Democrat Gary Petit-Dor facing Penny Taylor in lopsided race for Collier Commission

For Gary Petit-Dor, watching his mother’s struggles as a migrant laborer in the fields near Immokalee, working early mornings and late nights to get by, has informed much of how he views Collier County’s current challenges.

Clairsomen Petit-Dor, 65, who still works at Six L’s Packing house after coming to Collier from Haiti in the 1980s, would always tell her son a Creole proverb that translates to: ‘Swim and you’ll make it out.’

“And it’s just keep fighting. Keep fighting,” said Petit-Dor, 30.

Petit-Dor, a financial adviser, has thrown himself into a race for county commissioner as a Democrat, attempting to defeat Republican incumbent Penny Taylor for the District 4 seat.

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The district encompasses the area west of Interstate 75 between Pine Ridge Road and Davis Boulevard, and includes Naples and a slice of land known as the Bayshore/Gateway Triangle in East Naples.

Born and raised in Collier, Petit-Dor hopes his message of being a voice and advocate for working-class residents will resonate with voters come Nov. 6 as he faces a likely uphill battle in a county that has long been a GOP stronghold.

To Petit-Dor, the concerns of lower-income residents who have to work during the day and can’t attend commission meetings or workshops have gone unheard in the past. He wants to change that. 

In his mind, there is a disconnect between the current commission and those who struggle with increasing rents and flat wages. 

“It drew me to say, ‘Man, we have to have someone at the table who experienced what we experienced, who has an ear for what we are concerned about,’” Petit-Dor said. “And I want to be able to be that person.”

Petit-Dor, who is running for office for the first time, will face an opponent running on her extensive experience in local politics.

Taylor, who defeated Republican challenger Stephen Jaron in the August primary election, is a former longtime Naples councilwoman who was elected county commissioner for District 4 in 2014.

"I'm a proven entity," Taylor told the Daily News ahead of the Aug. 28 primary.

Candidates: Affordable housing needed

One of Petit-Dor’s biggest concerns is providing more affordable housing to allow Collier’s working-class residents to remain in the county where they’ve grown up.

“We wanted to understand, ‘Wow, is Collier County a place where we can work and live or is it only a place that’s calling us to work here, but making it unaffordable to live here,’” he said. “So I wanted to see as a working man, I still have a full-time job, how can this change?”

Petit-Dor said he would favor incentives for developers to build more affordable housing projects in Collier, possibly by offering density credits. Though the topic of affordable housing has been discussed for many years, Petit-Dor said he has seen little action from commissioners on solving the issue. 

“Affordable housing is just making the rent affordable,” he said. “That’s all that it is. It’s not a different shape. It’s not a different color. It’s just putting, maybe a limit as to how much one can capitalize on the needs of the residents.”

More:Affordable housing proposals are moved forward by Collier County Commission

He fears that as Collier’s local residents are pushed out to live outside the county, the area will lose some of its character. Development of all forms has been springing up around Collier over the years, Petit-Dor argues, everything except affordable housing. 

“We’re continually building a store, a Walmart, a Sweetbay, a senior facility, now a sports facility,” he said. “So Collier County is always building. We’re just not building housing for our working class. That’s all we’re not building.”

His opponent, too, has maintained that more affordable housing is needed.

Taylor, 69, identified the county’s high cost of land as likely the “biggest underlying issue” when it comes to providing affordable housing.

“We have a challenge about affordable housing,” she said.

Taylor has said the effects of the lack of affordable housing are “going to become more apparent,” adding that Arthrex’s announcement last year about its expansion to South Carolina was at least in part based on “affordable housing and lack of training.”

“If we can’t keep our kids here, who are we going to train?” she said.

Solutions could include expedited zoning, and establishing a housing trust fund “would be very helpful,” Taylor has said.

More:Brent Batten: More changes rolled out as county looks for ways to make housing affordable

Commissioners, including Taylor, pressed forward on the county’s effort to create more affordable housing earlier this month. 

They directed staff to continue to flesh out a handful of proposals, ranging from providing regulatory relief for certain housing applications to increasing density — the number of units that can be built per acre — in redevelopment areas and along transit corridors.

Petit-Dor candidacy inspired by his mother

The middle child of three, Petit-Dor grew up in Immokalee raised by his mother.

Her hard labor and continued struggle to care for her family left a lasting impression on him. It’s what pushed him to pursue business and empower others by teaching them financial literacy. 

“Seeing somebody wake up 6 a.m., 5 a.m., work all the way till 2 o’clock in the morning the next day, it really struck me to see that it’s not that you have to just be a hard worker,” Petit-Dor said. “But you have to understand the game of finance in America.”

After moving with his older brother to Naples to attend Golden Gate and Naples high schools, Petit-Dor left Collier after graduation in 2006 to study business at Tallahassee Community College. He returned after a few years due to some health issues his mother was having.

“Coming back, helping, working,” Petit-Dor said. “Trying to pay some of the bills with her. And then after that I just started to work more and more full time.”

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His two businesses, Trust Matters Financial Solutions and Kredit Keys, LLC, offer financial consulting to customers and include tax preparation and credit repair services. He also works as a sales consultant at Naples Nissan. 

To foster economic development in Collier, Petit-Dor said he would like to see more workshops for residents and local small businesses to help them understand how they can bid on county projects.

“How do I do that? How do I qualify? What are some requirements that I need to meet?” he said.

Petit-Dor said he would also like to help encourage opportunities for on-the-job training and organize events in lower-income communities to bring more resources to residents there.

More:Learn about Collier Commission District 4 candidate Penny Taylor

Taylor has stressed diversifying the county’s economy, which leans heavily on tourism, by bringing “21st-century manufacturing” to Collier. She also supports workforce-training initiatives by the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce and the Collier County School District and creating “shovel-ready” sites to attract prospective companies.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Taylor and her family moved to the U.S. in the mid-1960s, bouncing among Naples, Fort Lauderdale and then South Carolina, where she finished high school. Her dad worked as a salesman. Her mom was a housewife tending to Taylor and her younger sister.

Taylor received her bachelor's degree in English from the University of South Florida in 1971 and moved to New York City, where she lived for seven years and got involved in photography. 

With her mother in Naples, Taylor came to Collier in the late 1970s and worked as a photojournalist with the Naples Daily News before opening her own photography business a few years later.

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Democrats face uphill battle for office

In Republican-leaning Collier, Democratic candidates for county commission often face a steep challenge.

Since 2000, none of the seven Democrats vying for a seat on the commission has succeeded, according to the Collier Supervisor of Elections Office. The last time a Democrat was elected commissioner was in 1980 when Mary Frances Kruze won the District 3 race.

In the current race, Taylor has thoroughly out-raised Petit-Dor, amassing almost $79,000 in contributions compared to his $6,700. 

Petit-Dor is aware of the tall task.

“I know it’s going to take a team effort,” he said.

He also knows that, if elected, he would be the first African-American commissioner in Collier and wants others in the county’s minority communities to know that the goal of public office is attainable. 

“In my community we’ve never seen an African-American hold that seat,” Petit-Dor said. “And many of them just, many of us, have that mindset of we won’t win. And I don’t want that to continue to be the mindset.”