Marsha Faux, who has served as Property Appraiser for Polk County since 2001, said that she does not plan to seek a seventh term.
Rex Dimmig, Public Defender for the 10th Judicial Circuit since 2012, also said he will not run for reelection next year.
All of the other constitutional officers have either filed to run for reelection or said they intend to do so: Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards, Tax Collector Joe Tedder, Clerk of Courts Stacy Butterfield and Haas.
Faux’s decision to retire following the 2024 election has already yielded pledges of campaigns for Property Appraiser from two names familiar to local voters: Neil Combee, a Polk County commissioner and former state legislator, and former Lakeland Mayor Gow Fields.
The Property Appraiser’s Office has 125 employees working in three offices, with the headquarters in Bartow. Faux said the office’s responsibilities have grown more complex since she first took office, largely because the Florida Legislature has implemented so many property tax exemptions.
While Faux intends to remain in her position through the end of her term, she and her husband, Don Shields, are already making plans for life after her retirement. Faux owns a 2011 Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra GT 500, and she yearns to drive it along the Tail of the Dragon, a stretch of two-lane road in North Carolina and Tennessee that offers 318 curves over 11 miles.
Combee, Fields plan campaigns
Combee and Fields both confirmed that they intend to campaign to succeed Faux as Property Appraiser. Both said they were awaiting for Faux’s public announcement before going public.
Combee, 63, was first elected to the Polk County Commission in 1988 and served until 2005, when he joined the governing board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District. He gained election to the Florida House of Representatives in 2012 and left that position when he was appointed as state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.
After an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2018, Combee rejoined the Polk County Commission following an election victory in 2020.
Combee, a Lakeland resident, said he has long been interested in the position of Property Appraiser and would have run earlier but didn’t want to challenge Faux.
“When you are as involved and interested in government as I am, and when you like the land and real estate stuff, like I do — I’ve been involved with it forever — it just has a lot of appeal,” Combee said of the Property Appraiser position. “I wanted to do it a long time ago, and then when Ed Coleman left and once Marsha was elected I certainly wasn’t going to run against her.”
He added: “I fully intend to do it, and I’ve talked to a number of friends and they’re saying, ‘Let’s go with it.’”
Combee’s term as a county commissioner runs through 2024, and he plans to remain in that position while running for Property Appraiser. His decision will create an opening for candidates to run for the County Commission in District 5.
Fields, 60, gained election to the Lakeland City Commission in 1992 and won a closely contested race for mayor in 2009. He served in that office until 2014.
Fields, longtime owner of an insurance agency in Lakeland, said he was approached last year by someone he declined to name and encouraged to consider a run for Property Appraiser.
“While initially I was not inclined, after taking some time and going and visiting her (Faux) and meeting some people in her operation and then being in prayer about it, I now see it as an opportunity to continue to do what I’ve always loved doing and that is being in service to the public,” he said.
Fields said he uses the Property Appraiser’s website regularly every day in his insurance work, and he expressed praise for the operation Faux leads. He said he would want to build upon the “great foundation” Faux has created while seeking continual improvements.
Fields, a Kathleen High School graduate, said his father and grandfather were farmers, giving him an appreciation of the value of agricultural land. He said he has considerable experience handling both residential and commercial properties in his insurance business.
Combee and Fields are both Republicans. The Property Appraiser election is nonpartisan.
“The Property Appraiser’s function is pretty confined and restricted to what the law says, (with) a series of time triggers, constraints of how things are to be done,” Fields said. “So it’s pretty straightforward there. Where the opportunity lies, I believe, to be of greater service is how you interact with the public and help them to take full advantage of what they as taxpayers and business owners have in the way of tools available to them to improve upon their wealth. Property is a key part of wealth in our economy in this country.”
Dimmig won’t run again
Dimmig joined the Public Defender’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit in 1978. He left in 1980 and worked as a prosecutor and then in private practice before returning to the office in 1988.
Dimmig, 69, won his first election to become Public Defender in 2012, following the retirement of Marion Moorman after 28 years. Dimmig has since won reelection twice.
While age was a factor in Dimmig’s decision to leave after his current term ends, he cited other influences in a statement he emailed to his staff on the 45th anniversary of his first joining the Public Defender’s office.
The Public Defender’s office, with a staff of about 115, handles cases from Polk, Hardee and Highlands counties. Its lawyers are assigned to represent people accused of crimes who can’t afford to hire a private lawyer.
In addition to its trial division, the Bartow-based office is one of five in Florida that handle appeals to state courts.
One candidate has already filed to run in 2024 — Blair Allen, an Assistant Public Defender in Dimmig’s office. Allen is a Lakeland High School graduate with a law degree from Stetson University. She spent a year with the State Attorney’s Office in Bartow before joining the Public Defender’s staff in 2007.
“Just growing up in the community, I thought that I wanted to be a social worker,” said Allen, whose father is a lawyer. “And then I got interested in the practice of law. And considering my love for social work, really, public defense work is perfect because it combines my passion for helping people with my interest in the law and defending the Constitution.”
Allen, 42, said she has worked in nearly every division of the office, from cases of low-level misdemeanors to murder defendants facing potential death sentences. She has also served in the appellate division.
As an Assistant Public Defender, Allen said she now has more of an administrative role but still carries a small caseload of felony defendants. She also supervises lawyers handling County Court cases and directs recruiting at law schools.
The Public Defender election is a partisan race, but Allen, a Republican, said she hopes to appeal to voters regardless of party affiliation.
Judd, others seek new terms
Haas, the State Attorney for the 10th Judicial Circuit, is the only one of the five other constitutional officers who had filed for reelection as of Friday.
Judd joined the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in 1972 as a dispatcher and in 2004 succeeded Lawrence Crow to earn his first term as sheriff. Judd, 68, has been reelected four times since then, not facing any opponent in 2020.
Judd told a the media that he intends to continue serving as long as he is healthy and still feels enthusiastic about the job. He has gained national publicity for his stern pronouncements and folksy manner at news conferences, and he has become politically influential by endorsing candidates in Polk County and beyond.
Judd has served as president of the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Major County Sheriffs of America.
Edwards, 62, was first elected in 2000 and earned her sixth term in 2020 by handily repelling a challenge from Debbie Hannifan. She said she intends to seek reelection next year.
The Polk County Supervisor of Elections Office oversees a broad slate of elections, from municipal races in odd-numbered years to primary and general elections involving contests ranging from lakes management district boards to U.S. president.
Tedder is the longest-serving of Polk’s constitutional officers, having captured his first election as Tax Collector in 1996 after previously serving in the Florida House of Representatives. He said he plans to pursue an eighth term next year.
Tedder, 60, said the Tax Collector’s Office faces the ongoing challenge of maintaining staffing and services amid declining state funding. The office operates entirely on fees collected, and Tedder said his agency actually loses money on the main service it provides, handling transactions for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Butterfield first earned election in 2012 as Polk County Clerk of Courts and Comptroller. Her office handles the recording of official records – including mortgages, deeds, liens, judgments and marriage licenses – and maintains court records.
Butterfield, 59, said that she is prepared to run for a fourth term.