Centracchio Steamrolls Gaw in Green Cove Council Race, Benefield Holds on in Orange Park
Lindholm Unable To Overcome Negative Press In Orange Park
In one of the strangest elections in recent memory, the Green Cove Springs establishment was roundly rebuked today, as an 84-year-old retiree walloped two-term City Councilor Ed Gaw.
Tom Centracchio won Council Seat 1 with 556 votes against 322 for Gaw. In terms of percentages, that’s 63 to 34 percent of 892 votes cast. In the context of today’s micro-elections, Centracchio’s victory could be considered a micro-landslide.
In Orange Park, Councilor Doug Benefield held off a challenge by Chuck Linholm, garnering 394 votes to Lindholm’s 352.
Only 12 percent of the electorate in the two municipalities participated. Together, Orange Park and Green Cove have 14,221 voters, according to the Clay County Supervisor of Elections, which provided all the results quoted in this story.
Centracchio, who served in the U.S. Marines as a young man, campaigned as a fiscal conservative, promising to keep tax increases, fees, and utility bills in check.
As of 8 p.m., Gaw had not telephoned Centracchio to concede the race.
Gaw Kicked To The Curb By Centracchio
Things began getting weird in Green Cove when Gaw, co-founder of the popular Food Truck Friday, event based his lawn sign campaign on the implied threat that if he lost the race, the city would lose Food Truck Friday. That brought attention to the fact that Gaw had voted to support the event with city funds, even though he owned the event as a business.
This caused a kerfuffle with Gaw claiming that an “ethics complaint” had been filed against him. Gaw’s partner in Food Truck Friday, former Councilor Van Royal, then accused Centracchio of filing the complaint. The partners then cancelled the April Food Truck Friday, that was to have happened 11 days before the election.
Centracchio spent the rest of the campaign denying he had filed an ethics complaint, but he agreed with critics that Gaw should have recused himself from voting on any measure that affected his event business. State officials, meanwhile, said no complaint had been filed.
In the midst of this, Ed Gaw’s brother Dan interjected himself in the election, saying his brother was not fit to serve because he had once stolen Dan Gaw’s identity. Dan Gaw said Ed Gaw had forged Dan Gaw’s renewal papers for a notary public license, which is a felony in Florida.
Ed Gaw’s campaign attributed his brother’s motivation to a family feud, impuigning his motivation but never addressing the underlying accusation.
Then, in a truly strange maneuver, Red’s Wine Bar hosted hip-hop comedian Afroman for three shows on Sunday. The Wine Bar is another Gaw-Royal enterprise, and the Ohio entertainer was on a victory lap after beating a group of police officers in court. The cops had sued him over a music video of Afroman’s hit “Lemon Pound Cake.” The song mocked a mistaken police raid on Afroman’s home.
Gaw was supported by several prominent local businesspeople and former city leaders.
While he was in town, Afroman was videotaped endorsing Gaw for council. Alas, there was no Afroman bump for the Gaw campaign.
Benefield Edges Out Lindholm
In Orange Park, incumbent Doug Benefield defeated a challenge from political newcomer Chuck Lindholm.
A slim margin of 46 votes separated the candidates, and in the end, the questions about a rental property foreclosure and the bad press from a sign theft were too much for Lindholm to overcome.
In all likelihood, Benefield’s victory means the status quo management of the Town of Orange Park’s budget will continue in the near future. High taxes, growing debt, and projects dictated from on high by Rob Bradley and Sam Garrison will continue to dominate the Town Council's time and attention.
But Wait, There’s More…
Along the way, all four candidates or their supporters accused Clay News & Views of bias and secretly campaigning for the other guy whenever we report on something dumb their favorite candidate did.
We wear this as a badge of honor because our duty is to report on newsworthy developments in campaigns, regardless of how they make any particular candidate look.
In other news, there were three initiatives on the ballot for voters in Green Cove Springs to decide:
The voters decided to allow Notaries to administer oaths of office, while declining to allow the City Manager and City Attorney to live outside the city limits.