Amber Ware, a 23-year city employee, is running in her first bid for public office, challenging incumbent Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson.

She was born and raised in Fort Myers and graduated from Fort Myers High School. She attended Florida SouthWestern State College (then Edison Community College), and Florida Gulf Coast University, where she earned her bachelor of science in business management. After working for a while at Burdine's department store, she moved to Baltimore for a few years to work for Deutsche Bank.

"And then after 9-11, I came back home," she said. She began working for the city of Fort Myers in 2002 as an administrative assistant, working her way up progressively to become the senior center manager at the STARS complex.

Asked why people should vote her into office, she said, "Most important, because they, like myself, have been tired of our tax dollars going to just about any and everything except for the purposes of what it's there for.

"We should be able to maintain our buildings. We should be able to maintain our infrastructure. We should be able to build new infrastructure with our current tax dollars. And we have not done that these past six years," she said.

"We have pushed projects out year after year that are part of our comprehensive plan in order for our city to maintain growth. And that is an issue because those projects are now more costly and the city will not be able to afford them. It's time for us to put our dollars to work for its citizens, not for the developers, not for all these outside interests, but for the actual citizens that we serve."

More specifically, she mentioned delayed infrastructure for deep well injections and neighborhood utility improvements.

She looks askance at the city's recent decision to raise utility rates when she says there are many neighborhoods that have brown water and constant breaks in their water and sewer lines.

The city also has not built any new recreation centers, she said, and the STARS complex has "outlived its purpose," needing expansion and renovation. She also pointed to the pool and additional recreation facility to be built at Golfview as projects lacking attention.

Ware has been involved in several city projects, including the Brookhill Utility Improvement Project and the downtown utility and streetscape project.

During Anderson's administration, she said, "It's sad to see the actual work within the city come to a complete halt."

The first thing she'd do as mayor is order a complete audit of city finances. The next thing would be "going back to doing the neighborhood utility projects.

"Then actually going out to each ward, explaining to our citizens how our next few years is going to look. Many of our citizens have no idea on what our plan is and how we're going to implement it."

Although she is very concerned about the possible passage of Amendment 3, which would increase the homestead exemption and decrease property tax, she also understands that the citizens "are tired of being overtaxed" and "overassessed."

"However, if that amendment does pass, we're going to have to buckle up our belts and put on our big girl panties and get ready to decrease every single department, make sure that we are running lean and only doing what is absolutely necessary to move our city forward."

She's concerned that a lot of the housing being built isn't affordable and jobs aren't such that families can afford to live here. The solution is to grow business on Palm Beach Boulevard, Fowler Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. "And people who live in these communities can actually have a job nearby them where they don't have to be transported 30 to 40 minutes to go to work down I-75. So they can work near where they live and be able to pay their rent. So their kids can go to school and they can have nice recreational facilities."

She is aware of Anderson's contentions that recent sexual misconduct claims are politically motivated.

"My reaction to that is that it is not a part of my campaign and none of these allegations have come from me nor my campaign. I think he needs to be accountable for any indiscretions that he's had, any laws that he has broken. And time will tell."

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