Stuart Craig Lowe (July 18, 1957 – January 14, 2023) was an American politician who served as Mayor of

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gaine ...

, from 2010 to 2013; he previously served as Gainesville City Commissioner from 2003 through his becoming mayor. Lowe was the first

openly gay Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

mayor of the city. Lowe was first elected to the Gainesville City Commission to fill the newly created District 4 seat for a one-year term in April 2003 and consecutively to two full (3-year) terms until being sworn in as mayor. After winning a runoff election on April 13, 2010, by a margin of 42 votes (which held through an automatic recount) Lowe became mayor-elect of Gainesville. He was sworn in on May 20, 2010. He lost his bid for re-election on April 16, 2013, to former City Commissioner Ed Braddy after being arrested for a DUI during the campaign. Lowe also served as Chair of the Gainesville City Commission’s Equal Opportunity Committee, a member of the Regional Utilities, Community Development, and Countywide Visioning & Planning committees as well as the local Community Redevelopment Agency, the Gainesville/

Alachua County Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus ope ...

Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization and the Alachua County Library Governing Board. Lowe was a member of the

Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition Everytown for Gun Safety is an American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Everytown was created in 2013 when Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America joined force ...

, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...

and Boston Mayor

Thomas Menino Thomas Michael Menino (December 27, 1942 – October 30, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 53rd mayor of Boston, from 1993 to 2014. He was the city's longest-serving mayor. He was elected mayor in 1993 after first serving three ...

Personal life and education

Lowe was born and raised in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. He received a B.S.A. degree in

Soil Science Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the Earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to th ...

from the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

. After moving to Gainesville in 1982 he received a master's degree in

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. Lowe died in Gainesville on January 14, 2023, at the age of 65.

Electoral history

2003

2004

Commissioner Lowe ran for re-election unopposed in 2004.

2007

2010

Runoff Recount

runoff election The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resul ...

was held on April 13, 2010, with Lowe and Marsh as the candidates. The unofficial results indicated that Lowe had 6,098 votes (50.14%) and Marsh 6,063 votes (49.86%), excluding provisional ballots. Ultimately 17 provisional ballots were verified, yielding 12 more votes for Lowe and 5 more for Marsh. As the margin was less than 0.50% between the candidates, an automatic machine

recount An election recount is a repeat tabulation of votes cast in an election that is used to determine the correctness of an initial count. Recounts will often take place if the initial vote tally during an election is extremely close. Election reco ...

took place on April 16, 2010. The recount verified the unofficial results, including verified provisional ballots, leaving the vote tallies unchanged. These are the official, certified results of the election.

2013

2013 DUI Arrest

Prior to the runoff election on April 16, 2013, Lowe was arrested on suspicion of

driving under the influence Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...

(DUI). The incident took place on March 21, 2013 when Lowe was involved in a single car crash. On April 1, 2013, Lowe entered into a deferred prosecution agreement aimed at first-time DUI offenders to resolve the charges against him.

References

External links

* Mayor Lowe's City of Gainesvill

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowe, Craig 1957 births 2023 deaths 21st-century American LGBT people Mayors of Gainesville, Florida Politicians from Atlanta University of Georgia alumni University of Florida alumni Florida Democrats Gay politicians LGBT mayors of places in the United States LGBT people from Florida LGBT people from Georgia (U.S. state)