Three eastern Collier Republicans vie for commission seat
Collier County's sprawling eastern commission district, spanning from Golden Gate Estates to Immokalee and Ave Maria, serves as an example of poor planning from the 1960s when gravel roads were first laid and canals dug.
Three Republicans competing to represent District 5 agree the region needs more housing developments families can afford, along with more businesses and an Interstate 75 interchange. What separates them, they said, is who can actually get the job done.
The candidates are Bill McDaniel, who has run his own real estate and excavation companies here for more than 30 years; Randy Cash, a retired Army pilot who now runs his own airfield management company; and Doug Rankin, an accountant and lawyer who has long been involved in the local Republican party and myriad county planning committees. The winner of the Aug. 30 primary will face Democrat Tamara Paquette in November.
McDaniel, 55, moved to the area in 1982, shortly after graduating from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, near his hometown of Franklin, Pa. He worked as a carpenter to put himself through school, studying computer science and economics at Clarion. He was hired during his senior year to build a horse barn that is still standing off Goodlette-Frank Road.
“I came here and I saw the growth and development and all the potential,” McDaniel said. “I knew that if I could get involved in even a small part of all that was going on, I could set myself and my family up.”
McDaniel started his own real estate company. After trying to find a piece of land for a client to open a mine in the early 1990s, McDaniel said he saw a natural way to expand his business. The client would later become a mentor.
During the last housing boom in 2006, McDaniel started a mine on Immokalee Road called Big Island Excavation, and then started 12 other mines in Southwest Florida. The idea was that when no more material could be dug out of the mines, they would be filled with water and developed as lake-front neighborhoods.
After the housing market collapsed, McDaniel went from 13 mining operations to two. As the Naples Daily News previously reported, he lost one home to foreclosure in 2014, and his two mining and real estate companies owe a total of more than $100,000 in delinquent property taxes to Collier and Hendry counties.
McDaniel said the taxes are late as part of a business decision. It came to a point where his companies could either make payroll for their 35 employees or pay taxes on time, he said. He chose to make payroll.
While waiting out the recession, McDaniel and his mining partner, James Ivey, opened an ATV park in Hendry County on land they had previously wanted to develop into a neighborhood. The park has taken off well enough that they may keep it, McDaniel said.
McDaniel, gregarious and self-effacing in a confident sort of way, has a 20-year-old daughter, Kelley, at Florida Gulf Coast University and a 16-year old son, William, who is homeschooled. He’s an avid outdoorsman who loves to hunt and fish and has been coaching his son’s basketball team for the past eight years.
McDaniel has been on the board of directors of the local Goodwill for the past 15 years and is chairman of the Collier County Housing Authority.
“The key is to never micromanage or hamstring the people you’re working with,” McDaniel said. “I’ve always tried to empower people. You set it up so you have the smartest and brightest and then let them do the job.”
Cash, 61, grew up in Orlando. He met his wife, Mary Ellen, while they worked together as “skippers” on the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World shortly after they had graduated high school.
Cash is a University of Miami graduate and spent 22 years in the Army. He was selected for flight school and helped provide air support near the end of the first Gulf War as part of an operation to free the Kurds who had holed up in the mountains of northern Iraq.
When his daughter, Jerilyn, was entering high school in 1995, he and his wife wanted to make sure she could stay in the same town for all four years of school and settled in the fringe of Golden Gate Estates.
Cash saw that the Army was relying more and more on private companies to run and manage its airfields, so he opened his own business. Flamingo Air, runs flight control, operations and maintenance for several Army airfields around the country, as well as for some civilian airstrips.
The soft-spoken and affable Cash said he’s a natural consensus builder. His experience in the Army has made him fit to help lead major planning and budget efforts for the county, he said.
“The main skill the Army gives you is understanding,” Cash said. “You have to understand the mission, to know what the end state is and to be able to make a plan to accomplish it. You have to be able to communicate so everybody from the lowest rung to the top knows what we’re trying to do. And, finally, you have to manage.”
Rankin, 55, has been a lawyer in Collier County since 1983. He is direct and to the point in the way only someone who grew up in an accounting office could be.
He said he was fetching coffee and printing out documents for his mother’s accounting firm by age 8, and preparing taxes by age 12.
“When I was in law school, I didn’t take summers off, I took tax season off so I could help my mother in the office,” Rankin said. “I haven’t met a budget I couldn’t figure out in a hurry.”
Rankin grew up in Bradenton and graduated from law school at Florida State University. He worked for a firm in Naples after law school and eventually opened his own practice in 1992. He specializes in estate planning.
