{"id":36156,"date":"2023-09-23T00:05:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T04:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=36156"},"modified":"2023-09-23T00:05:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T04:05:49","slug":"three-people-are-competing-for-the-seat-in-district-a-northwest-city-commission-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/09\/23\/three-people-are-competing-for-the-seat-in-district-a-northwest-city-commission-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Three people are competing for the seat in District A \u2013 Northwest City Commission Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lolita Berrien<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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City Commission candidate Lolita Berrien<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lolita Berrien<\/a>\u00a0is a lifelong resident of Lakeland whose top priorities are infrastructure, housing, and homeless assistance. She is a mother of three, grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berrien, 67, has worked for Polk County Public Schools for 26 years. She is currently an administrative assistant at the Lincoln Avenue Academy magnet school, enrolling students and keeping track of official records. She also leads piano and exercise classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Berrien\u2019s first political campaign, but she is no stranger to civic participation. Berrien has served more than 20 years as a volunteer in the community, including as president of the Webster Park South Neighborhood Association, former presiding chair of the Neighborhood Association Coalition, president of Lakeland City Wide Mission, a current member of the Code Enforcement Board, a former member of the Planning and Zoning Board, and a member of the Alumni Association of the Lakeland City Police Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guy LaLonde, Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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City Commission candidate Guy LaLonde, Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guy LaLonde, Jr.<\/a>\u00a0is a U.S. Navy veteran and small business owner whose top priorities include strengthening the alliances between the public and private sectors. He wants to improve infrastructure, roadways, and electrical resources, utilizing strategic and planned growth. He also wants to attract more talent to Lakeland and ensure adequate employment opportunities are available for local students when they complete their education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LaLonde, 56, is a Lake Gibson High School graduate and Publix meat manager who owns Lakeland Moon Walk of Polk County Inc. and Under One Tent Events Inc. Lakeland has been his home for more than 40 years with his wife, Tonya LaLonde, their seven grown children and three grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LaLonde currently sits on the Polk County Housing and Finance Authority Board, as well as the boards for KidsPack and Central Florida Speech and Hearing. He has served as a board member for Downtown Lakeland Partnership and is involved with BRIDGE Local, the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, NAACP, the Rotary Club, and the Republican Club of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LaLonde has been endorsed by the Lakeland Lodge 185 Fraternal Order of Police<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samuel Simmons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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City Commissioner Sam Simmons<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samuel Simmons<\/a>\u00a0has represented the northwest district for the past 10 months since being\u00a0appointed by the City Commission\u00a0to fill the remainder of Walker\u2019s term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simmons, 66, has owned a housing and financial services consulting firm since 2004. Before that, he was an accountant with the city of Lakeland and served as finance manager for the Lakeland Housing Authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simmons\u2019 priorities are affordable housing, economic development and small business, growth management, public transportation, improved infrastructure, and public safety \u2014\u00a0including a new Police Athletic League building for the area\u2019s underprivileged youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simmons served as president of the Webster Park South Neighborhood Association for 20 years and was the first president of the city\u2019s Neighborhood Association Coalition. He co-founded the nonprofit Central Florida Business Diversity Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Election details<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election is Nov. 7. The deadline for voters to request mail-in ballots is Oct. 26. People who want to vote by mail can send a request to votebymail@polkelections.com<\/a>, call (863) 534-5888, or make the request online at polkelections.gov\/Mail-in-Ballot-Request-Form<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early voting begins Oct. 23 and will be available from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays through Nov. 3 at the Polk County Government Center, 930 E. Parker Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a \u201cPolitics in the Park\u201d candidate forum<\/a> from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 10 at the Coleman-Bush Building at 1104 Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lolita Berrien City Commission candidate Lolita Berrien Lolita Berrien\u00a0is a lifelong resident of Lakeland whose top priorities are infrastructure, housing, and homeless assistance. She is a mother of three, grandmother… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[6059],"class_list":["post-36156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-three-people-are-competing-for-the-seat-in-district-a-northwest-city-commission"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}