California nurse, political unknown files for Tallahassee City Commission race
Donna Nyack, a longtime registered nurse from California who popped up in Tallahassee last year, has filed to run for City Commission Seat 2. Donna Nyack, a longtime registered nurse from California, has filed to run for City Commission Seat 2 in Tallahassee, despite keeping her low-profile. She pre-qualified for the ballot on May 31 and will have met all filing requirements by the end of qualifying week. Despite living in a rented house in Betton Hills, Nyack has not responded to media requests for information or interviews. She has been licensed as a nurse in California since at least 1996 and her current license expires in 2025. She paid a qualifying fee of $452.87 to appear on the ballot, identified herself with a Florida driver’s license and stated in her candidate oath that she had no outstanding fines, fees or penalties exceeding $250. accusations have been cast against her.
发表 : 10 个月前 经过 , Tallahassee Democrat 在 Politics
An apparent newcomer to politics — if not the city of Tallahassee itself — has filed to run for City Commission Seat 2, though she’s keeping her candidacy low-profile at best for now.
Donna Nyack, a longtime registered nurse from the Bakersfield, California, area, filed to run for the post on May 28. She pre-qualified for the ballot on May 31, which means she will have met all her filing requirements by the time qualifying week begins Monday.
Nyack, 58, resides in a rented house in Betton Hills, where she moved in last year. The Black Republican registered to vote for the first time in Leon County on Dec. 28, 2023, according to records from the Supervisor of Elections Office.
She hasn't responded to phone calls or emails from the Tallahassee Democrat and didn't answer the door last week when a newspaper reporter knocked. Nyack has been similarly unresponsive to requests for information or interviews from other media outlets and members of the public.
Nyack doesn't appear to be well known in the neighborhood where she resides or local Republican circles. A simple Google search turns up next to nothing about her beyond her connection to a public health-care entity in Kern County, an area in California that leans conservative.
Records from the California Department of Consumer Affairs show she has been licensed as a nurse in the state since at least 1996. Her current license, which lists her city as Bakersfield, expires in 2025. There were no disciplinary records against her.
Nyack paid a qualifying fee of $452.87 to appear on the ballot, according to her campaign paperwork. She identified herself with a Florida driver’s license and stated in her candidate oath that she had no outstanding fines, fees or penalties exceeding $250.
She listed her net worth at $353,000 on her financial disclosure form, which she had to submit to qualify for the ballot. She listed her primary source of income as Kern Health Systems, an independent public agency that manages the health plans of more than 350,000 members, and her salary at $110,977.
Her reticence to discuss her campaign prompted accusations from the Leon County Democratic Party and others that she was a GOP "ghost candidate," recruited to perhaps upset the electoral math of the Seat 2 race. Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida and the Leon County GOP, did not respond to questions about her.
City Commissioner Curtis Richardson, who's running for re-election, is facing a challenge from former City Commissioner Dot Inman-Johnson and a lesser-known candidate, Bernard Stevens, who's raised only $250.
If one of the candidates doesn't get over the 50% mark in the August 20 primary, the top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 5 general election. More candidates in the race makes it less likely that one person will win the primary outright.
City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow, a vocal supporter of Inman-Johnson, was among those casting doubt on the legitimacy of Nyack’s candidacy.
“This doesn’t pass the smell test,” Matlow said on a June 4 post on Twitter/X.