Fredd Atkins is a 3 time Sarasota mayor who has served on the City Commission for 18 of the last 32 years. Coming off a recent defeat for County Commission, Atkins aims to re-establish himself in city politics. His experience along with strong community support make him a serious contender for City Commission.
Candidate for Sarasota City Commission
Scroll down for a transcript of this interview.
Coming soon.
R – What’s up Facebook we are back with their sixth installment of the meet the candidates series if you haven’t seen it on the website we’ve got a section where we’re going to start showing you everything that’s going on with the different candidates and what’s going on with the city commission so I got a quick intro, then we’ll just jump right into it so what do the first 15 minutes live on Facebook just like we’ve been doing and then the rest of the interviews will be on our website feel free to share your thoughts in the comments and be sure to grab your ticket for the town hall event in February which we have coming up so our guest today is a three-time mayor of Sarasota who served on the Sarasota City commission for 18 of the last 32 years he got to his start in politics back when Sarasota was desegregating schools and has maintained his involvement as an activist for minority interests here in Sarasota for most of his adult life with no further redo please help me and welcoming Freddy glossy Atkins to the Sarasota underground Studio welcome, how are you?
C – Thank you I’m glad to be here, I’m better and better.
R – Yeah so I was just we – we’re just talking and I and I wanted to know I keep seeing a glossy in the in the end in parentheses in your name where did word that nickname come from?
C – That’s my mother’s name and my grandmother’s name, one is Glossy Nettie which is my mother, and my grandmother is Nettie Glossy, so in eighth grade I had been living with Nettie Glossy for the Previous 3 years in Marion county out in the country and I came back to Sarasota and there was an eighth grade game going on where you call the girls by the father’s first name and the guys by their mother’s first thing so it took so long for him to find out what my mother’s first name was because I haven’t gone for a while the game was over with my name stuck because it was so unusual.
R – I’ve been asking the candidates why they got into this and then I do want to ask you that but I’d like to ask you a little more specifically because you’ve been involved in city and in local politics for a long time so you just coming off of a unsuccessful bid for County Commission trying to reestablish in the city commission – why to the county and then why do the city like why does it seem like you’re trying to jump back into politics here after 4 years off?
C – It’s a natural progression for myself, I just – I wanted to be a county commissioner I thought that that was a possible venture to take advantage of, to help explore and use my experience an knowledge to help Sarasota county total, but as things moved forward, after I lose the county race I was approached by several of the same people and others saying hey Fred man, we’re not glad you lost, but we need you in the city more, and – and that’s my base, that’s where I’ve been and I was excited about the opportunity because I think there’s a lot of things going on in the city of Sarasota that I have the experience in that can help facilitate decision making and moving the city forward.
R – Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about those things from your perspective, what is the one biggest issue that we face as a community, as a whole what’s the one thing we’re dealing with that you think is the biggest issue?
C – I think the biggest issue is more of a perception than a reality is that the cities and the county don’t get along very well, there are one or two issues that stickling points that have been created by the rippling effect of one primary issue which is sharing of the CRA money which is from the city to the county and back to the city, so that problem is real and so it is created other little fires around that but it’s about the four million dollars that the city believed the county owed them.
R – So how do we fix that perception problem or how do we because that’s one of the questions we’ve asked the other candidates is how do you open those lines of communication so that we can get past some of those perception problems because a lot of times perception is the only thing that matters right?
C – Oh it’s the reality, and no one in certain terms, but what am I doing because I have the experience and the knowledge and I said the city commission and CRA was developed and approved by the Sarasota county commission and the state of Florida that we have to look at the reality of the situation, and we don’t have to go into court to define what is on the document, and those documents speak for themselves, we don’t need lawyers to explain them for five hundred dollars an hour.
R – So let’s get back to the specifics of the what do you think from the perception standpoint right obviously if we can avoid legal fees and if we can do things that that help open up a how do you do that from the city Commission?
