PORT CHARLOTTE \u2014 A conservative and an independent compete for County Commission District 4.<\/p>\n
The seat is currently held by Commissioner Stephen R. Deutsch. The Nov. 3 election will determine who will take his place.<\/p>\n
Both Kim Amontree and Michael Melton value helping the community and have similar goals, but their backgrounds differ. So do their campaign finances.<\/p>\n
KIM AMONTREE<\/p>\n
Amontree served as the District 2 representative for the Charlotte County School Board before running in the County Commission race. She is a registered Republican.<\/p>\n
Amontree has lived in the community for 35 years. She said her biggest concerns are property tax increases and improving the region\u2019s infrastructure to match growth and storm resistance.<\/p>\n
Amontree said she wants to keep the waterways clean and impose term limits for government positions. She also plans to keep the commission seat from controversy.<\/p>\n
Amontree calls herself a fiscal conservative and wants to reduce government spending.<\/p>\n
The total Amontree campaign contributions as of Oct. 16 are $213,220 \u2014 an 11-to-1 ratio compared to Melton\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
Notable contributors include Republican office holders like State Rep. Danny Nix Jr., Commissioner Christopher G. Constance, The Truex Family Trust, which is associated with Commissioner Bill Truex, and Friends of Amira Fox, who is the State Attorney for District 20.<\/p>\n
MICHAEL MELTON<\/p>\n
Melton owns and operates Enterprise Engineering Service, an engineering firm in Charlotte County. He was born and raised in Englewood.<\/p>\n
Melton wants to approach the County Commission seat with the perspective of a local engineer.<\/p>\n
Melton\u2019s priorities include responsible growth, hurricane resiliency and updating county infrastructure. He also wants to keep the water clean.<\/p>\n
As a no-party affiliated candidate, Melton says he is not a fan of the two-party system and wants to bring in a different perspective to the local government.<\/p>\n
As of Oct. 16, Melton\u2019s campaign raised $19,673. The largest donation was Melton\u2019s own contribution of $5,000 on July 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT CHARLOTTE \u2014 A conservative and an independent compete for County Commission District 4. The seat is currently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,5665,30347,2715,152091,173562],"class_list":["post-445949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-county-commission","tag-county-commissioners","tag-elections","tag-kim-amontree","tag-michael-melton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445949","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=445949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}