Long-time teacher PJ Perez is running for Tallahassee City Commission Seat 3, one of six candidates seeking the seat ahead of the August primary election.<\/p>\n
WFSU\u2019s Tristan Wood spoke with Perez on Candidate Convos, a digital series of one-on-one interviews with local candidates in Tallahassee and Leon County ahead of the August primaries.<\/p>\n
You can watch Perez\u2019s full appearance on Candidate Convos here:<\/p>\n
During the conversation, Perez said Tallahassee\u2019s \u201ctown and gown\u201d dynamic can make it difficult for some college graduates to feel connected to the broader community after leaving school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think too many people stay in this kind of college town curated Disney-style bubble sphere, where they don’t really put themselves in the community, and they’re kind of leaning more on the gown and less on the town part,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Perez said supporting local businesses and creating stronger community connections could help Tallahassee build an identity beyond being known only as a college town.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can’t have just copy-paste national chains all around. It’s not really inspiring for people to want to stick around if we’re no different from any other town,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When asked about the Tallahassee City Commission\u2019s often-discussed 3-2 split, Perez said many residents are more concerned with affordability and quality-of-life issues than political divisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think most people just want to know where the next meal is going to come from, or how we’re going to tackle affordability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Perez is facing Maxwell Herrle, Talethia Edwards, Tom Derzypolski, Norme Roche, and Darryl “Dar” Alfred. in the race for City Commission Seat 3. The primary election is on August 18th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-time teacher PJ Perez is running for Tallahassee City Commission Seat 3, one of six candidates seeking the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-343475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343475","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=343475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}