C – You do that from the city commission by getting an understanding and commitment from the commissioners, hey we are here as representatives of the people of Sarasota city, so we need to work this out, whatever counties bases for deciding that the document or the contract is not true, counting to 29, versus counting to 30 we’re going to have to have an understanding that we direct the city manager and the county – city attorney to basically understand that this is where we are, we are not here for a fight, we are not about a struggle, we’re about resolving this issue so we can move on because there are other extenuating circumstances tied into it, the north county CRA that’s tied to it, the city wants the county to reset the time on the CRA for north county so that it can come back from being under the basing the economic crash that we went through so that they can start building from there, so they can gain possibility of earning tax increment finances so they can redevelop some in the north county.
R – You’ve lived in Sarasota for a while right what’s been the biggest change in Sarasota from your perspective in the last 10-20 years?
C – Other than the population I think the greatest change has been the need to continue to facilitate the possibilities of development for families and young people in Sarasota City we had an outstanding Community growth spurt – so I think that has been working hard to try to retain some of the young families in Sarasota County we made some efforts to create opportunities for employment and family growth in Sarasota that’s been one of the greatest struggles and it continues to be one of the greatest struggles, but Sarasota as a vibrant community has continued to grow and prosper.
R – Yeah. What – you mentioned something about efforts to retain youth in the area is that something you think Sarasota has done a good job of in the past?
C – I don’t think we’ve done a very good job but you know I’m a father of 4 the daddy of 6 and 5 of my 6 children are still here in the Sarasota County area and it’s because they have decided to develop possibilities for themselves when they came back from College of when they graduated from high school to stay here in Sarasota and so you know I stayed here in Sarasota, I was one of seven children all of them left but I saw an opportunity and a possibility to enjoy and appreciate this part of my life in a way that it would grow and develop me and I’ve been amazingly gifted and blessed with this possibility.
R – So how do we open that opportunity up for other – how do we change that mentality so that more young people take that mindset as opposed to I’m out here?
C – I keep telling people that you know Sarasota has unlimited opportunities and possibilities my mother that was riding around this morning and she was just appreciating in admiring the city of Sarasota where it’s come from she said hey that wasn’t there, I said no that wasn’t there when I got elected in 85, but those are the opportunities that present themselves in Sarasota and presenting that to young people to take a look at – you know everybody doesn’t want to live on South Beach, everybody doesn’t want to live in Central Avenue in Atlanta peach tree or even in Tampa, there are people and persons that the mentality that fits this community in a way that has unlimited possibilities and opportunities because everything that you want and need is here, you’ve just got to be willing to participate in the process.
R – I agree with that 100% that’s part of what this is all about is getting people involved and stepping up their participation so let’s talk a little specifics about that participation because you know that the youth are not involved but more important than the youth and I think probably in your campaign effort is the black vote doesn’t turn out right so we have in Sarasota we had this this issue of what seems like problems should be solved problems that you probably seen thought we saw 50, 60 years ago in Sarasota seem amplified we had an interview with Susan Chapman and some of the terminology she used in reference to that neighborhood and those people you know it was very surprising to me still and this is a big issue we face, how do we get the whole Sarasota City to understand that this issue is about them this isn’t about core downtown condo owners this isn’t about the multimillionaires, this is about north trail, this is about the students, this is about Newtown, midtown this is about the downtown core, this is all of it, north siesta key, all of it, how do we bring that together?
C – A part of what’s happened is my candidacy because I’ve always been willing to present myself as a representative of the total city of Sarasota and so I have been a person that the community is known as an advocate for the complete city of Sarasota and that’s what my candidacy brings, I have never had a problem in turn out in the African-American precinct’s When I’m a candidate in the city of Sarasota because they know that I represent them in a way that nobody else will but also when I have run and broader base races I’ve always carried the city of Sarasota because it’s a way that I’ve always worked in showing that I’m a willing participant in the growth and development in the prosperity of Sarasota City and the county and the region.
R – Let’s see if you had a magic wand right and one thing you get the just flick the wand and instantly it’s fixed and Sarasota what is that?
C – What I would hope to happen in Sarasota is that the equity in the salaries that are paid to individuals will be compatible with the cost that we have to average out to represent as the per kappa income or the household income for citizens of Sarasota, because we know we have got to pay for the economy that far exceeds the salary per hourly wages that we get so a livable wage is the bottom line is what would create a more level playing field for all participants for all Sarasota County.