He’s an avid fisherman and a self-described penny pincher who only buys his cars at auction. He built his own house on nearly of 8 acres of land in the Estates, only using a contractor to lay the foundation, he said.
Rankin has been on the local Republican Executive Committee since 1992 and is one of 37 board members of the Republican Party of Florida. He has sat on volunteer committees that helped write the growth plans for the eastern part of the county.
“I’m the one who can hit the ground running on day one,” Rankin said. “I know all the flaws of our growth plans because I fought against them.”
He points to the uproar raised in Golden Gate Estates when neighbors learned that a proposed charter school could build near a neighborhood without having to first undergo a series of public meetings.
“It’s not just charter schools, but a (Florida Power and Light) substation could be dropped next to your house with no input, as well as police or EMS stations,” Rankin said. “That’s nonsense.”
As the plans are revised over the next several years, the public needs to be more involved, he said.
Rankin has two sons who are 23 and 28 years old.
“My boys are now grown and gone and I’m at the point where I’m just supporting myself,” Rankin said. “I have the time and ability to do this job. I don’t owe money and I squeeze every nickel.”
Bill McDaniel
Age: 55
Family: Daughter, Kelley; son, William lll
Hometown: Franklin, Pa.
Collier County resident since: 1982
Work background: Real Estate, Construction, Banking
County service: Community Services Advisory Board member (2004-08), East of 951 Horizon Study, Rural Lands Stewardship Area Review, Collier Interactive Growth Model Study
What would you do as a commissioner to encourage the creation of workforce housing?
Housing for income restricted professionals can be enhanced through density bonus programs, reduction or replacement of impact fee structure, to name a few. There is no magic bullet to this question, what we don’t want is to be having this conversation 10 years from now.
What steps should the county take to diversify its economy?
Any viable means possible, we are at the tipping point in our population growth that our economy will not be sustained from construction much longer. Providing infrastructure for raw material to be brought in and finished goods to be shipped out will enhance this diversification.
What should the county do to prepare for a surging population?
The county residents should get involved; our growth is inevitable for the foreseeable future, planning for it is key to our success. As commissioner, I will assist to organize, advertise and promote community involvement in these processes. That is an imperative job of any elected official, to incentivize community involvement.
Randy Cash
Age: 61
Family: Wife, Mary Ellen, one daughter, three grandsons
Hometown: Atlanta
Collier County resident since: 1995
Work background: U.S. Army Aviation
County service: Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association; Immokalee Chamber of Commerce; Collier County Veterans Council; Commander VFW Post 7721; Collier County Republican Executive Committee
What would you do as commissioner to encourage the creation of workforce housing?
It is inexcusable that our county firefighters, teachers and police have to live in Lee County. We need to incentivize developers to build professional housing as part of their development plan. One method would be to allow developers more building density. Impact fees need to be revisited.
What steps should the county take to diversify its economy?
Eighty percent of our county budget comes from valorem taxes where the national average for counties across the nation is 30 percent. We can encourage small businesses to come into areas that are already zoned for commercial use by waving impact fees for startups and for existing small business that want to expand.
What should the county do to prepare for a surging population?
There are four master plans for the county that are currently being revised. These must complement each other to ensure that we have a managed growth plan that preserves our quality of life, protects our water resources and environment and finally provides economic development opportunities.
Douglas Rankin
Age: 59
Family: Two children, sister, two nephews
Hometown: Philadelphia
Collier County resident since: 1983
Work background: Accounting and Law
County service: 20th Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission, 2008 to 2013; Collier County Foreclosure Task Force, 2010 to present; Vice Chair Congressional District 14, 2010 to 2012; Republican Party of Florida, 2010 to present; Chair Congressional District 25 Republican Party of Florida, 2011 to present; Collier County Republican State Committeeman, 2008 to present.
What would you do as commissioner to encourage the creation of workforce housing?
Housing needs to be encouraged with incentives. Building roads to Lee County is expensive and not the solution. The county should show developers that workforce housing is in their financial best interests. Eastern Collier County, far from the coast and outside of gated communities, would be an ideal location. If this failed, I would advocate density bonuses.
What steps should the county take to diversify its economy?
Seek and encourage, without financial incentives, by making Collier County permitting and other governmental agencies more business friendly. I would advocate for financial incentives after extreme scrutiny for Arthrex-type businesses but not businesses like Jackson Labs.
What should the county do to prepare for a surging population?
We need to be smart and plan ahead for growth. There are currently four proposed plans for District 5, I have been involved with each plan and there are issues with each one. They each need to be looked at long term, not piecemeal, i.e. the impact over the next 50 years, not the next five.