Seth Johnson
Candidates are lining up to run for Florida House District 22 in the 2024 elections as incumbent Rep. Chuck Clemons, R-Newberry, will leave office after hitting the term limit.
So far, three Republicans and one Democrat have filed to run, but former Gainesville City Commissioner David Arreola plans to join the pack soon.
The district includes Gilchrist and Levy counties and part of Alachua County. Primary elections will be held on August 20, 2024.
Republican candidates Raemi Eagle-Glenn and Robert Woody both filed in February, and the two candidates have raised the most so far, $70,000 and $44,000, respectively.
Eagle-Glenn served on the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners for just under six months in 2022 as a governor-appointed replacement for Commissioner Mary Alford. However, in the election later that year, Alford won her seat back after moving to her district to live.
Woody currently serves as vice chair of the Santa Fe College Board of Trustees and previously held the position of chair for the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce. He has served in law enforcement within the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and Gainesville Police Department. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the Eighth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission in 2021.
Both Eagle-Glenn and Woody are Republicans and have served as state committeeperson of the Republican Party of Alachua County, with Eagle-Glenn currently in the role.
In September, Chad Johnson joined his fellow Republicans in the race. He is a Levy County resident and is the lone candidate from outside of the city of Gainesville—the population core of the district.
Johnson served on the Levy County Board of County Commissioners—first appointed by former Gov. Charlie Crist and then running to regain the seat. Currently, he works for Datamars as an auctioneer and regional sales manager, according to Florida Politics.
Amy Jane Trask filed to run for the House seat in early October. Studying pre-law at Santa Fe College, Trask works as a senior fellow for the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership. This is her first time running for office.
“Seeing the impacts of our legislation firsthand, especially through my children, I decided to stand UP and speak OUT,” Trask said on her Facebook page.
Fellow Democratic candidate Arreola will return to politics and run for Clemons seat, according to his campaign manager. He joined the Gainesville City Commission as the youngest commissioner in the city’s history and held the position until he was term-limited.
Arreola ran for mayor in 2022 in a crowded field and ended in third place during primaries with 15% of the vote.
Alachua County has two other state representatives—Democrat Yvonne Hayes Hinson and Republican Chuck Brannan. So far, no one has applied to run against either.
State representatives are limited to four terms in the Florida House. Clemons, who works as vice president of advancement at Santa Fe College, was first elected in 2016 and won his four races by margins between two and 12 percentage points over four different Democratic challengers.
In this particular case, I say thank goodness for term limits. Clemons is the guy who is responsible for taking our utility away from us. Thanks to him, GRU is now under the direction of a governor-appointed board over which we, as customers and voters, have no control. When they screw up, there’s no way we can get rid of them! Thanks Chuck!
Your elected City Leaders, Mayors, and commissioners past and present caused drastic action because your Biomass Boondoggle. I believe this is the first time in State history that a City Commission was fired and ordered to no longer have financial guidance and ruling over a utility set up like GRU . The debt burden is off the chart and 4 times the average of any comparable utility. You should only hope the massive upgrade with the new Governance Board can salvage GRU. If GRU can’t dig out of $1.8 Billion Dollars of debt, Gainesville is in a deeper financial chaos than it is now. The City Leaders seemed to have an agenda driven mindset without any reasonable accountability. They earned their fate. Quit voting that way!
GRU’s debt problem is only minimally due to the actions of recent Gainesville city commissioners, who have taxed the utility unfairly to support the city budget. About eighteen years ago, after hurricanes caused an enormous amount of wood debris removal, a wood-burning plant was authorized by the city. Without city approval, the GRU
manager at that time, on his own, signed an expensive contract for it to be built that the city could not get out of. That manager was fired. The new GRU manager negotiated an escape that reduced the overall cost but still left the huge debt. Today’s city commission needed to quit treating GRU like a piggy bank and start helping GRU pay off the debt. But it is not responsible for causing the debt.