Page 54 - April 2016 Life In Naples Magazine

POLITICS and
POTPOURRI
Tby Councilman Bill Barnett
his Life in Naples article will be in two parts.
The first part you will be reading now, in April
and the second part will be in May. At this time
I don’t know what my future in writing articles will be,
but the good news is you are guaranteed to read me in
May! The following is self explanatory so please enjoy!
As many of you know last September, I announced
that I would run against the current Mayor John
Sorey for his Mayor’s seat. I don’t have to give you my
credentials in this article or my background on why I
felt I was qualified because by the time you read this
article I will either be your Mayor or I will be retired
as our City Council and Mayor election took place
March 15th, and today is March 1st. The good news
is if I am elected to be your Mayor which I hope is
the case, I’ll still have a job writing for Life in Naples Collier County Republican Executive Committee that was going to interview
which I thoroughly enjoy even though I don’t get paid
a nickel for it but it’s totally fun for me and hopefully
for those of you that read my articles.
The following words are most likely going to be
the most candid account of this campaign and for that
matter any campaign I’ve ever been involved in and I
have been involved in six of them totaling 24 years. I
have nothing to hold back and I’m not going to.
Let’s start with my announcement to oppose John
on September 15th, 2015. I had initially stated that I
would run for my City Council seat, which I currently
have. I changed my mind over the summer of 2015,
and had a lot of support and encouragement to do so.
John was visibly upset that I announced to run for
Mayor. He told me I really needed to think seriously
about it (which I had) and that I would be a fool to give
up my council seat when it was almost guaranteed that
I could retain it if I wanted to. He had been collecting
money for his campaign since January of 2015 and had
amassed a small fortune when I made my announcement
to run. Eighty-nine thousand dollars to be exact, and
that was going to be a challenge for me, no doubt. Of
course he didn’t want any competition and had figured
out that money might very well scare the average person
enough so they wouldn’t consider running for his job.
John also pretty much guaranteed me that I couldn’t
win, but I’m stubborn and I knew I could win.
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I started fundraising and the money started coming
in. There aren’t many early campaign events during a
City election and normally our elections are the first
Tuesday in February but this being a presidential
primary year the powers that be made our election
coincide with the primary and therefore it will be March
15th. In December I was somewhat surprised when I
received word that our Collier County Republican
Executive Committee was going to endorse the
Mayoral and City Council candidates in this upcoming
election in December. My first question was who is this
group and why would any group in their right minds endorse a non-partisan race
and one that was comprised of all Republicans? Was it a contest to see who is a
better Republican pitting one against another, and what makes one better than
the next? Weird stuff ! The filing date for candidates to announce was January
15th. What if another candidate announced for Mayor or for Council and they
had already endorsed? Then I found out it was the nominating committee of the
me and pass their recommendations on to the Executive committee. I have been
a Republican since I was old enough to vote, and that’s a whole lot of years!
In my long-term political career I had never had any contact with this group
and when I asked one of their members why are they doing this his answer was
because they could. There are over ninety thousand registered Republicans in
Collier County and this group has a total membership of about 153 members.
I’m thinking to myself, are they City residents and if the majority of them aren’t
then why are they endorsing candidates in the City of Naples? I found out the
majority of them are County residents, but I’m a good sport and didn’t want
to not show up for the interview. So on December 12th, I showed up at my
appointed time to be questioned. There were about 12 members seated at a big
table, some of them I knew, most of them I didn’t. The interview was slated for an
hour and I had submitted a bio and answered a questionnaire prior to attending.
After a brief opening statement by me they proceeded to question me about
my Republican background, who were my favorite Republicans and why and a
myriad of questions that had absolutely no bearing on City politics. One question
in particular really set me off but I kept a pleasant look on my face and answered
it candidly. Her question went like this: “Mr. Barnett, after looking through our
records we see you have never been involved in any of our party events, is this
true?” My response was brief but strong and I simply told her that for forty plus
years in Naples I raised my family, supported them, and had a political career.
During all of that I also explained and named some of the charities that I had
been involved with in our community. Anyway I finished the interview, thanked
them, and left. I knew that John Sorey was involved with them and I figured
because of that they would recommend him to their main board and I understood
Life in Naples | April 2016