With a little more than two months remaining until the Nov. 8 General Election, the candidates for Cape Coral mayor and City Council districts 1, 4 and 6 are preparing for the stretch drive to the finish line.

The four candidates who advanced in the primaries in districts 1 and 4 learned a lot from the experience and will use lessons learned to help them as they proceed through to November.

Those candidates are Bill Steinke and Carol Rae Culliton in District 1 after both advanced in the four-way Aug. 23 primary for the seat.

Steinke was the top vote getter, earning 12,953 votes, or 45.33 percent, with Culliton finishing second with 7,130 votes, or 24.95 percent.

In District 4, incumbent Jennifer Nelson and Patty Cummings advanced to the General Election.

Nelson took the top spot with 12,799 votes, or 44.71 percent. Cummings took 8,059 votes, or 28.15, in a tight three-way race with primary candidate Joshua Clark who received 7,768 votes, or 27.14%.

The candidates for Mayor and District 6 did not appear on the primary ballot as there were only two candidates in each race.

John Gunter, the incumbent, and Tom Shadrach will face off in the mayorial race for the first time.

Keith Long, the incumbent, and Wayne Hecht, running for the District 6 seat, also will face voters for the first time on Nov. 8.

Cape Coral City Council races are non-partisan and seats are elected at-large which means voters registered within the city can cast a ballot in all four races.

Here is a look at the races and the candidates.

Mayor

Mayor John Gunter and opponent, Thomas Shadrach, hold similar views on some things, including the property tax rate with both favoring the rollback millage.

Gunter, who has been on the dais since 2017, first as District 1 council member, then as mayor as of early 2021 when he was appointed to the seat after then-mayor Joe Coviello died while in office.

Both said they would love to debate, and one of what could be several has already been planned by the Republican Club and set for Sept. 27.

Gunter said he is already preparing for the debates, which have not been done up to this point, since they didn’t primary. They have met up at some events and chit-chatted, but hadn’t discussed their platforms.

“Our campaign hasn’t really started until now, so I think it will move forward and we can get as much information out as we can,” Gunter said. “Our main goal is to be ready for the debates.”

Gunter agreed that he and Shadrach are in agreement on a number of topics, and he plans to emphasize his five years in office and work ethic as to why he should serve another four years in the mayor’s chair.

“Understanding all the issues here, I have the upper hand because of that. On Nov. 9, I can hit the ground running with no learning curve. I have the knowledge here in the city but also the region and state that will benefit me as a candidate,” Gunter said.

Gunter, the president of Gulf Coast Premier Homes, Inc., has served on numerous leagues, boards and committees during his council tenure. Among them are the Florida League of Mayors, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Florida League of Cities, Southwest Florida League of Cities, Transportation Advisory Committee and Metropolitan Planning Organization. He also served at Council liaison to the city’s Charter Review Commission, Community Redevelopment Agency, Budget Review Committee and Planning & Zoning Commission.

Shadrach, a member of the city’s Budget Review Committee, is a regular fixture during citizen input at city council meetings, usually talking about the ever-rising cost of the city’s parks, is looking to hold public office for the first time.

Shadrach, who retired from The Boeing Co. in 2017 after 37 years and is the owner of Rachman Industries, has been working on getting his campaign together for the last three months. He said it’s about holding the city accountable, adding that Gunter, who also supports the rollback rate, has raised taxes the previous three years as a council member and mayor.

“I see a lot of wasteful spending and projects not getting done. I’ve been a big advocate for the rollback rate for the budget,” Shadrach said. “We need to hold on spending because we have a lot of projects from the GO Bond, with five parks not even up for bid when they should have been done last year.”

Shadrach said he would use his decades of experience at Boeing leading major projects for the Defense Department.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of complex problems. My last project was managing 500 people globally with a $1.5 billion budget, larger than the city of Cape Coral,” Shadrach said.

District 1

In District 1 Carol Rae Culliton and Bill Steinke have expressed great respect for each other. Each is touting experience, expertise and community involvement in what is shaping up as a battle of the resumes for the seat held by Councilmember Gloria Tate, who is not running.

Steinke, who credits his top-spot placement in the four-way primary to hard campaigning, said he will pretty much stick with the game plan for the general election.

“People’s concerns are universal, and they are in line with my platform and what I’ve observed over the years of living here,” Steinke said. “I’m a personally involved kind of guy, so whether it’s responding to instant messaging or e-mail or in public, that how I live.”

Steinke is a Certified Financial Planner and Certified Negotiation Expert who is the director of Sales and Business Development for Aubuchon Homes, Inc. and a Realtor with Miloff Aubuchon Realty Group, Inc.

He has served as president, chair or board member with numerous professional organizations and has been involved in a number of community groups and charitable efforts.

He said he would use his experience and expertise in the business world as his main strong point.

“I believe I’m more experienced in a multi-faceted organization. I have years of experience working with large budgets and lots of people over a very large area. I’ll stand on my resume and let people make up their mind that way.” Steinke said. “The people of Cape Coral have open ears. I love getting in front of people and hearing what they have to say.”

Steinke said he would emphasize infrastructure and that the city needs to do forward thinking on how it will handle everyone moving here.

