by SC Reporter Emilie Alfino
City Council unanimously voted to appoint Kate Sergeant as Planning Commissioner to fill the vacancy created by Laura DeBruce moving on to City Council.
Mayor Richard Johnson said, “I continue to be impressed by the level of involvement our citizens are willing to be engaged in. It’s a big responsibility.” Sergeant was chosen from a field of nine applicants.
Sergeant currently serves as General Counsel for Great Prairie Risk Solutions and opened a Florida satellite office on Sanibel in 2011. She works as adjunct faculty in the Legal Studies Department at Florida Gulf Coast University and has a long history of volunteer work on Sanibel starting at the Sanibel School serving on the Parent-Teacher Association and Student Advisory Council. She sits on the Boards of Island Water Association, Community Housing and Resources, Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Zonta, and the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum. Sergeant earned an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois – Chicago Law School.
Sergeant said she wants to serve on the Planning Commission “because it is very important to me and vital to our community that the ‘unique and natural characteristics of the Island … be preserved.’” She added that “(The Sanibel Vision Statement) The Sanibel Plan is our guiding document and North Star. It is our Constitution. We must follow and interpret the spirit of the plan as the drafters intended: to preserve our ‘unique and natural characteristics.’” Since Hurricane Ian, Sergeant said she has become very concerned about pressures from some on the island and many outside of it to abandon the guiding principles of the Sanibel Plan. “This concern is the catalyst for my application.”
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