Smith launches campaign to take Manatee County’s District 2 seat back from Bellamy
In a rematch of the 2018 election, Charles Smith, a former board member on the Manatee County Commission has entered the race to replace the same candidate who unseated him.
Smith, who served one term on the board, filed paperwork to run against Commissioner Reggie Bellamy for the District 2 seat. Both candidates are running as Democrats, setting up a showdown in the 2022 primary election.
As of Monday, a Republican candidate has not entered the race.
Reached for comment Monday afternoon, Smith and Bellamy both declined to comment on Smith’s candidacy. Smith, who filed his official paperwork Sept. 20, noted that it’s still early in the campaign and will share more details about his platform at a later date.
After filing for re-election in August, Bellamy has raised more than $6,000, according to campaign finance records. Smith has not reported any contribution, as of Monday afternoon.
Bellamy took Smith’s spot on the county board after Smith raised unsubstantiated concerns about Bellamy’s performance as the executive director of the Palmetto Youth Center. In response, Bellamy launched a successful campaign to replace Smith.
According to the Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Office, Bellamy defeated Smith by a narrow 4% margin of about 200 votes.
Smith previously served four terms on the Palmetto City Commission before running in 2014 to represent District 2, which includes parts of Bradenton, Palmetto and Ellenton, on the Manatee Board of County Commissioners.
Sparks flew throughout the campaign as Bellamy and Smith clashed over their differences. Smith, who claimed that Bellamy wasn’t active enough in the community for his organization to receive taxpayer funding, demanded his resignation from the Palmetto Youth Center.
But the Palmetto Youth Center’s board stood behind Bellamy, who addressed Smith and the rest of the county commissioners to respond to the complaints during a public meeting in February 2018.
“The only thing I’ve done is to serve my community,” Bellamy said at the time. “Helping kids and individuals so I can impact their lives and make them become better individuals.”
Even after voters chose Bellamy over Smith, the unseated commissioner continued to lob accusations against Bellamy. Following the primary election, Smith filed a complaint with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office arguing that Bellamy had purposefully left certain expenditures out of his campaign finance reports.
Because $832 worth of bulk mail fliers weren’t included in Bellamy’s report, Smith contested that he would have altered his campaign strategy if he had known that Bellamy was using mail advertisements.
The sheriff’s office concluded that Bellamy’s amended reports did not break the law. The county’s elections office also noted that candidates often amend their financial reports, but Smith claimed that Bellamy had “stolen” the election.
More recently, Smith expressed a similar concern over the results of an election after he lost his mayoral bid in the city of Palmetto to Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant in November 2020. Despite losing that race by 2,000 votes, Smith paid $3,000 to review every ballot at the elections office and double-check the count to “find out if it was accurate or not.” According to the elections office, Smith’s ballot review did not result in an official complaint.
Because they are both running as Democrats, Bellamy and Smith are expected to face one another in the primary election on Aug. 23, 2022.
This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 3:33 PM.