R – How do we create that because that seems like a bigger issue than we might be able to tackle we’re getting right up on them 15 minute mark for our Facebook feed so we’ll end on that on this answer here how do you fix that from the city commission how do you work towards an increase in pay for those jobs here in Sarasota how do you increase of an economic stability from the city commission?
C – Well one of the ways we’ve done it at City Commission Now 10 years ago I as the city commission led the charge to basic – have the employees of the city of Sarasota make a livable wage that livable wage at the time was $13 per hour and we’ve also as we recruited and encourage corporations to come and Sarasota we’ve also encouraged them to pay Equitable Rates compatible with this community and the cost of living here because that is the biggest struggle the cost of living here far exceeds income, you know at one point where was an economist that evaluated us and said hey we basically got a third world economy right here, we got the person that really has the money, and then we have the person that don’t get paid to take care of them.
R – And I wish we got into that this – we’re going to dive deeper into that then that’s why you guys need to come check us out at Sarasota Underground dot com because we’re going to dive deeper into some of these topics we’re going to jump off Facebook here thanks for watching make sure you grab your tickets the town hall event coming up February 15th where can people go to find out a little bit more information about you if you’re interested?
C – They can go to my website; they can call me at 941-228-2389.
R – That’s it right there, city commission candidate, Freddy Atkins, dropping his cell phone for you guys to holler back live with the rest of this, see you guys.
R – Okay so I want to unpack a little bit about what we were just talking about their I want to dive a little deeper into some of the nuances of turn out and involvement and City because it is a disconnected City Sarasota is no doubt without a doubt it’s a disconnected City we have the special interest in the neighborhood association and you’ve got all the different artist Community here you got the business Community there you know it seems like there’s such a split around town we talked a little bit about how do we unify those but how do you really get people to set aside their individual interest because when it comes the city politics and when it comes to decision on it on a local basis like this it does come down to that this is my neighborhood this is my backyard right?
C – Clearly, and everyone understands and expects that what you have to have is a true trust of the persons that you have elected to participate in this process to make the best decisions for the interest of all the citizens of Sarasota I have shown that ability and will to do that with all of those entities that you’ve enumerated because you know, I was a city commissioner for district one when it was barely surviving and we had to make decisions on how w make downtown prosper so we would have a heartbeat for the city of Sarasota so the communities and neighborhoods surrounding it would become more viable, and we were able to do that, as a matter of fact we’ve done it so well that people are saying hey; stop, stop, stop, but the reality is that it was in 1985 when I came to the city commission there was nothing going on downtown, you know, we’re still looking at the orange blossom hotel as one of the tallest buildings downtown and so here we are thirty years later saying hey we’ve done to well, and that’s a good thing but now we’ve got to be versatile enough to accept the fact that they’ve just missed the community has to make is important and I’m one of those people to have that perspective from the seventies all the way to now to take that responsibility and be willing to help maneuver and massage this community into a more cooperative community that I’ve always been able to work with we never had those problems, when I was on the city commission we had homeless, but we weren’t beating them and running them out of town, we were basically nurturing and developing programs and encouraging the salvation army to participate, was feeding downtown, we had feeding ministries and all kinds of organizations that was helping us manage that process, but now you know, we got a few more people downtown that consider themselves a little more special than homeless people and so they want to get them out of site, and that’s practically impossible because they are human too.
R – So how do you address that then because we’re coming up on an issue that’s been a hot topic for a while in Sarasota and we have a larger than average – anywhere between three and six times the national average of homeless residents for a city of our size so how do you approach that from city commission.
