Davenport’s Term Limit Folly

Career politicians, professional politicians, expert politicians, “proven” politicians. We see them all over the place: in Congress, in DC, in our state capitols, locally on paid boards. They also happen here in the good ole city of Davenport, Florida, where we seem to have a problem these days with folks serving our community for decades at a time when we have had term limits rule for some time. Right now, we have an election going on where one of the candidates has been on our Board of Commissioners for 20 years, uninterrupted, in spite of the fact that our city has a rule in its Charter that indicates that no one may serve for more than six years without a whole, one-year break. This candidate had been out of office for far less than one year when the city qualified him to run.

How Did He Do It?

Well, dang now! How the hell did that happen? Check out my post on Davenport’s new 2025 Charter amendments for the answer to that question.

What I Found Out

There is a section of the City of Davenport Charter that talks about term limits for our elected officials. It says in Article II. (c) Section 2.01 (2) “At the expiration of the second term, that person shall not be eligible to serve as a Commission Member, either by appointment or by election for a period of one (1) year.”

Note: This section does not use the word “term;” it uses the word “year.” Last I heard, a year was 12 months long.

What I discovered was that former commissioner Tom Fellows, the candidate in question, served in his seat as a commission member until Monday, April 15, the date he formally resigned. This event was documented by the Board minutes from that meeting. Tom was even given an award for his lengthy, length of service by Mayor Brynn Summerlin. That means that Tom was serving as commissioner until he was formally excused (expired) from the commission at about 7:05 PM on Monday, April 15.

Tom Fellows was not eligible to run in the Davenport election again until April 16, 2025, yet he was qualified by city clerk, Rachel Castillo-Young, on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, more than two full months before he was eligible to run again. If Fellows wins the 2025 election, he will be sworn into his seat on Monday, April 7, 2025, well over a week before he was qualified to have even run for it.

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Based on this information, what I concluded was that former commissioner Tom Fellows was not eligible to run in this year’s election … at all.

The City’s Explanation

Responding to an email I had sent questioning this fact about Fellows, Davenport’s city clerk wrote, “‘Per the City’s Attorney, the term limit applies to persons elected or appointed and not to candidates.” (2/25/25) (This all I received from the clerk.) Thus, according to her, the term limit cannot be applied to a candidate but only to one who is “elected or appointed.” It’s at that point that the Charter would apply the one-year prohibition against actually holding the office.'” (2/25/25) Again, that’s all she wrote about this specific topic. Below was my response.

What the Lawyer Wrote

While I received my response from Clerk Rachel, insinuating that this was all the city attorney wrote, I found out otherwise the city on March 4, 11 days later. I received the actual city lawyer’s response on March 4, because Rachel had sent it to someone else in our community and that person asked me if I had gotten it. I had not. I had to specifically request it from Rachel.

The letter from the city lawyer was dated January 31, 2025. The city was apparently aware and expecting Tom Fellows to run again this year, months before the election. Following is what the lawyer wrote.

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On March 12, 2025, I asked the city lawyer for an example of how his interpretation would apply in an actual, real-life election in our city. That person has yet to respond.

Why is Davenport Letting Tom Fellows Run?

According to the information received on March 4, 2025, the city’s attorney said, “Florida courts have consistently ruled that candidacy qualifications must be liberally construed in favor of qualification.” Apparently this conservative city, in this conservative county, in this conservative state, in a conservative nation sees the advantage of a liberal view of this section of the Charter. Very, very interesting, given that the case of Tom Fellows’ qualification is technically very, very clear against Tom Fellows, even when reviewed liberally.

The short of it is that Tom Fellows is flouting Charter Section 2.01, and both the city attorney and the city clerk are letting him do it. The short of it, again, is that the City of Davenport does not have term limits and that Section 2.01 must be rewritten so that it is abundantly clear, as apparently simply clear is not good enough to ensure that our local politicians adhere to our Charter rules.