PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Brett Vickers, a realtor who filed earlier this month to challenge incumbent Gina Driscoll for the St. Petersburg City Council District 6 seat on the ballot this August, is pushing back against allegations that he has violated any election laws when it comes to questions about his legal residency.


What You Need To Know

  • Brett Vickers does not deny he has multiple homes

  • Incumbent Gina Driscoll says her opponent should not be eligible to run for office

  • Vicker claims that Driscoll is shifting the focus away from her district’s crime problem

According to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections office’s website, Vickers officially moved his voting residence from Gulfport to St. Petersburg late last month – just a week before he announced his candidacy, which he does not dispute.

The St. Petersburg City Charter (Sec 5.04) says that a candidate for council has to have been living in the declared district “for at least the past twelve (12) months or that, as of the date of the primary election,’ which is August 24.

“My wife and I have been very fortunate and blessed to be able to have multiple residences,” Vickers told Spectrum Bay News on Friday in addressing the allegations. “We have owned a condo at Bayfront Tower for three or four years. It’s all public record. And then we purchased a home in Roser Park after we sold our home (in Gulfport), because we’re going to make some changes as far as our real estate holdings.”

However, Driscoll does not agree.

“The law is very clear,” says Driscoll. “You have to live where you vote. You have to vote where you live. If you voted in Gulfport and were a Gulfport resident six months ago in the November election, then you’re not eligible to run for city council because you have to be a resident twelve months prior to the primary.”

Driscoll adds that if Vickers says he was legally residing in St. Petersburg last year, then he committed voter fraud by voting in St. Petersburg when he was registered to vote in Gulfport.

Florida Statute 104.011 says that submitting false voter registration information is a third-degree felony.

Vickers, a native of Long Island, New York, has been a business owner and entrepreneur for decades. He owned a former NBA D-League team and has consulted teams on sales and marketing in other professional sports leagues. He says that Driscoll is bringing up the issue about his legal residency now because she wants to take away the focus from the real issues that are affecting St. Petersburg voters, especially those on the south side.

“I think that time is our biggest resource, and somebody told me you can buy a clock, but you can’t buy time,” he says. “So I think her resources should be better spent in other areas while she is a member of city council, particularly when our murder rate has gone through the roof in sections of her district. Particularly when that area still needs some economic stimulus when the rest of the city is flourishing. It’s obviously being left behind. It’s her district. I would think that she would be more focused on using her resources in those areas.”

Driscoll says she’s proud of her tenure in office and her campaign, and says if she is going to have a challenger this year she hopes “it’s a legitimate opponent who is an actual resident of St Petersburg and has been within the legal limit.”

St. Petersburg political strategist and talk-show host Barry Edwards says that the city’s charter is “fairly vague and lacks an automatic penalty for violations” and says it would be up to a citizen to challenge the certification of Vickers’ candidacy. 

More relevant, he says, is that a candidate for office cannot have multiple residences and that they must attest that they are residents of the city and (in this case) District Six a year prior to the Aug. 24 primary.

Any potential voter fraud issues he says would be investigated by Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett.