Charter Review Board District 1: Julie Forestier

Age: 41

Current occupation: Space coordinator at the Social Equity through Education (SEE) Alliance

Resident of Sarasota County: 10 years

Why are you running for election? 

The Sarasota County charter was created to empower the county with greater autonomy and enable it to better serve the needs of its residents by a coalition of citizens, elected officials and voters who sought to establish a framework for greater local self-governance. 

I believe this coalition foresaw the problems of development and special interests cutting corners on best practices that we are experiencing today, which are impacting water, environmental protection and quality of life for all of us.

In recent years, the Legislature and County Commission have become overrun by developers and special interests. This has resulted in rampant overdevelopment, skyrocketing housing and insurance costs and more frequent environmental disasters such as the recent flooding. Moreover, recent changes to the county charter, as well as laws in Tallahassee that preempt our ability to provide protections for county residents, go against what the charter was designed to do. 

I am running because the county could and should be more proactive in protecting residents, and I vow to take this on if elected. Ultimately, I believe in the intelligence of local people guiding local choices and will work to protect our right to self-governance, as was envisioned when the charter was created.

What qualifies you to be a charter review board member?

Professionally, I am a community organizer. I have worked on a variety of environmental, civic engagement and youth initiatives. Doing this work has enabled me to help empower people and communities who have traditionally been excluded from decision-making processes. My work experience is especially relevant to what’s currently happening in Sarasota County, in which residents are being excluded from the decision-making processes that affect our lives because developers are silencing us. 

This work has taught me how to be solutions-oriented and how to work across partisan lines to create change. I am a Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) degree recipient from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and as such, I have not just the experience working to create change, but the educational background to understand how policy changes will impact our community.

What makes you a better candidate than your opponents? 

I am interested in protecting home rule. Gov. Ron DeSantis has led the charge for diminishing home rule wherever possible. My opponent was appointed, not elected, by Gov. DeSantis, and represents these same developer-backed interests that go against protecting home rule. Recent examples of home rule being diminished include:

• Affordable Housing (2023): A recent law limits local governments’ ability to mandate affordable housing requirements on developers, impacting their ability to address housing affordability challenges within their communities.
• Business Regulations (2021): A law prohibits local governments from creating ordinances that regulate businesses more strictly than the state, restricting their ability to address local concerns like wages and working conditions
• Tenant protections (2023): Recent legislation has restricted local governments from enacting tenant protections that are stronger than state law, impacting areas like rent control and eviction notices.
• Environmental Regulations (ongoing): The state has preempted local ordinances on several environmental issues, such as plastic bags, straws, fertilizer use and tree removal, hindering local action on environmental protection.

I believe in protecting Home Rule and limiting the rampant over-development that Sarasota County has seen in recent years. My opponent is a developer-friendly candidate who will work against Sarasota County’s interests to the benefit of developers.

What, if anything, is wrong with the current charter? 

In 2022, amendment 7.1A was passed, which effectively blocks any changes to the charter. Repealing this would be a first priority for me. This amendment effectively makes it impossible to amend the charter because any amendment to the charter would almost always contradict current drafts of the charter. 

The charter was also amended in 2018 to simultaneously double the percentage of voter signatures required to get a citizen-led issue on the ballot, while at the same time shortening the amount of time to collect those signatures. This amendment essentially disenfranchises citizen voices and should also be repealed. 

Those are the most obvious problems with the current charter because they prevent it from being able to adapt to changing circumstances. It was designed to allow the county’s governance structure to evolve alongside the needs and desires of its residents, but the current charter has been amended to prevent it from doing what it was created to do. 

We need to make it easier for the County Charter to respond to evolving citizens’ needs, not harder.

What needs to be updated or changed in the county charter? Why? 

In addition to the aforementioned issues, I believe the charter needs to be amended to include stronger protections against the rampant over-development Sarasota has seen in recent years. 

Specifically, I would like to see a concurrency requirement added to the charter to require that development and infrastructure are built concurrently, to ensure that infrastructure needs are on pace with new development. 

Additionally, I believe we need to amend the charter to require a unanimous vote by the County Commission to increase land-use density or intensity, or potentially even require that changes in land-use density or intensity go before Sarasota County voters, since the County Commission has shown that it will not stand up to developers.

If elected, what will be your top three priorities during your term? 

I will work to repeal the 2018 and 2022 amendments to 7.1 because they effectively blocked any future changes to the charter, as well as doubled the number of signatures required to get a citizen-led petition on the ballot to 10% of registered voters, while simultaneously shortening the amount of time that citizens have to collect the required signatures. 

The Sarasota County Charter was designed to be a living document, and as such, we need to make it more able to respond to the needs of Sarasota residents.

In addition to those changes , the unrestrained over-development Sarasota has seen in recent years, and the flooding, traffic and water quality issues we’ve been experiencing as a result, need to be addressed. I believe in planning and will work to ensure Sarasota’s planning policies are upheld and not side-stepped by developers.

Where do you stand: Should the Charter Review Board be proactive in initiating changes to the charter, or should the board make recommendations based on voter desires and ideas brought to the board? 

Responding to voter needs and ideas is an essential part of holding elected office, and I believe that soliciting input from the community is an essential part of the job. 

In addition to my aforementioned priorities, I would like to implement a process for soliciting input from residents to find out what their needs are and what changes they would like to see so we can create a more empowered community model of government.

This questionnaire has been updated.