Moore family eyes commission seat
Alan Moore says commission needs member of business community
MELISSA REID
Staff Writer
mreid@lbknews.com
Moore
The March 2011 Longboat election is already beginning to take shape. This week Alan Moore, co-owner of Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant in the Village, took out papers to run for Town Commission.
To date, there are four residents who have taken out papers to qualify for candidacy, and two of them are current commissioners.
In addition to Moore, former Mayor Joan Webster and Commissioners Phillip Younger and James Brown have also taken out papers to run for commission. Younger and Brown are the only two who have begun the second step of the application process, which is obtaining 10 signatures for their petition to become a candidate. The first step is taking and filling out the paperwork, the second is obtaining signatures and the third step is Town Hall filing the paperwork with the respective county.
Three seats are up for the March 2011 election—the District 2 seat, the District 4 seat and the At-Large seat. The District 2 seat is held by Mayor George Spoll, who will be term limited out of his seat by March. No one has yet taken out papers for the District 2 seat. The District 4 seat is held by Commissioner Brown, who is serving his first of three possible terms.
“It was never really my intent to be a commissioner. It was a strain my first year, but over the last year, the commission has become easier to work with and I feel we are accomplishing things. My motivation is to see if I can help the town. I am there trying to do a good job, and if not, I hope they vote me out. There was a lot of dissention in the past, and there still is a lot of disagreement, but now I feel we are voting on the issues rather than on personalities,” said Brown.
Also eligible to serve District 4 is Webster, who has served on the commission in the past; Webster is also eligible to fill the At-Large seat. Webster was on vacation in Michigan at press time and could not be reached for comment regarding her decision to run for the March election.
The At-Large seat is held by Commissioner Younger, who was appointed to fill the seat when former Commissioner Gene Jaleski resigned in the spring. Younger will be eligible to run for the At-Large seat.
Younger, who lost to Commissioner Hal Lenobel in the last election, hopes to keep the seat to which he was appointed. He said the reason he is running was reported when he ran for office earlier in 2010 and he has no further comment.
Moore, who lives in District 5, would only be eligible to run for the At-Large seat since the District 5 seat, currently held by Commissioner Robert Siekmann, will not be up for election until 2012.
Moore said his interest in running for the next election stems from being in business on Longboat Key.
“I think it’s time for someone to sit on the commission who is actually a business owner on the Key and dealing with the day-to-day running of a business as well as the interests of the community. I cannot remember how long since we had a businessperson sitting on the commission. The decision to run is a family decision, and we all agree it’s high time.”
Moore has worked at the restaurant for 44 years; his father and his uncle built the restaurant back in 1966.
Commissioners are allowed to serve three consecutive two-year terms. After that, the commissioner cannot serve again until they have been off the commission for at least one full term.