C – Well you know in a real sense with my wand I can change the weather, and so one of the things to happen in the city of Sarasota is that we have been able to develop programs and social entities that have been state of the art you know we have been studied by communities all over the country because we have been able to manage our homeless population better than most but now we’re in a situation where they have outgrown our services, we’ve got to decide with the cooperation of the county which approach is going to be most appropriate and I think that the city has a great idea and the county has a great idea, and the homeless population need to be address in a holistic process so that we can attain to all of their needs and then we won’t have the struggle of you know one neighborhood or one section of the community attacking them, because that’s what happens it’s when they are moved or massaged in a way that they impact a certain street or area more than the other, then that group raises up, but when everybody understands that we’re working on it in a total way to help address the concerns and needs of the veterans, mentally ill people, lower income people, people that have just been put out of their homes and there just trying to find a way to survive until the can get a job and somewhere to stay, we need to be empathetic enough to know that these people are in need and these people that are chronically homeless, you know, the reality is that there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do to them or for them.
R – Yeah and these are real problems, real issues –
C – But we sat here and we praise the president to put all the mentally ill people out on the streets, we praise the United States for our veterans but instead they don’t maintain and take care of them after they bring them home with all kinds of mental issues and so we got a concern that’s rippling into the communities and where it hits the road is in the cities and the downtown cores because that’s where the people are, so that’s where people come to panhandle, and live and so that’s the reality of the situation, so we need to address the mental health issues, the veterans’ health issues, and the veterans home and housing issues, because those are the main problems.
R – Interesting. Let’s shift gears a little bit let’s talk about part of our demographic in the reason we’re doing this is to take the information that typically doesn’t get out to a younger demographic in Sarasota and try to disseminate in a way that makes sense for us and part of the concern that we constantly here is this lack of affordable housing and lack of affordable housing affects all of us not necessarily just young people because it’s a problem for everyone right and so how do we address some of that because if you’re coming from LA you’re coming from New York you’re coming from you know anywhere, if you’re coming from Chicago, any of these cities, it’s cheap to live here, so you could buy penthouse for what you might get a little studio in New York for right? And so it’s all relative to a certain extent but to the people who live here and power the city who make the city run if you will for everyone who enjoys everything Sarasota has to offer it’s often difficult to live it creates a lot of the traffic problems that we have because people can’t live close to the places they work how do we address that?
C – First we’ve got to figure out a way that we can invite entice developers that truly focus on affordable housing to participate in our community you know Harvey Vangraph has been an amazing blessing to this region in his ability and willingness to build not only affordable housing but affordable rental units so the persons can live in there but now what hasn’t happened is that we also got address the income of this community because capitalism seeks his own level and whatever they can get that’s what they will charge for the rentals and housing costs and so that’s our problem. So what we need to do is find developers that are willing to participate at a level to address the needs of the Working Class People of Sarasota City County and also to address the needs of affordable single-family and condo townhouse alike housing for person that want to build it and buy a home.
R – So it could be argued that some of that was attempted in the Rosemary area and what we’re seeing now is a lots of units that were approved to someone combat this affordable housing issue but what we’re also seeing is a lot of units that are in the 14 $1,500 $1,800 price range for a little one bedroom and so they didn’t fulfill that obligation to affordability and any of those developments and it seems like there’s not really any repercussions for that so how do you then enforce some of those things because it’s all good and well to say we’re going to do X but then if it doesn’t come to fruition how do you enforce that, how do you hold those developers accountable?
C – The developers are held accountable at the commission table, those projects are with stipulations must be adhered to, what happened in those areas in Rosemary is the bottom fell out from the economy in 2008 and all of the persons that owned those lands then had committed to programs of addressing affordability they dispersed, and then what happened was the new person that bought that – because of the cry of need to do something, the city basically relinquishes authority to marshal – control the prices of those apartments and took away the stipulation that they had forced on the other owners, therefore we got stuck with a bunch people that had to – complained you know, hey we can’t build anything if you give us nothing, and so guess what the city relinquishes authority as a planning board they gave everything to administration to expedite projects and now they’ve created another problem because city management and their deputies don’t sit and represent the commission in the way that – we’re responsible to the people of the community they basically say we did what you all told us to do and that’s justified commissioners in there.
R – So then how to – because that takes me into another question, how do you stop the city or how do you step away from what seems to be this reactionary environment where it almost seems like there’s not a lot of foresight or planning into what’s going on its almost like let’s just deal with the punches as they come where we’re just bobbing and weaving and every once in a while we got caught with a little something because we’re not paying attention, so how do we step into a process where instead of playing defense, we’re strategically setting up the field for wins?
