All 10 candidates vying for 4 seats on the Fort Walton Beach City Council participated in a public forum Monday evening at The Venue at Beach Weekend, answering questions on topics ranging from the city’s budget and reserves to homeless services, infrastructure and the 3% spending cap.

• The forum, hosted by Beach Weekend and moderated by Bobby Nabors, used a blind format designed to address past concerns about fairness. Each candidate drew a number to determine their speaking order, then randomly selected a question from a pool of 10.

“In the past there’s been concerns about picking on certain candidates or giving other people harder questions, so we’re going completely blind tonight,” Nabors said.

Each candidate was given three minutes to answer their question. Brandon Bishop, who was on a pre-planned family vacation, joined via phone.

“We’re fortunate to have representation from all the candidates tonight,” Nabors said.

Matt Turpin

Turpin drew the first question of the evening: Does he support the rollback rate or the rate proposed by council in last week’s 4-3 vote with the mayor breaking the tie? If he supports the rollback rate, what projects, positions or expenditures would he like to see cut?

“I do support the rollback rate, but we have to be very smart in how we spend our money,” Turpin said, adding that the city needs to be “good stewards of the taxpayer’s money,” particularly over the next couple of years.

He said road repairs should be among the city’s highest-priority projects but drew a firm line on public safety.

“I would not be for cutting our first responder services. I would not be a fan of cutting city staff,” he said. “I believe that Fort Walton Beach should be a city. That’s why those that live in the city decide to live in the city — for those amenities, for first responders, not farmed-out first responders.”

Gloria DeBerry (incumbent)

DeBerry was asked how the city should handle its reserves after using them to fund the budget for multiple years. Are there efficiencies or cuts on the table — and are any off the table?

DeBerry praised new City Manager Jason Davis, who has been in the role for about a year, saying, “He has done amazingly well.”

DeBerry told the audience she came from a poor family, commuted 60 miles one way to nursing school while raising children as a single parent, and still lives in the same house she bought in 1970. She said both of her children earned master’s degrees and her grandchildren are engineers.

• “We have to tighten our belt,” DeBerry said. “Do we need twice-a-week garbage pickup? No.”

DeBerry also floated the idea of potentially selling the current library building and relocating the library to the western end of Holmes Boulevard, where she said there would be more room to spread out. She emphasized that closing the library is not on the table.

“I don’t wanna close the library, but I wanna be more efficient,” she said, pointing to the high utility costs associated with the current building.

Steve Caldarelli

Caldarelli was asked what he believes the city is doing well, what it is not doing well and the root cause of its successes and failures.

“I would say money management is probably one of the things that the city is not doing well,” Caldarelli said, citing his degree in business finance. “I see over-budgeting in certain areas, and I don’t know where the money goes after that.”

On the positive side, he praised the city’s water and sewer services, saying every time he has had an issue, crews have responded quickly. Caldarelli, who works at Emerald Bay, also said he would like to see the city’s golf course managed as “a more championship-style golf course,” noting it is already generating revenue.

Tyler Capelotti

Capelotti’s question centered on the aging City Hall facility — whether he has toured it, discussed conditions with staff and whether it is time to start planning for a replacement or upgrade.

He said he has visited City Hall, met with all department heads and sat down with City Manager Jason Davis and staff to identify pain points. He acknowledged the facility’s condition, referencing photos of leaks and past flooding.

“The city of Fort Walton Beach is on the cusp right here, and who you elect and who you put in this next seat is gonna determine whether we remain a city or if we unincorporate,” he said.

He said he supports guardrails on spending but opposes policies he considers harmful to the city’s long-term health.

• “I’m not for open spending and an open checkbook. I’m for guardrails that keep restraints in place, but no city should have a policy that is detrimental to it,” Capelotti said.

He also took aim at what he described as “a certain group of special interest people that are burned up about things that were done in the past,” saying he didn’t agree with those past decisions either but believes the protections now in place — such as measures to prevent another fire fee — are sufficient.

Capelotti said he received a text from someone offering their endorsement that read, “We’re a bunch of wealthy, big landowners. Come with us. The city doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not what I’m here for. I care about this city. I love this city,” Capelotti said.

He called for a change in tone on the council, saying he wants “healthier discourse” and, as a realtor, “a better representation of my profession in this city.”

Schuyler Black

Black was asked about the city’s involvement in supporting homeless services, specifically organizations like One Hopeful Place and Bridgeway Center. Should the city be doing more, less or about the same?

“I do believe, as a Christian man, that it’s my job to help out those who are less fortunate,” Black said. “But we also have a contingent of those vagrants that don’t look for help. They’re looking for a handout.”

He said he supports the city providing a hand up to people who are down on their luck but also supports the Fort Walton Beach Police Department’s enforcement of vagrancy laws.

Black then shifted to a defense of city services, noting he pays $895 a year to the city compared to $572 he said he would pay for Ocean City-Wright Fire in the unincorporated county. He calculated the difference at 88 cents a day for police, fire, water, sanitation, parks, recreation, library and events.

