City council member announces candidacy for Cape mayor

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — City council member Rana Erbrick announced Thursday night her intention to run for Mayor of Cape Coral in the 2017 election.

Erbrick believes current mayor Marni Sawicki doesn’t serve the interests of most citizens and that her name has become synonymous with controversy in recent months.

In May, she filed a restraining order against a city employee, then married him five weeks later.

The couple divorced two months later.

In August, city councilman Richard Leon filed an ethics complaint against Sawicki, accusing her of accepting gifts from a city vendor. The state is still reviewing that complaint.

At Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Sawicki got involved in a shouting match with the superintendent of the city’s charter school system. She later threatened Councilman Leon with a defamation lawsuit after he wrote negatively about her on Facebook.

“We’re a growing city and we really need a maturity level, we need a level of calmness, level headedness, someone that can handle the criticism,” Erbrick said.

Mayor Sawicki couldn’t be reached for comment.