C – The amazing part about that statement you just made is that the answer is that we just have a little thing that happened, we had a major economic crises that dropped in the middle of our country and it blew all the games out of the water and we had to start anew, and Sarasota because it’s a special place to be, we’re attracted to developers first before a lot of communities were recovering, so they came here with money saying hey we can do this for you if you allow us to be eponymous and disrespectful of your other historical decisions that you made and that’s what happened now what happens now is the city commission which we did have a plan, we’ve always had a strategic plan for the city of Sarasota but what ends up happened is that when you decide to change your process you basically redefine your future and that’s what happened and because of the financial downfall that happened in this country we all had to re-do –
R – But I think that – I can’t let go of that because of that because it seems to me that if we had strong structure, then the financial crises would’ve impacted but at least there would’ve been a strategic vision to get through, so I think that it compounded the financial collapse might’ve compounded the lack of planning, because if you don’t have a strong plan and then also shit hits the fan then everything comes down with it versus having some kind of structure and some kind of vision and some kind of larger move, and this isn’t a personal critique or individual critique of anywhere here but it seems like Sarasota could stand to have a more encompassing vision, a larger plan for the next 20, 30, 50 years could look like.
C – You know something, we all go through those processes, we all had a 2020 plan a 2040 plan a 2050 plan, I still would help you to understand that what happened in our economic crash changed the game, that was not a little maneuver that would be able to just move along, look at our country, look what we went through, we’re still recovering from that, so to sit here and say that Sarasota was above that –
R – And I don’t mean to say that the financial crisis was that, that’s not what I’m implying, right? I guess I’m just trying to figure out moving forward, let me rephrase the question this way, what would another term of Fred Atkins in city commission look like that would differentiate from the past, that would give people a sense of some kind of stability, what would you do to bring that to a head.
C – Probably the best thing I could explain to you is what I’ve done. I said on the city commission when we had places in the greater new town area called Augustine quarters, we had places in the rosemary district which has been over town that was slum and blitzed areas, I helped to bring a non for profit to build homes along orange avenue within the rosemary district the Augustine quarters was replaced by a new set of homes and when we say quarters we’re talking about Haitian looking quarters like flat tops with wires exposed and mud floors in some of them and nowhere to park your cars so we were able to eradicate those slum and blithe areas because of the persistence of myself, because we were able to build the Janie’s Garden because there were people that were part of the old Janie Po project that thought that they were culturally aligned with those apartments no matter how they looked, no matter how they functioned and one of the things that I drove through the city commission was getting rid of the old Janie Po public housing and putting together a plan for Janie’s Garden which is not in its third phase and also there are five other phases left for public housing city of Sarasota, Orange Avenue has a plan with cooperation with city and county, to move those out and change those because they’re sixty or seventy years old, our affordable housing plans in Sarasota and in the city of Sarasota, and we also always try to district three, and district two never wanted anything affordable over there but, they don’t need it but in district three there are opportunities for developments to build apartments, low income housing, based on the livable wage, but the struggle is the person that are living there they can’t afford to move out because they don’t have many options. I have seniors that come to me looking for downsizing but they can’t afford to downsize because shoot they own there flat right now and if they try and move into an apartment, or try to buy a townhouse or condo, they just you know over their heads, so here we are, we have to continue working out plans and sticking to them to move this country and this city forward in affordability.
R – I want to go back to something that you said in one of your statements entering the previous question about Sarasota being disrespectful to certain historic decisions, tell me about that, what do you mean by that>
C – At the city of Sarasota we’ve made some decisions that said hey we’re going to adhere to this process or this plan, when we looked up things changed, pressures from outside of our community created some of the changes, the economic downturn created some of the changes but in the whole totality of the process we’ve lost our vision for the city of Sarasota and now we need to rekindle and remember where we were and what we would like to be because we had a motto being a progressive city, but a quiet community that will help to enhance the future but not give up our presence and that’s where we are.