• “88 cents is absolutely worth it,” Black said.

He also suggested the city could generate significant revenue by getting more creative with its Community Redevelopment Agency funds, pointing to large-scale events at The Landing or the Freedom Tech Center as examples.

“One event could raise half a million dollars in this city and make up a big budget deficit,” Black said.

Glen Guarin

Guarin was asked whether the city has a responsibility to provide recreational and cultural opportunities to its citizens, following recent questions about library funding.

He said he believes strongly in providing those services but argued they must be prioritized against other spending.

• “Should a library receive funding over a fire department? I would have the fire department funded first,” Guarin said. “Should the library receive funding over a golf course? One thousand percent every day, all day.”

He also said he would prioritize library and parks funding over police and fire boats already available through other agencies in the area and over sports tourism.

Guarin said he wants to see a return to neighborhood parks and expressed support for the 3% spending cap, comparing it to a cap on a bottle of soda.

“The cap just provides protection,” he said. “You can open the cap if you need something out of it, and you just pour out a referendum vote to the voters. I trust you to make the right decisions.”

Denise Dierker

Dierker was asked about consolidation of city services, specifically fire, and whether she sees a benefit to consolidation or prefers the city maintain control of its public works.

She answered with a personal story about calling Fort Walton Beach police and fire for a medical emergency involving her mother.

“They were there within minutes. I couldn’t even get a shirt on her before they arrived at our door,” Dierker said.

She contrasted that experience with calling for help at a property she owns in the unincorporated county, where she said she received an automated recording followed by a lengthy wait.

“I absolutely do not want to consolidate our services,” Dierker said. “This is why we chose to live in the City of Fort Walton Beach.”

Jeff Pendleton

Pendleton was asked whether he supports the renewal of the half-cent infrastructure surtax approved by Okaloosa County voters in 2018 and how he would like to see those funds spent within the city.

He opened by highlighting the scale of the city’s aging infrastructure.

• “Does anyone in here know how many miles of clay pipe reside within the city of Fort Walton Beach?” Pendleton asked. “It’s 312 miles.”

He said he supports the surtax renewal as long as funds are spent as intended and not moved between accounts.

“Those jars have a number and a name on it. We can’t keep interchanging those jars of money whenever we see fit,” he said.

Pendleton said the city should present a financial statement at every council meeting showing surtax collections, reserve balances and other key figures, similar to what he said other cities in the area already do.

“Everyone that you guys have elected have the right to know where that money is and to be held accountable to you guys, the voters,” he said.

He described himself as “a political nobody” and a lifelong first responder with 28 and a half years of service as a firefighter, EMT and police officer.

Payne Walker (incumbent)

Walker drew a question about the 3% spending cap — where he stands on it, how it has worked in curbing spending and whether it has accomplished its desired goal.

Walker, who said he is a member of the FWB Watch Group that pushed for the cap, outlined the history behind it. He said the group gathered more than 1,400 petitions after what he described as the council’s refusal to slow the rate of spending growth, despite residents packing City Hall meetings to ask for relief.

“If you won’t listen to us, we will tell you how to do it,” Walker said, describing the group’s message to the council.

• He said the council at the time took citizens to court to try to stop the 3% cap, but that voters passed it overwhelmingly in November 2024.

Walker also raised what he described as an unresolved dispute over how the cap is applied. He said voters intended the 3% limit to be based on the prior year’s actual expenses, but the current council is applying it to budgeted amounts.

He pointed to City Manager Jason Davis’s response on how the cap has curbed spending. Walker said Davis reported that no employees were fired but that staff were moved between departments and some unfilled positions were cut. Walker called funding unfilled positions “one of the gaming tactics of the budget.”

He also pointed to a study he said he conducted this week, saying “it appears as though they have over-budgeted $15.64 million for personnel” over the last 11 years — which he said amounts to taxpayers being over-taxed by that amount.

“It is curbing spending,” Walker said.

He said he believes the cap’s full impact will play out over the next three to five years as the city is forced to examine core services versus non-core services.

Brandon Bishop (via phone)

Bishop, who joined the forum by phone from a family vacation, was asked to give examples of the city’s funding sources, explain how they can be used and whether the city is managing them well.

He pointed to the cemetery fund as an example of a revenue stream that should not have been tapped for other purposes, referencing the council’s recent decision to use it toward City Hall costs.

• “I think that’s how a city ought to be run. You ought to only pull out of that fund,” Bishop said, comparing it to how a family budgets by earmarking money for specific bills.

He said he is “not opposed to” keeping the sales tax to fund infrastructure and emphasized the importance of planning ahead rather than waiting for emergencies.

“If you wait last minute, there’s gonna be emergencies that come up, and then it’s gonna cost more to fix,” Bishop said.

He also echoed Black’s suggestion of hosting events at The Landing and other venues to generate additional revenue.

Following the question-and-answer session, Nabors said all 10 questions would be distributed to the candidates, who would have the opportunity to answer each one and publish their responses on the event site and their own platforms.

The general election is scheduled for Nov. 3.