Available reports...
  • Q3 10/11/2011
  • Q4 1/10/2012
  • Q1 4/10/2012
  • Q1 4/10/2012
  • Q1 4/10/2012
  • F1 7/13/2012
  • F1 7/13/2012
  • F2 7/27/2012
  • F3 8/10/2012
  • G1 9/21/2012
  • G1 9/21/2012
  • G2 10/5/2012
  • G2 10/5/2012
  • G3 10/19/2012
  • G3 10/19/2012
  • G4 11/2/2012
  • G4 11/2/2012
  • TRG 2/4/2013
Candidate's Statement

Charlie Whitehead has spent almost 30 years in our community and is uniquely qualified to be our county commissioner. He’s a smart, thoughtful man with an ability to weigh all sides of a problem or an issue and build consensus, something that is sadly lacking on today’s Board of County Commissioners. Charlie has been a volunteer for Fort Myers Beach Little League since the 1980’s, the last several years as league president. He served for several years on committees for parks and recreation, facilities management and planning for the county and then for the town of Fort Myers Beach. He’s president of his condo association, the second time he’s answered that call. Charlie has been a volunteer softball coach at Cypress Lake High School, and is a past member of the Beach Elementary School Advisory Committee. Charlie’s 54, married for 23 years to Debbie Sullivan-Whitehead. Debbie works in child care and heads the bus mission at Faith United Methodist Church. She also volunteers for the Bible school there and teaches Sunday School. Debbie is a volunteer elected member of the Fort Myers Beach Library Board. The happy couple has three children, Allison, 20, Rachel 18 and Michael 14. Charlie has a grown son from a previous marriage. David, 34, lives with wife Kristin outside Asheville, North Carolina. Charlie played college football and basketball. He was voted All American as a high school football player, and captained his teams in high school and college. He still plays basketball for fun in a league he helped found in the late 1980’s. Charlie moved to San Carlos Island near Fort Myers Beach in 1986, joining grandmother Grace who was a snowbird here living alone. Charlie landed a job as reporter at the nearby Beach Bulletin weekly newspaper, then a hyper-local hard news publication. He worked there, covering local events and county government until moving to the Bonita Banner in 1989. At the Banner Charlie was senior staff writer, covering county government news and other local events. He was bumped up to the parent Naples Daily News within a year, continuing to cover Lee County as part of what was then a Bonita-based news bureau until 2010. Through those years Charlie developed a well-deserved reputation for fairness, accuracy and balance, becoming steeped in the business of local government and the issues facing us all here in southwest Florida. With the economy tanking and the newspaper industry especially struggling to survive in a changing world Charlie and some other long-time reporters took buy-outs early in 2010. Since then Charlie’s done some freelance writing, some consulting and some carpentry. His carpentry skills have helped support his family throughout his career. He worked as a contractor for defunct Robb & Stucky for most of 20 years, doing project work and helping to open new stores as the company boomed through the 90’s and early 2000’s. In those days it was common for Charlie to work 40 hours or more as a reporter and then tack on another 40 hours of construction work. Typically his paid vacations from the newspaper were spent on the job. He would joke that the construction worker enabled his reporting addiction. Before Allison was born in 1992, Debbie and Charlie agreed she should spend time with the kids when they were young and not work outside the home. She rejoined the work force after Michael graduated from Beach Elementary.
Note: The candidate's photograph and statement are supplied by the candidate and are not endorsed by the County Supervisor of Elections or checked for accuracy.
The following financial reports are available:
Report
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Monetary Contributions In-Kind Contributions Expenditures and Distributions
$1,830.00
$63.55
$157.50
$900.00
$0.00
$478.39
$720.00
$0.00
$0.00
$720.00
$0.00
$203.90
$-720.00
$0.00
$0.00
$1,150.00
$0.00
$3,371.76
$0.00
$0.00
$189.10
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$800.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$197.72
$640.00
$0.00
$696.37
$5.00
$0.00
$0.00
$650.00
$0.00
$360.94
$275.00
$0.00
$0.00
$675.00
$0.00
$1,865.45
$515.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$705.46
Candidate qualifying forms and miscellaneous documents