Commissioner Deborah Kynes
PINELLAS COUNTY | 1/24/2020 - 12/31/2021
Reappointed by House Speaker Oliva
Deborah Kynes, currently serving as Dunedin Vice Mayor through November, 2022, has been a a Dunedin City Commissioner (1999 – 2009, 2014 – 2022); served as Vice Mayor from December 1, 2016 – December 5, 2017, served as Vice President of the Institute for Strategic Public Policy Solutions Board (SPC); is a Founding Member of the Village Square (Pinellas); served as Chairman of the Utilities, Natural Resources & Public Works Legislative Committee for the Florida League of Cities (2017-2018) and serves on the Dunedin Fine Arts Center Advisory Council. Deborah currently serves as the City liaison to the Dunedin Fine Art Center and the North Pinellas Cultural Alliance. She also serves on the Mease Manor Board of Trustees and was appointed to the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, July 16, 2018.
Deborah has served as Florida Humanities Council Board, President PACE Pinellas Center for Girls, a three-term Chairman of the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority; Chairman of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council; Chairman of the Environmental Quality Committee of the Florida League of Cities; member, Florida Chamber Water Task Force; President of the Junior League of Clearwater-Dunedin; Chairman of the Pinellas County Arts Council; President of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday Foundation; member of the Pinellas County Charter Review Commission; Bay Care Medically Needy Task Force; the Board of Leadership Pinellas; on the Morton Plant/Mease Community Impact Committee; Honorary Co-Chairman of Art Harvest and Co-Chairman of the Hospice of the Pinellas Suncoast “Hospice Ball.” Deborah also served on the Leepa Rattner Museum Collections Committee.
Deborah is a member of Leadership Pinellas, Leadership Florida, the Dunedin Rotary, the First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin and the Junior League of Clearwater Dunedin. Deborah has a B.A. in English from the University of Arkansas and a J.D. from the University of Tulsa, College of Law.
Deborah is a voting member of the Cherokee Nation and a member of the Cherokees of Central Florida. Deborah is a member of the Florida Bar.
Deborah’s awards include the “Deborah Vincent” Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award 2013 for Leadership Pinellas; “Delightful Dunedin” Award presented by the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce; “History Maker” Award presented by the Dunedin Historical Society; “Rotarian of the Year” Award presented by the Dunedin Rotary Club and “Women Honoring Women” Award (Soroptimist Club).
Deborah and her husband, Allen, live in Dunedin. They have two children, Lessley, who currently teaches at the University of Tampa, and Jordan, who is working on his Doctoral degree in Middle Eastern Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. Deborah and Allen have two grandchildren, Olivia and Lucy Lowery-Kynes.
