Editor’s Note: This is the first segment of the Face in the Race series, which will feature the five candidates for Gainesville’s mayor seat.
When Don Marsh moved to Gainesville, he baled hay for $25 a day and donated plasma twice a week for extra cash.
That was nearly 30 years ago.
Now Marsh, owner of a window-cleaning business, has a new challenge—running for Gainesville mayor.
He unsuccessfully ran for the Alachua County Commission in 2002, losing to Cynthia Chestnut.
“I was a loose cannon,” Marsh recalled.
Marsh runs against Craig Lowe, Richard Selwach, Monica Leadon Cooper and Ozzy Angulo for the office in City Hall.
“We all are underdogs to apathy,” said Marsh, who believes he will win if 20 to 25 percent of voters head to the polls on March 16.
In 2007, during the city’s last mayoral race, only 10.73 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, according to the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Web site.
According to the lastest campaign finance reports, Marsh has raised $1,820.
Marsh said he would like to get local churches involved in government affairs, noting their efficiency and ability to organize.
“Churches are all about accountability. Whatever religious group is in favor of doing good, I’m in favor of,” he said.
He also plans to revise the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance, which amends Chapter 8 of the city Code of Ordinances to include protection from gender discrimination.
The ordinance allows citizens to use bathrooms that suit their gender identity, defined as “an inner sense of being a specific gender” as opposed to biological sex.
Marsh believes the ordinance is too broad and could open the door to sexual predators taking advantage of the provision.
The solution would be to have transgender people acquire doctor confirmation, he said. Marsh said he got the idea when current Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan discussed how people undergoing gender transformation visited doctors to help with the process.
“If a pedophile doesn’t have doctor’s orders, his ass is going to jail,” he said.
Although he remained optimistic about his chances in the race, Marsh insisted that he does not see the race as a stepping stone to higher offices down the road.
“I’m here to serve the people for two terms and get out,” he said . “I’m not going to Congress. I don’t like Washington, D.C. You ever tried to drive there? I’m here to show that the average person can be represented in government.”
