat 5 on Aug. 17 – briefly making that contest a three-way race with two Republicans and a Democrat.

Parus withdrew from the race on Aug. 18, citing personal reasons.

Parus, who is also president of Sarasota County Moms for America, said Neal contacted her after she filed for Seat 5, but just to find out about her. She linked Neal to Jack Brill, acting chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota County.

Parus said she and Brill first crossed paths when someone suggested he would be a good person to invite to the June 5 Moms for America meeting because the group was planning to use the same Campaign Sidekick canvassing app that the local GOP uses to boost turnout.

When Brill learned she was going to run for the Venice City Council, he urged her to send him her resume.

Brill said his last conversation with Parus was “months ago when she said she was going to run and I said 'Great, I’ve got some people around Venice I’d like you to meet,' and the next thing I know she ran and that was the last conversation I had with her.

“I will say she is part of the whole group that wants to take me out, with Michael Flynn,” Brill added, referencing Flynn’s interest in having someone replace him as the leader of the Sarasota GOP.

Parus said she contracted COVID-19 around the time she filed her paperwork and was still recovering shortly afterward. She said Neal gave her books on the U.S. Constitution and also sent her emails regarding his proposal to put a commercial center in the Milano Planned Unit Development.

Eventually, she said, Neal changed tack and she noted that Howard was in the race.

A common household name

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Howard said he had not heard of Neal’s exchange with Smith until a reporter left a voicemail query on his cell phone.

“I didn't know Pat Neal until he introduced himself at a City Council meeting,” Howard said.

Later, Howard said, he researched Neal and realized, “he's a pretty common household name.”

“Maybe it’s naive of me but I had never heard of the guy,” he added.

Howard indicated he was miffed by Smith’s revelation and wondered why Smith would say such things about him.

He noted that Neal has not contributed to his campaign.

Asked if he would accept a check by Neal, he said, “No, I wouldn't – I wouldn't accept it from any developer.”

He noted that everyone he’s talked with on the campaign has brought up building heights and growth as major concerns.

“I think it would be silly,” Howard said. “Why would I embrace any type of contribution from a developer? I don’t see where that makes a lot of sense.”

That would also put Howard in the same category as the two Republican candidates running for Mayor – incumbent Seat 5 Council Member Nick Pachota and Frankie Abbruzzino.

Abbruzzino, the owner of a medical billing business and operator of the Suncoast News and Scoop site which provides both original and aggregated local news, is skeptical of the way development has unfolded in Venice.

Pachota did not accept money or choice opportunities to place campaign signs on visible properties during his 2019 campaign and said he has no intention of accepting donations from developers this year.

“I think that’s a conflict of interest, in the sense that these guys are going to be bringing multi-million dollar developments in front of us,” Pachota said. “We’re not talking a significant amount of money because the most we can take in is $1,000 but regardless of that, I don’t think the optics are very good.”

Another call, another race

Smith said Neal called him again, the day before the Aug. 26 filing deadline for running for the City Council, urging him to switch races to make Howard unopposed and instead run for mayor, potentially creating a three-person race for the seat.

Incumbent Mayor Ron Feinsod won the seat in 2019 in a three-way race that included Abbruzzino and fellow Republican Bob Daniels, who was coming off of three consecutive terms as a council member.

Abbruzzino filed to run for mayor on Wednesday, Aug. 24, two days before the qualifying deadline.

Abbruzzino filed for mayor partly because of philosophical differences with Pachota over the new land development codes, and because he said he feels no one should win the mayor’s seat unopposed.

But that three-way race would have never materialized.

Abbruzzino has also made it known to many people that if a Democrat stepped in to challenge Pachota, he would drop out of the race.

Abbruzzino wrote about Neal’s reported attempt to get Smith to switch to the mayor race on his web page.

Feinsod, who opted against seeking a second term so he can concentrate on his role as a civic activist, wasn’t surprised that Neal would ask Smith to drop out of the race, after he says he received that same counsel in 2019.

“After I had declared for mayor, Pat Neal asked to sit down with me and we went out to lunch – I was wise enough to bring a witness with me – and towards the end of our lunch, Pat Neal suggested I should not run for mayor, that I should run for a different council seat or perhaps not run at all,” Feinsod said. “I told Pat I had no intention of dropping out of the race or changing the position I was running for, so I wasn’t really shocked when Ron Smith told me that Pat Neal had done basically the same thing to him.”

After Feinsod refused to drop out, he became the subject of attack mailers paid for by the Tallahassee-based Sunshine State Freedom Fund political action committee.

“The majority, if not all of the direct mailers and direct attacks on me came out of Tallahassee, out of PAC money,” Feinsod said.

The PAC, chaired by William S. Jones, also sent mailers in support of Republican candidates.

Jones and Neal have both been linked to PACs that send mailers in opposition of slow growth advocates who are candidates.

In 2019 both Pachota and Joe Neunder – now a candidate for the District 4 seat on the Sarasota County Commission – wrote Jones letters asking that the PAC stay out of the council race. The mailers didn’t stop.

Howard, after hearing an explanation of how PAC mailers have impacted recent City Council races, admitted to being overwhelmed by the process.

“This is a bit new, when you start talking about PACs in Tallahassee, it’s foreign to me,” said Howard, who like Smith, is in his first political campaign. “I don’t control that any more than I can control what my opponent chooses to say about me.”

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Venice candidate alleges developer asked him to drop out of race