The ultra conservative political group County Citizens Defending Freedom-Nassau is proposing a retired local financial expert become the next city manager of Fernandina Beach.
The businessman is David Howe, a former Fidelity financial executive now retired and living in Fernandina Beach.
In a March 29 email from CCDF-Nassau Executive
Director Jack Knocke to a group of CCDF-members Knocke wrote:
"There is a local guy who could be an excellent City Manager. He was a CFO for Fidelity in Japan, Treasurer for a school district in Vermont and Treasurer for a City in Vermont. He lives here now and wants to help our city. Everyone he has met locally has been super impressed. With the current timing, David could be an interim city manager working with Foxworth and then on his own to try him out.
"I would like to introduce him to y’all. Let me know if you are up for a group meeting. - Jack"
Also receiving the email were two members of the Citizens City Manager Search Committee charged with vetting city manager applicants and then making a recommendation on finalists to the City Commission. The two committee members were Steve Simmons appointed by Vice Mayor David Sturges and Tim Poynter appointed by Commissioner James Antun. The Citizens Committee will hold its first meeting April 17.
"CCDF-Nassau has no position on Mr. Howe. He came to me with an interest in helping the city – even volunteering as an unpaid consultant. Whether he wants to be a candidate for City Manager is up to David," Knocke said in an email to the Fernandina Observer. "I was introduced to someone with strong credentials and a great attitude. I forwarded his information."
Howe said he was unaware of the CCDF Knocke email and knows nothing about the organization.
"I stay out of politics, I haven't looked at them," he said.
Howe's name was first raised by Knocke in a February text to Mayor Bradley Bean.
According to text records obtained by the Fernandina Observer, on February 24, Knocke texted Mayor Bean of a financial expert named David Howe. Knocke texted "David Howe is a financial and municipal treasury expert may be willing to assist FB team on budgets for no cost."
Howe said he purchased his Fernandina Beach home in 2020 and became a fulltime resident in November of 2022.
"I want to help and I care for this town," Howe said,
Howe's resume states he was Fidelity Investments' Japan chief financial officer in the late 1990s responsible for meeting Ministry of Finance financial reporting requirements, implementation of business plan, and
budget forecast. Howe says "The successful creation of this new company is considered a major milestone in Fidelity’s corporate history."
He was director of operations for Finance Fidelity Capital, the Venture Capital Arm of Fidelity.
In this position, Howe says "I worked directly with entrepreneurs and Fidelity Capital’s to improve financial performance of Fidelity startups. I managed a small staff that was responsible for financial and business valuations for Fidelity’s investments."
Howe also lists municipal and public service experience in Vermont from 2000 to 2015.
He was elected Town of Fairfield treasurer. He says "In this position, I identified (discovered) spending practices that
were contrary to the state code. This work led to the town conducting annual audits of town financial records."
He was on the School Board of Franklin County and worked for about seven years to improve student education and to control spending in Vermont. He wrote "As a school board member, I discovered that those who control the budget process control the agenda."
He also served as a United Way board member in Franklin County and a board member of Northwestern Counselling & Support Services.
Howe said he has been meeting with people in Fernandina Beach on "both sides of the aisle."
He is adamant that we won't apply for the city manager's position unless he is asked to do so by all five city commissioners.
"I also won't take the job unless it's a unanimous 5-0 vote by the commission," Howe said.
According to a Burlington Free Press story in 2015, "David Howe grew up in northern Minnesota on a defunct dairy farm. He studied chemical engineering at the University of North Dakota and went to graduate school at Cornell, where he got his MBA. He fell in love with Vermont when he was a graduate student at Cornell and he traveled here to compete in ski competitions. After moving overseas to work in finance, he decided that when he returned to the United States, he would make Vermont his home."
Howe did exactly that in 2000 when he purchased a farm in East Fairfield, Vt., and for the next 22 years his 532-acre farm produced organic hay and maple sap. "Our farm has also created a first - 'Rail Dog' - Barrel Aged Maple Spirit. This is a first of its kind as it is made from 100 percent maple sugar," Howe states on the resume.
Knocke has been frequently contacting Mayor Bean about such topics as moving the city elections, not having an interim city manager appoint a new police chief and various city policies according to public records.
CCDF-Nassau was active in the 2022 City Commission elections sending candidates a questionnaire on such issues as critical race theory, gay rights, abortion and Civil War monuments. The group endorsed Commissioners Darron Ayscue and Antun after they answered they opposed all of the listed cultural issues.
Media outlets have said CCDF is "The group calls itself an organization that empowers and equips American citizens to defend their freedoms and liberties at the local level. CCDF has been involved in efforts to remove books from school libraries in Polk County, Fl. and Travis County, Texas and a lawsuit questioning the results of a local referendum election in Montgomery County, Texas. In Collin County, Texas, CCDF worked to have churches in each of the county’s school districts start their own “Community Impact Ministry” in order to “bring back biblical values by participating in civic duties within their communities.”
CCDF spoke out during Gov. Ron DeSantis legal battle with Disney, saying “No longer will they spend entire paychecks on subscriptions, park passes, admission fees, or merchandise, only to find their hard-earned money is being used to fund the indoctrination of vulnerable children to accept radical idealogical agendas.”
Locally, Nassau CCDF was part of a movement that resulted in the ousting of former Fernandina Beach City Manager Dale Martin with Knocke telling the City Commission Martin should be fired.
Wow. CFO for Fidelity in Japan? Doesn’t exactly translate to City Manager in a small Florida town, does it? Maybe apples and oranges? But what we do know is that the CCDF seems
to have decided they are in charge of calling the shots - but I don’t remember that they actually ran for an office. Maybe they just like putting up straw guys. Let’s be very careful and take many looks at who they put up for office through our government.