Candidate Profile: John Colon

LAKEWOOD RANCH – Manatee School Board member John Colon was appointed by Governor Rick Scott to fill a vacancy in 2015, then went unopposed in the next election, which was only for the remaining two years of that term. Colon goes before voters in a contested election for the first time on the August ballot. He'll face James Golden in a two-way non-partisan race for the district 5 seat.

Colon is a senior vice president at Wells Fargo Advisors. He also ran for the Manatee County Commission District 5 seat in 2012, narrowly losing to current incumbent Vanessa Baugh in the Republican primary. Local politics is a small world, as Baugh would go on to defeat Golden in the general election later that year.

Colon has long been politically well-connected, having previously been tapped by Scott for a spot on the Florida Board of Education, which he gave up to take the school board seat. He also has close ties to developers, having been appointed by Scott only after the governor charged his two closest Manatee County allies, Carlos Beruff and Pat Neal, with vetting (read: selecting) a replacement for the late Mary Cantrell.

Colon seemed to repay the favor when he aggressively lobbied for developers in the run up to the board’s indefensible giveaway on school impact fees. While Colon has certainly chosen the developers who installed him over the students, teachers and taxpayers anytime their interests have been opposed, his time on the board hasn’t been all bad–and it should be noted that all of his fellow board members, even those who weren't installed by developers, sided with them on impact fees as well.

In issues that haven’t involved impact fees, Colon’s background in business and finance have given him an obvious edge on most other board members, allowing him to ask important questions on matters that involve things like budgeting, the bonding of debt and vendor contracts.

"I'm the only candidate for school board that has experience in bonding and other areas of high finance, both here and on Wall Street," said Colon. "We've balanced our budget and built up reserves and the financial state of our district is strong right now. I want to continue that work. I want to pay teachers more, which we're now able to do, and I want to make sure we spend the revenues from the extra mil and the sales tax in the ways that were promised."

On hiring a new superintendent, Colon has said that it's important that the next leader is not only well versed on education, but has a solid understanding of financial matters as well. On school safety, he advocates hardening schools as much as increasing officers.

"Some of our campuses are 90 acres," said Colon. "You can't have two officers cover all that, it's impossible. We need to make it harder to get inside the school. We need fences at our elementary schools so that people can't just walk up to the doors. We have the money to spend now, so we need to find out what it costs, put out bids and fence them in. We need metal detectors in our high schools and a single point of entry–with emergency exits that have cameras–so that a kid can't get in with a gun, the way we've seen happen."