R – So then tell me as we get close to wrapping up here, your vision for Sarasota ten years from now.
C – My vision for Sarasota ten years from now – I really believe that we have some tremendous opportunities to use along north trail are to do some amazing projects I believe that the communities adjacent to tamiami trail has decided that those hotels, some of them need to go, we’re going to have to yield to make that happen because what has happened along the trail is the communities along trail have busted is just refused to compromise in any way to make anything progressive happen so now they’re getting so sick and tired of slum and blight and the other amenities that happens along the north trail they’re willing to participate in a bigger discussion about how we make this work better because it’s not working well enough, we have a tremendous site, that’s thirteen acres at the city zone it used to be brown field now the dirt is clean, they put out a request for participation of how to develop that land it is – it’ll be out in the next thirty days I think with that it can create jobs and opportunity to redevelop that section in a way and I think the city of Sarasota is going to – and park east the Harvey Vangraph site that’s going to do some amazing things on that size by encouraging and participating on that site and making sure we don’t run him away again, I’ve worked with Harvey in the past and helped him do some affordable housing in the past and I think those things are going to happen and in the process in the next ten years we’re going to identify our nich, our place in the sun where we can encourage this new growth in industry capitalization so that we can define where we are in that process so in ten years we should be able to do that and we’ll have our own identifiable silicone neighborhood.
R – That’s right, silicon beach. There are all sorts of names. I want to ask you just a couple questions as we finish up, where’s the majority of your support coming from how does your road to the city commission if you will line up, right? Who supports you?
C – The majority of my support comes from the broad based community of the city of Sarasota, primarily the democratic party, I think that I have a relationship with them that’s forty almost fifty years old and I think that they are the persons that have been the most encouraging and I think they’ve been the persons that’s been the highest contributors, you know you got to put –
R – Your facing some serious fundraising going on for this election right?
C – The amazing part about this – fundraising has never been my problem, I start with a head start, because people usually vote for who they know, so I got a hundred thousand dollar head start on anybody coming into this campaign, because I live here, I work here, I’ve been who they want, and so that’s what I want to be and so I’ll continue to work that way. And so that’s basically my primary base plus I have some nice people at new college and USF and Ringling school of arts that have definitely embraced me in the last few years, and I’ve caught on with the new population in Sarasota county because I have some young people in Sarasota county –
R – So what you’re saying is we’re going to see new college and Ringling and everybody we’re going to see a big turnout this year.
C –They should be without a doubt!
R – Is there anything that you would like to say that we have not asked? Is there anything you would like to share or a campaign thing like man I wish I could’ve said this but I didn’t the floor is yours?
C – You know something, I’m Fred Atkins, and I’m going to be me the rest of my life. My 99 year old mother keeps telling me saying hey boy I don’t know how you got to be who you are but you alright with me, and that’s the most important thing to me and so I’ve always told people in Sarasota City from the beginning, I am what you get when you vote for me, and I always ask people to vote for who you know, I am who you know and I know what I will do.
R – That’s all you need to know apparently, you got her – she’s in – she’s ready over here, she’s anxious. Two final questions, what’s one piece of information or a question you’d like me to ask the other candidates, is there anything that you would like to take them to task on or something that you would like to know from them?
C – I really don’t, I – you know – I don’t have any question that I would like to ask them, in a real sense I’ve met most of them I’ve seen a couple of them perform and I think that we’re going to have an interesting process that we’re going to go through and I hope the second best person be good.
R – One final question, do you have any questions for us? For our audience, for the people watching this, do you have anything you’d like to ask us?
C – In a real sense I’m intrigued with this process and I definitely encouraging you all to continue to do all the good that you can for everyone that you can as long as you can and just thank you for being here, we thank you for your thrust and I wish you the most.
R – Well I thank you, I thank you for coming into the studio, this has been a lot of fun getting to know all the different candidates, you know we’re injecting ourselves into something that’s a little bit bigger than what we thought we’d be jumping into at this point, but we think it’s important, we think it’s something that people need to get involved in and it’s good to have more information in this instance is almost always good. Thank you so much.
