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VENICE – Venice voters will choose between at least two new faces for Seat 3 on the City Council this November, with incumbent Helen Moore declining to seek a third term, while the Seat 4 incumbent, Vice Mayor Jim Boldt, plans to seek a second term on council. 

Moore has met one of two people who have filed to succeed her in Seat 3, Kevin Engelke, but not the other candidate, Patricia Ouellette.

While Engelke and Ouellette have not knowingly crossed paths yet either, both live on the island of Venice and both are members of the Venice Yacht Club.

Moore, a Realtor with Michael Saunders & Company, called the requirement to serve on Venice City Council “a heavy lift.”

“I have to work for a living. I feel like all I did is work and work and then go home and do homework (for council) to keep working,” she added.

Moore also pointed to an increased injection of party politics in council races as another disincentive to run for a third and final term.

“I don’t like the way the politics has changed things in recent years,” Moore said. “It’s bitter, divisive, it’s rude.”

Boldt still has unfinished business

Boldt, who filed to run in March, said there are still a few things he wants to see accomplished.

“We have projects in the works but they’re not finished,” Boldt said. “Everything from the Northeast Park to widening Laurel Road – one of the big ones I have concerns on is where the wages are of our public safety people.

“We fell to the bottom of the list in the county last year,” he added, referring to Venice Police earning the lowest wages among local law enforcement, prior to a contract renegotiation last December. “And we can’t let that happen again. We’re also short of people and that’s a grave concern to me; we need to start working that number back up where it belongs because as the city continues to grow – which it will – especially in Northeast Venice, we just don’t have an adequate number of police officers, EMTs, firemen.”

The city is also in the process of relocating Fire Station No. 2 out of the flood zone on Grove Street near Hatchett Creek, farther east on Venice Avenue, next door to the new police station.

Estate attorney hails from Michigan

Ouellette, an estate attorney and former accountant from Michigan, first found Venice because her law partner had a condominium in the area and they would stop and visit as part of a continuing education series at the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning at the University of Miami.

In 2012, Ouellette and her husband David Remick, also an attorney, bought a condominium in the city. They moved to Venice three years ago.

Judy Cross, one of Ouellette's bridge partners at the yacht club and an original member of the local activist group Venice Thrives, urged her to run.

“There were a lot of things I was concerned about,” Ouellette said. "I’m not against development but … you want to make sure that it’s planned.”

Ouellette counts among her main concerns congestion and the stress growth puts in the infrastructure – including potable water.

“You really can't complain unless you’re willing to do something about it.”

Should she be elected, Ouellette said she is looking forward to working collegially with the other six board members.

“I firmly believe that if two opposing people come together and come to a compromise you’re going to get a better product rather than one person doing it,” Ouellette said.

Ouellette received her bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and was working as a certified public accountant for a law firm when her boss suggested she go to law school.

She balanced her role as a CPA with pursuing a law degree at Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan.

She said her experience as both a CPA and attorney would be assets on City Council.

Insurance executive moved from New Jersey

Engelke and his wife Janet first visited Venice on the suggestion of friends who lived in Naples. They were driving north from there to catch a flight at Tampa International Airport, and took a detour to see downtown.

“We came across the Venice Avenue Bridge and we saw Venice Avenue – this was before it was updated – and we go, 'Wow, this is a really cool place,'” he said. “Because we only had an hour or so, we came back a couple months later and it was history.”

The Engelkes bought a garden apartment style condominium a few blocks from the beach on the island of Venice in the summer of 2019.

During the COVID-19 lockdown period in 2020, when his office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, closed, he opted to work remotely in Venice, since most of his job as a high risk insurance broker is handled on the phone.

When the lockdown was lifted, both Engelke and his wife were able to continue to work remotely.

Engelke and his wife have four adult daughters and six grandchildren.

Since moving to Venice, they have been active in Bayside Community Church, the Venice Newcomers Club and the Venice Yacht Club.

While Engelke has no formal city government involvement in Venice, he was board president of his local homeowners association in Medford, New Jersey. Associations there are not deed restricted and worked along with the township to help oversee maintenance of lakes and athletic fields.

He was also on the youth athletic association board that was responsible for increasing the number of athletic field options.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Grove City College in Pennsylvania and an MBA from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

“Right now the city is doing well,” said Engelke, who said his knowledge about working with people and budgets will be assets, should he be elected to the council. “It’s just part of my being, this type of thing, in terms of managing budgets, working with people to get a budget going.

“Running a pretty large HOA many years ago, being involved with business quite a bit, being part of a larger church up in New Jersey, on the budget committee and that type of thing – the issues are similar, some of the names and some of the departments are a little it different, but it’s just kind of part of me.”

Qualifying week set for August

Qualifying week for the 2024 election runs from noon, Aug. 19 to noon, Aug. 23, so there is time for other candidates to file for either Seats 3 or 4.

There is no primary race, so the candidate with the most votes will win the seat, even if they have less than 50% of the vote plus one.

That last happened in 2019, when Ron Feinsod won a three-way race for mayor with 40.1% of the vote.

Currently council members serve as many as three consecutive three-year terms and then must take a one-year hiatus before serving again. 

With the council poised to ask Venice voters to approve a charter change that would extend individual terms to four years, with a limit of two consecutive four year terms. That would effectively end odd-year elections, but the winners on Nov. 5 will not find out until that night whether they will be serving for three or four years based on the referendum.