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Tallahassee, FL – Twenty-one years after running for public office as a neighborhood activist, Tallahassee City Commissioner Debbie Lightsey is retiring, and Wednesday night, after the commission meeting, city officials and staff celebrated her achievements. Margie Menzel reports.
"It's true that I hate politics," Lightsey said. "I love public policy."
Lightsey is known for speaking her mind, as fellow commissioner Gil Ziffer, the newest member, noted. When people ask him what working with her is like...
"I say, Well, you know those kind of circular sprinklers they have at the golf course, and eventually they turn around and they hit you and you get wet?' That's just the way it is, and you just get used to it. But seriously, no one has worked harder, no one has cared more, and no one has done a better job for the City of Tallahassee than Debbie Lightsey, so congratulations [applause]."
Leon County Clerk of Courts Bob Inzer - who served 19 years as the city's Treasurer-Clerk - said Lightsey is known to staff as the most prepared commissioner, who would put them through their paces if they hadn't done their homework.
"I always think of a comment that Scott Maddox made one time. He said, I don't have to read the agenda, I just read Debbie Lightsey's questions and the staff responds, and I know how to vote.' And I think that's true, that Debbie actually did the homework for many of the commissioners because of the study and the work," Inzer said.
"And I will tell you that she made staff better staff because we knew that someone was going to be reading every word - and not only that, she would remember."
But when Lightsey got her chance to speak, she praised the staff - and the role of government.
"And I will tell you that contrary to the current dialogue in the world, some of the finest, most intelligent, creative, ethical people I have ever met have worked in this government," she said. "It has been my honor to serve with them. So if each of us can do anything to dispel this notion of the role of public employees in keeping the world working and dispel the notion that government is the problem...but government is here to serve the people and can solve problems, and when we forget that, we're going to lose a lot."
Meanwhile, at a Florida State University candidate forum, Nancy Miller and Steven Hogge continued their campaigns to replace Lightsey in Seat 3.