CLEARWATER, Fla. — David Allbritton worked as a building contractor in Clearwater for his entire professional career before retiring five years ago.

In his initial run for city council in 2018, one of his central planks was to streamline the permitting process, which he said was far too cumbersome for businesses and regular citizens. Four years later, he’s doubling down on the idea that the building deptartment needs a significant upgrade.

“They go down to the building department – a lot of them walk away and say, '’I'm going to Largo,'” Allbritton says about companies who want to start up a business in Clearwater. “We lost them to other municipalities just because it’s so hard to get through that building department."

Allbritton says that as a professional contractor, he was savvy about how the permitting system worked in Clearwater. But he says in many cases, it can be a nightmare for the average person to try to navigate the system without an attorney.

“They did not roll out the red carpet for people,” he says. “I just want to streamline it.”

The 71-year-old Clearwater native is being challenged in his bid for reelection this winter by activist Maranda Douglas and retired technology manager Gerry Lee in the March 15 election for Seat 4 on the City Council.

Among the charges made by the challengers running for city council this year is that city hall is unresponsive to the views of the citizenry when it comes to issues with development. Allbritton disagrees with that take, saying the only problems that occur is when a commercial project abuts a residential area.

“We do listen,” he says. “We just don’t always agree with what the neighborhoods bring to us.”

He also says that it’s easier for citizens to make such assertions when they’re on the outside looking in. “The candidates that are running have not sat in the council’s seat before,” he says. “They will. They’ll understand that...what’s fair has to be fair to everyone.”

Among the projects that Allbritton is proud of overseeing during his four-year term in office is the renovation of Crest Lake Park, a $5.7 million project that was paid for through the city’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement money. 

He says that the $84 million Imagine Clearwater project scheduled to be completed in 2023 will be a “game changer” for the city and the region.

When it comes to downtown Clearwater, Allbritton labels it “unfortunate” that companies linked to the Church of Scientology have purchased dozens of properties in recent years without any concrete plans to do anything with them. He’s encouraged by recent discussions that have been reported between Mayor Frank Hibbard, City Manager Jon Jennings, and Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige.

“That’s absolutely necessary,” he says. “We gotta figure out what plans he has,” he says of Miscavige.

As always, the race for city leaders in Clearwater is taking place in March, not the time of year when many voters are focused on elections. The winner in both contests simply needs a plurality of votes to win, not a majority, as is the case in local elections in St. Petersburg and Tampa.  The idea of changing that formula was briefly introduced last year by Councilman Hoyt Hamilton, before the discussion then pivoted to embracing ranked choice voting, the preference of Mayor Hibbard.

The council opted against pursuing ranked choice voting last fall, acknowledging that they’d need the state to buy in on the concept. As it stands now, an elections reform bill moving in the Florida Legislature would ban any municipal government in the state from adopting such a system.

Allbritton says that unless there’s a surfeit of candidates running (as there was in 2020), he sees no need for any change, though he does admit that he would entertain discussions on moving the elections to November, at least in non-presidential election years.

In addition to the Seat 4 race, registered voters in Clearwater will choose a successor to Hamilton (who is term-limited) in Seat 5. The candidates running in that race are Aaron Smith-Levin, Lina Teixeira and Jonathan Wade.

Vote-by-mail ballots are scheduled to be sent out this week. The deadline to register is Feb. 14. Election Day is March 15.