Culliton is the president and founder Brotherhood of Heroes and as well as the CEO, president and founder of the Gunterberg Charitable Foundation.

Culliton said she would work hard, improve her social media presence and use her years of work in the community to her advantage.

“I’m changing my campaign strategy. I didn’t have Facebook, so I’m changing that. I’ll also be doing sign waving, going out to speak with the people and doing another meet-and-greet and hopefully, that works,” Culliton said.

Culliton said she would like to debate, and according to her there was one planned before the primary before two of the four candidates didn’t show up.

She said she would emphasize the work she has done in the community and how she has given to it long before she decided to run for office.

“I’m in my community all the time and have been for 12 years. I believe I am the best because I know my community and what it needs,” said Culliton, whose community involvement includes numerous organizations and philanthropic causes. “I have a proven track record of getting things done.”

District 4

As the top two vote-getters in District 4, incumbent Jennifer Nelson and Patty Cummings will square off again on Nov. 8.

Nelson, who is seeking a second term, said her approach to the General Election round is twofold: To raise some money to get her message out and also to bring that message directly to the voters.

“Being available to my constituents now is very important and I’ve been consistent with it over the last five years,” Nelson said. “I want a positive campaign that focuses on the work I’ve done, like the fertilizer ordinance and water quality, and the work I still want to do and finish.”

Nelson, who holds a Bachelors in Fine Arts from University of Texas at Austin, said she has lined up businesses and people to do fundraisers on her behalf and is going out to meet residents on the issues that mean the most to them.

She has spent much of her career in non-profit executive roles, saying her duties have included supervision of teams up to 250 people and the management of budgets up to $900,000,000.

Cummings, the owner of Astro-Durance, Astro-Durance Bungee Studio and Astro-Durance Bungee Studios describes herself as an entrepreneur, franchisor and inventor. She said intends to win the election on her pro-business platform. Her team plans to do so with a non-stop game plan with fundraisers and an emphasis on making things happen

“My goal is to make things happen with the team, not to talk about it for another four years. People here are upset because we talk about a project but the project never moves forward or gets completed,” Cummings said.

She said she would like to see a debate before the election, since forums don’t benefit the voters — or the candidates– as much.

“People want to see rebuttal. People want to see debate and why you’re for or against something,” Cummings said. “I believe most of these candidates want to have a debate because the citizens have been asking for a debate. Not a forum, a debate.”

Cummings also said she wants to get people out to vote, since the turnout was rather weak for the primaries, with only 27,000 people casting ballots.

“If you’re not going to vote, you have no right to complain. If you want change you have to vote. Want better, vote better,” Cummings said. “We need to educate people on why it’s important to vote.”

District 6

Councilmember Keith Long, who was appointed a little more than a year ago to fill out the term of the late Rick Williams, looks to be elected in his own right when he squares off with Wayne Hecht on Nov. 8.

As with the mayor’s race, there was no primary, which allowed both candidates to campaign early without the pressure or expense of having to get through it.

Both did attend the election events and both plan to get into high gear now.

Long, an attorney whose legal practice is Long Law, P.A., said he plans to stay the course on what they’ve been doing, while continuing to work on pounding out a budget for the city.

“We’re going to engage with the public, making sure that what we’re doing is something they can support and what they would like to see out of their council members,” Long said. “The goal is to continue to reach out to the public and find out what they expect.”

Long has favored the city lowering the property tax rate to the rollback, the rate that would keep taxes essentially flat for Homesteaded property owners but still bring in an additional $7 million to the city’s operations, or General Fund, due to increased property values and new construction.

Long said that being a lifelong resident of Cape Coral is significant, because he knows the ins and outs of the city through his law practice and past work within the city.

“There’s an old saying that you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been and I’ve been here my whole life,” Long said. “That holds a lot of weight and it’s not my only qualification, but my goal is to maintain the beauty and integrity of Cape Coral while we go through unprecedented growth.”

Hecht, a certified auctioneer, certified personal property appraiser and licensed real estate associate who is the director of Operations for Tiger Capital Group, has spent the last several months getting his platform together about holding the city accountable for what he calls wasteful spending. He said he wants a debate to discuss the issues in a nuanced fashion.

“There are projects not getting done. We need to look at the projects not getting complete, the GO Bond has parks not even going to bid yet,” Hecht said. “I’ve been an advocate for the current budget and looking to get to the rollback rate. I think it can be easily done.”

Hecht, in his first run public office, said his experience at Tiger Group, a company that liquidates troubled companies, makes him the ideal candidate.

“I spent 35 years at a large company with large budgets, worked on liquidations at Radio Shack, Toys R Us, Sports Authority and I sold Pan-Am Airlines,” Hecht said “There’s a big difference in experience.”

Additional information on the candidates, including candidate-supplied biographical and background info, may be found online here at capecoralbreeze.com under Election 2022.

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected. District 4 candidate Patty Cummings called for a debate. Her quotes on this subject were misattributed to the District 4 incumbent, Jennifer Nelson. The Breeze regrets the error and apologizes to both candidates as well as to our readers for any confusion.