Some really strong Republicans have lined up to run for County Commission in Alachua County, and the Taxing Three cannot be happy.  You would think that Rodny Long, one of the Taxing Three, wouldn't care, but, much to Chuck Chestnut's chagrin, Rodney seems to have put the FULL FAITH AND CREDIT of his good name behind Chuck Chestnut.  Good luck with that, Chuck!

Don't get me wrong, Chuck is a really nice guy, but this county is in a mess, and it is his political philsophy and the Chestnut Dynasty from which he is descended that made it that way.
 

Voter To Voter Contact: 

In the Alachua County Republican Party, a team of really great people have worked hard to compete, toe to toe, with a much larger Democratic Party.  We hold bigger events, we get more press, we regularly raise more money, and we are a tough competitor with anybody when it comes to phone calls.  In 2010, the ACREC made 60,000 live person to person phone calls in addition to all of the other opportunities that we used to reach out to voters.  Amongst all of the ways that we reached out to touch voters in 2010 (live calls, offline calls, robo-calls, mail pieces, festivals, emails etc), we probably had 250,000 instances of contact with the public.  Still, that is nothing compared to what we have to do in 2012.  In 2012, we plan to make somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 phone calls, and we have already been calling to ask people to committ to helping man the largest poll watching program we have ever put together.
 

New Headquarters: 

Right now, the Alachua County Republican Party is retooling its infrastructure for 2012.  We are in the process of closing our old headquarters on Main Street and relocating to the office park off of Fort Clarke Boulevard.  That will put us within 5 to 10 minutes of the County's largest concentration of Republicans.  Look for a grand opening event, soon.  In July of next year, we intend to add another office in Alachua and another one back downtown for the remainder of the election season.  We are adding additional computers and printers to the equipment that we already have, and we are going to be bringing new phones online to an already sophisticated, digital phone system.

We are ecstatic with the field of Republicans willing to put themselves on the line to run for Alachua County Commission in 2012.  The field may not even be done, yet, but so far, it is a strong and impressive field.

County Commission District 1:

John Martin and Brandon Kutner have both filed to run for Mike Byerly's seat.  Yes, we have a primary, here, but both of these fellows are exceptional quality people.  Brandon is a well respected sheriff deputy and John is a business man and the former Mayor of Hawthorne, and he is also very well respected in the community.

A slice of meatloaf would make a better commissioner than Mike Byerly, but either of these gentlemen would take Alachua County to the next level.  These gentlemen would help put government back in the hands of the people instead of the unfair and uncompromising backroom deals of Mike Byerly.

County Commission Distric 3:

This is Paula Delaney's seat.  The former Mayor of the City of Alachua, Jean Calderwood, is running for this seat.  Years ago, we nicknamed her the Iron Lady for her ability to stand up to liberals that wanted to dismantle the City of Alachua's pro-jobs policies.

Walt Boyer is also filed to run for this seat.  Walt is a mechanic.  He's a blue-collar worker.  There is nothing special about him - except, being a blue-collar citizen with passion is what makes him special.

Both Jean and Walt are special people, and we look forward to working with them.

County Commission District 5:

Dean Cheshire has filed to run for County Commission, District 5. That's Rodney's seat, the seat that he thinks that he is giving over to Chuck Chestnut.

A few weeks ago, Representative Chestnut said something to the Gainesville Sun that was really great.  When referring to the recently completed legislative session, in which tough choices had to be made, Chuck said, "My hats off to the majority party.  They did the tough things."

Thanks, Chuck, for the vote of confidence in our party.  That's right, Republicans made tough, but fair decisions, and if the county's tax payers are going to be saved from fiscal ruin, then some tough, but fair decisions are going to have to be made, here, too.  Dean Cheshire has the knowledge and experience to make the right choices and help put Alachua County on solid economic footing.

Folks, we in the Alachua County Republican Party are very excited about 2012.  Our fundamental mission, as handed to us by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Florida is to build, maintain and activate the infrastructure and the volunteer base to turn out votes.  We did it in 2010, and we will be ready for 2012.

For contact information on these candidates, click here to link to the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections website.