{"id":117110,"date":"2026-01-14T00:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117110\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:35:08","slug":"who-will-replace-james-taylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117110\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will replace James Taylor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Tuesday marks the final day of the special runoff election for the Fort Pierce District 2 city commissioner seat<\/a>. The race extended into the new year after none of the candidates won the first election. <\/p>\n

Early voting ran Jan. 3-10 at Renaissance Business Park, and today is voters’ last chance to cast their ballot. Polls close at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Residents will now choose between Chris Dzadovsky, who served as a St. Lucie County Commissioner for 16 years, and Jaimebeth Galinis, a senior director at BD, a Fortune 500 medical device company. Dzadovsky took around 40% of the vote during the first election, with Galinis winning around 31% of the vote.<\/p>\n

We asked both candidates how they would improve the economic development in Fort Pierce. Here’s how they responded:<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand how these developers work. They want to be able to make a profit. That’s understandable. Development is coming, but it’s going to be appropriate for Fort Pierce. Fort Pierce is a 125-year-old city, and it has character. It has character that needs to be retained,\u201d Dzadovsky said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for me, I’m going to be trying to hold on to that character, hold on to those larger lot sizes. And like I said before, bringing that economic development to the west, that King’s Highway Corridor,\u201d Galinis responded.<\/p>\n

The election follows the arrest of James Taylor in July of 2025 for allegedly having sexual communications with a 12-year-old girl on Snapchat. He resigned from his commission seat shortly after. Fort Pierce District 2 has only had one representative since his resignation in August.<\/p>\n

One voter says they want the next candidate to bring transparency to the commissioner seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur city has had this huge cloud over it for years. We’ve had a lot of issues with the commissioners, and as you know, about. We’ve had issues with the police department. We’ve got issues with the building department. We’ve got just the police, a lot of issues of dishonesty,\u201d said Fort Pierce resident John Jacobs.<\/p>\n

Another told CBS12 News the commissioners have to remember who they work for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you have to listen to the people. I mean, they’re elected to represent us. And I think in terms of the issues, you look at what the people need, what we need as a society, what the local community needs,\u201d Tom Armstrong said as he left the Westside Church polling location.<\/p>\n

Voting takes place on Tuesday until 7 pm. You can find a list of polling locations on the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also on Tuesday, voters in Palm Beach County<\/a> are heading to the polls for a special election for state House District 87, which has been vacant since August when Rep. Mike Caruso was appointed<\/a> Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller for Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n

Check back later for the results of this election on CBS12 after polls close and the votes are tabulated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Tuesday marks the final day of the special runoff election for the Fort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-117110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}