Candidate, Alex Sink engages Caribbean-American communities in campaign for Chief Financial Officer

TAMPA – Alex Sink intends to be the Chief Financial Officer for all Floridians. In the past week, she took that message to members of Florida’s Caribbean-American communities and sought to actively engage them in her campaign and in the statewide political process in general.

“I am eager to have Caribbean-Americans play a significant role in my campaign,” said Sink. “Floridians of Caribbean heritage have built successful businesses and communities in pursuit of the American dream.

As discussed in the Miami Herald, recent census figures demonstrate the growing influence of Caribbean-Americans throughout Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties. It’s time that we get them directly involved in the process of building a better Florida, and as a candidate for Chief Financial Officer, I am committed to this goal.”

Alex Sink

In the past week alone, Alex Sink’s efforts to actively engage Florida’s Caribbean-American communities included the following:

• Sink appeared on the NewsTalk 1080 AM WTPS talk show “Caribbean Crossroads” with Miami attorney Marlon Hill to discuss the Chief Financial Officer position and issues of particular concern to Florida’s Caribbean-American communities.

• Sink met with Caribbean political and economic leaders from the Haitian and Jamaican communities in Miami to discuss her campaign’s specific outreach to these communities.

• Sink appeared on the WRHB 1020 AM talk show “Allo Babeth” with host Elizabeth Guerin to discuss issues of particular concern to the Haitian-American community.

• Sink spoke to a gathering of Haitian-American ministers at the United Haitian Baptist Church in West Palm Beach and encouraged them to become active economic and political leaders in Florida.

These visits and appearances are just the first phase of Sink’s effort to engage the Caribbean-American community in statewide political and economic issues – an effort that will continue not only through the election but also during Sink’s tenure as Chief Financial Officer.

Alex Sink, a Democrat from eastern Hillsborough County, started her career as a teacher in West Africa. After three years in West Africa, Sink returned to theUnited States and began her career as a financial leader.

Sink is the only candidate in the race for Chief Financial Officer with more than twenty-five (25) years of financial leadership experience. For seven (7) of those years, she served as President of Florida’s largest bank, a position in which she supervised more than 9,000 employees in 800 branches, representing more than $41 billion in customer deposits.

Sink also has a record of civic service that underscores her commitment to fiscal responsibility and accountability in government.

Governor Lawton Chiles appointed her to the Commission on Government Accountability to the People, where she helped lead efforts to make state government more responsive to citizen needs. She advocated productivity and efficiency in state government as Vice Chair of Tax Watch, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that reviews how Florida collects and spends its tax dollars and has identified more than $6 billion in taxpayer savings since it was founded in 1979. She has also been a business and community leader throughout Florida for more than twenty (20) years.