FORT PIERCE — Fort Pierce District 2 city commission candidate Chris Dzadovsky said Friday he will donate half of his 2025-26 city salary to help defray the cost of the Nov. 4 special election if he’s elected.
Dzadovsky said his plan uses roughly a half-year of salary the city did not pay to former Commissioner James Taylor III after he resigned in late July after being charged with multiple felonies for alleged online child exploitation of an Illinois minor.
That savings, added to the amount Dzadovsky says he’ll donate, if elected, should be enough to cover the unexpected cost of the Nov. 4 election.
The two other candidates running in the Nov. 4 primary are Donna Diehl Benton and Jaimebeth Galinis.
The Fort Pierce City Commission has already allocated up to $60,000 to cover the estimated cost of running both a Nov. 4 primary election, plus a Jan. 13 runoff ballot if one of the three announced candidates fails to garner a simple majority of the votes cast in the primary.
If no single candidate gets 50 percent plus one vote Nov. 4, a second election takes place in January where just the top two vote-getters advance.
The city commission just approved a 5 percent salary hike for the four commission jobs earlier this month, bringing their annual salary to $32,760.
“I would give up the first half of my pay to cover the cost of a special election,” Dzadovsky told Hometown News Friday. “I would donate it back to help the city.”
Dzadovsky said he’s urging District 2 voters to give one of the three candidates a simple majority to avoid the need for a runoff on Jan. 13.
“The voters need to really take this to be crisis mode so that one person can be elected and be ready to start on Nov. 5,” he said. “The issues facing the city are too critical to wait another three months to get to work.”
Dzadovsky previously served 16 years on the St. Lucie County Board of Commissioners; his district included all of the City of Fort Pierce. He was defeated for re-election to the county board by James Clasby in 2024.
He also unsuccessfully applied when Fort Pierce was looking for a new city manager following the 2024 arrest of former city manager Nicholas Mimms.
The deadline to request a ballot by mail has passed and early voting begins Saturday through Nov. 1.
Both Taylor and Mimms have pleaded not guilty and are out on bond awaiting trial.