East Manatee fire commissioner enters at-large County Commission race

Tony Barrett thought of renting his East County home and buying an RV to travel the United States.

Instead, he’s touring every part of Manatee County, collecting about 3,000 petitions to put his name on the ballot to run for the District 6 commission seat. 

Barrett currently holds an elected East Manatee Fire Rescue commission seat that expires this year. 

While touring the country in an RV surely would’ve been more fun, Barrett said his time serving East Manatee Fire Rescue sparked his candidacy and served as an audition for the role of county commissioner. 

East Manatee Fire Rescue sold its old Myakka City fire station to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in January. The deal took nearly two years to broker, and since Barrett is also a real estate agent, he took the lead in negotiations. 

County commissioners had to approve the deal, so Barrett started paying close attention to what was happening on the county level. He began regularly watching commission meetings and thought he could bring the leadership Manatee County needs to District 6.

District 6 is an at-large position that represents the entire county. Current District 6 Commissioner Jason Bearden has opted out of running for reelection. 

Barrett has lived in Mantee County since 1991 when he moved from New Jersey. He remembered trying to get to the beach and being held up by chickens crossing State Road 70 at 15th Street East, so he’s watched the county grow. 

He said he doesn’t see a need for the amount of new construction happening within Manatee County, but also noted that likely every candidate will talk about the county’s growth while campaigning. It's an important topic, but there are other areas of concern, as well. 

“Something as simple as street lights make people’s lives better,” Barrett said after messaging back and forth with a Parrish resident. “(The resident) works at Publix, and when he walks home after he gets off work, it’s pitch black. It’s scary for him because there’s traffic or he could get robbed.” 

As a former firefighter and paramedic, who spent 16 years in the field serving Manatee and Sarasota counties, another top priority for Barrett is public safety. 

He sees the deal between East Manatee Fire Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office to create a public safety compound as “the start of a vision of doing things a little bit differently in Manatee County — multipurpose areas.” 

Manatee County EMS often rents space in fire stations, but Barrett sees additional opportunities to create public safety complexes when constructing other government buildings, too. He used libraries as an example, saying it wouldn’t cost a whole lot more money to add a couple of bays and sleeping quarters to the back of a building. 

Barrett knows real estate. He’s owned Barrett Realty since 2004 and was the president of the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee in 2024. 

Barrett is also a veteran. Starting in 1986, he served as a medic for three years at Fort Dix in New Jersey. After the Gulf War started in 1990, he tried to reenlist for active duty, but the Army didn’t need more medics at the time. 

So Barrett joined the reserves instead. He was never called for duty but stayed enlisted until 1994.

However, it was Barrett’s realty experience that led him to founding Heroes Welcome Home, a nonprofit that provides financial assistance to veterans. The funds can cover down payments, rent, utility bills, repairs and maintenance expenses. 

In 2008, Barrett was selling a home to a former Marine. The Marine had already been approved for $10,000 of assistance through Veterans Affairs, but the bank backed out of the loan because he had an “insufficient work history.” 

The Marine would have paid less money on the house he wanted to purchase than the rent he was paying, but the VA only approved the assistance dollars. There was nothing the agency could do about the bank denying his loan. 

“I felt horrible about it,” Barrett said. “I thought I’d love to give the guy back his money for closing costs because now he’s worse off than he was before.”

It took some time in between, but by 2013, Heroes Welcome Home was an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 

Given his military service, public service, business and nonprofit background, Barrett said he is qualified to serve as county commissioner.

“All these things are what have prepared me to get into this role,” he said. “I’ve been out there in the community doing the work.”