Come Monday, to paraphrase the late, great Jimmy Buffett, it will be all right for would-be Milton city council persons to pick up election packets as a first step toward seeking local office.
And there will be no shortage of seats up for grabs as four members currently serving on the eight-person board will be compelled to seek election in order to serve another four years in office and a fifth seat will be contested to finish out the final two years of departed Councilman Jason Vance's term.
Councilman Matt Jarrett, the Ward 1, Seat 2 incumbent; Roxanne Meiss, the Ward 2, Seat 2 incumbent; Jeff Snow, the Ward 3, Seat 2 incumbent; incumbent Shari Sebastiao, who was appointed in December to fill the Ward 4, Seat I seat through this year's Nov. 5 election; and Councilman Casey Powell, the Ward 4, Seat 2 board representative, will all be required to run for office.
All five of the board members whose seats are at stake tend to vote in a bloc, and in most controversial matters brought before the City Council side with one another and against Mayor Heather Lindsay and council members Marylynn Farrow and Mike Cusack.
"We're trying to change five of the five seats," said Pam Mitchell, a Cooper's Basin resident and one of the leaders of Milton's Concerned Citizens, the city's only official organized political action committee and a Lindsay supporter.
Qualifying for all of the races opens at noon July 29 and runs through noon on Aug. 12.
If Sebastiao chooses to run, it will be to secure a two-year term and finish out the four-year stint of Jason Vance, who had beaten an incumbent Sebastiao in 2022, but resigned after serving less than a year in office.
Interestingly, Sebastiao was also an appointed incumbent when she lost to Vance. She had been appointed over four others in April of 2021 to replace Sharon Holley, who had abruptly resigned, citing "outside influences" she claimed had rendered the council ineffective.
It will remain to be seen whether incumbent Jarrett qualifies to seek another term. He has had a consistent history of absences from board meetings and has missed the last two regular City Council meetings.
Following his election in 2020, Jarrett was not personally present at 29 City Council meetings in 2021, which the Pensacola News Journal reported put him at an absentee rate of 75%. The News Journal reported in March of 2022 that Jarrett had already missed nine meetings in that calendar year.
Jarrett, who did not return phone calls either in 2022 or this week to answer questions about his absences, did in 2022 explain that a work opportunity was forcing him to be away from the area. He said he did follow the meetings by phone, even though that did not allow him to vote or contribute to creating a board quorum for whatever meeting he was missing.
Gulf Breeze election qualifying
The city of Gulf Breeze will also hold elections in November for three council seats and the seat presently occupied by Mayor Cherry Fitch. Qualifying opens at 8 a.m., Aug. 5 and runs through Aug. 16, according to the city's website.
Seats A and B, held respectively by incumbents JB Schluter and Tom Naile, will be up for grabs with a four-year term at stake. If board appointee Brittany Simpson chooses to run to keep her Seat C seat, she would secure a two-year term, through 2026, with a win.
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