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Unlike Last Election, Democrats Field Candidates for Hospital Board

Written by on Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Updated with new fundraising totals: Oct. 4, 2024

The races for Sarasota County Public Hospital Board have simplified since the August primaries, when the “Medical Freedom” candidates failed to win the Republican nomination for any of the board’s four open seats. What’s left is more conventional campaigns from the Republican side and a slate of Democratic challengers who imply that GOP board members might eventually cave to outside forces wanting to privatize Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

A League of Women Voters forum on Oct. 2 will be the first opportunity for all eight of the candidates to discuss the issues and their platform differences face-to-face. 

Republicans

This year’s Medical Freedom candidates, following in the footsteps of last election’s Health Freedom slate, aimed to secure a majority on the hospital board for their own far-right faction. The unity of the Medical Freedom slate faltered as the primaries approached, and when the dust settled, only two candidates remained as official Medical Freedom candidates. Besides this threat from within, their opponents in the primaries were putting up much more of a fight than they had two years ago, with the more moneyed establishment Republicans dramatically outraising the Medical Freedom candidates. The result was a landslide victory for the establishment Republicans in each and every one of the four primary races.

So who are the establishment Republicans? Two of them are incumbents, and the other two are running to fill vacancies left by retiring board members. Some of them have deep pockets, others come from a background in business administration. With the defeat of the Medical Freedom slate, Republicans running for the hospital board now unilaterally represent business-as-usual. A number of them are also enmeshed with the Robinson Gruters fundraising machine, which is itself heavily associated with Sarasota’s most prolific developers.

For Central District Seat 1, Sarah Lodge is defending her incumbency. She’s the current chairwoman of the board, as well as a financial advisor at RBC Wealth Management. Of the $24,300 she’s raised so far, $15,000 of it comes from her own pocket.

For At-Large Seat 1, Sharon Wetzler DePeters is also defending her incumbency. She’s raised the least of the Republicans, at $9,050. She’s been on the board since before 2020, being one of its most seasoned members. She also has a history in healthcare, having served as a nurse in the Air Force, later becoming an associate professor of nursing.

For At-Large Seat 2, Kevin Cooper is running for an open seat. He’s raised almost all of his campaign funds from dozens of individuals and businesses, who’ve given him over $45,828 to work with — that’s the most of any hospital board candidate. Many of those businesses are developers, which makes sense, considering his membership to the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance. He’s currently the Vice President of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at Mote Marine Laboratory.

For At-Large Seat 3, Pam Beitlich started out as a nurse, and has worked her way up at Sarasota Memorial Hospital for 40 years. She’s also crowd-funded, and has got the most to show for it, with just over $42,290 raised. 

Democrats

The last Democrat to serve on the hospital board did so more than a decade ago, and in the last election the party fielded no candidates. This year is a different story. The Democrats had seemed to be gearing up for a Medical Freedom primary win, and are now having to shift gears in their messaging. When the first two candidates were announced, the party said they were running “to prevent the effort of ‘health freedom’ Republican officials to discredit and privatize Sarasota Memorial Hospital.” Chair of the Sarasota Democrats Dan Kuether said upon the third Democratic candidate’s announcement that “Sarasota voters now have a clear choice between outstanding medical and hospital professionals and a so-called ‘medical freedom slate’ composed of extremists with no experience in medicine or hospital administration.”

After the primary, Kuether shifted the emphasis to the threat of privatization. It’s an idea that most recently proliferated out of the Medical Freedom camp, but one which Kuether alleged “has not been strictly an extremist viewpoint,” pointing out that Republican Sen. Rick Scott had suggested that Sarasota Memorial Hospital be privatized 10 years ago. Democratic candidates have also said that the Republican party’s platform is often at odds with the interests of public health and safety, pointing out their stance of limiting gun control (gun violence being the leading cause of death among Americans aged 1–19), their policy of curtailing the federal government’s ability to negotiate drug prices, and anti-abortion policies.

For the Central District Seat 1, Vicki Lynn Nighswander is back for round two. She ran against Sarah Lodge back in 2020, losing by a margin of 16 percent. She has a decades-long career as a public health professional under her belt. She has yet to raise any money.

For At-Large Seat 1, Alan Jerome Sprintz has a master’s degree in hospital administration and a decades-long career ping-ponging around Illinois as a healthcare official. He’s raised $22,421 mostly from individual donors, many of them retirees.

For At-Large Seat 2, Dr. Dale Anderson, a retired physician, hospital executive and healthcare consultant, is running. Anderson launched his campaign in August, following the death of John Lutz, the initial Democratic candidate for this seat. He’s raised $5,100, mostly from his own pocket. He is also a board member of WSLR+Fogartyville.

For At-Large Seat 3, George Davis has been in the healthcare industry for nearly 40 years. He received his bachelor’s from Harvard and his MD from Columbia. He’s raised more than $19,021, in a similar manner to Sprintz, courting a large amount of smaller donations from retirees. 

Recap

With the evisceration of the Medical Freedom slate, this election has turned into a referendum on mainstream Republicans’ handling of Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Unlike the 2022 election cycle – during which far-right Republicans gave their representatives on the hospital board a vote of no confidence – it’s the county’s Democrats and independents who will now have to answer the question: Is business-as-usual acceptable for the hospital board? If yes, incumbents and their allies are running with the Republicans. If no, a slate of experienced healthcare workers and administrators is ready to take their place.

Sarasota County Public Hospital Board Candidate Forum

Hosted by League of Women Voters

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 5:30-7 p.m.

Livestreamed on YouTube: lwvsrq.org

By Florence Fahringer for Critical Times — October-December 2024 issue