IN THE PUBLIC EYE: Jim Brown

Age: 65
Home: Longboat Key

Previous municipal experience
Community Center Advisory Chairman — 2003-04
Planning & Zoning Board — 2004-2008
Longboat Key Town Commission — 2009-present; served as vice mayor in 2010-11 and was selected as mayor in 2011

Longboat Key Mayor Jim Brown is a retired architect who designed homes, shopping plazas, commercial buildings, restaurants and hotels throughout the country and eventually sold his Alexandria, Va.-based company, James L. Brown Associates.

Brown moved to Longboat Key in 2000 and later became chairman of a community center advisory committee, which worked to convince voters to support a new $6 million recreational building at Bayfront Park Recreation Center, a measure that voters defeated.

Brown joined the Longboat Key Planning & Zoning Board beginning in 2004, which he served on until running unopposed for the Longboat Key Town Commission District 4 seat in 2009. Brown was selected as vice mayor by his fellow commissioners in 2010 and mayor in 2011.

Brown and his wife, Joan, are residents of Longboat Key Estates. He is originally from Huntsville, Ala., and enjoys tennis, sailing, fishing, hunting and golf.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].