FTDOAAWM's blog

  As I was reading the MyClaySun on Sat. I came across an article that I’m sure most of our county residents will be happy to know about. Our County Commissioners voted to stop the county code enforcement  officers from writing any code violations they see (unless safety) except for ones that they are directly called on. In other words when they go into a neighborhood to check on a code violation at an address that they were called to, if they happen to see  one to ten other violations in the same neighborhood or on the trip to that neighborhood they are not allowed to do anything unless they are safety related. I know a lot of you on this blog complain about wasted taxpayer money, not letting county employees do their job, would this fall into that category?
  I’m sure you are asking why? Is the county short on inspectors, is the county trying to save gas money? No those might make sense we are talking about County Commissioners. It seems when the code enforcement officials were doing their job without being called neighbors were blaming neighbors for calling the inspectors on them, According to Commissioner Doug Conkey this was “tearing neighborhoods apart”. This was followed by Commissioner Chereese Stewart, if a neighbor has something you can’t live with it’s up to you to make that call, if not, mind your own business.
   So before when code enforcement was random and a neighbor could truthfully say they did not call, now the only way code enforcement comes out is if a neighbor calls. Way to go Doug that will make for happy neighborhoods now that there is no doubt neighbor is calling against neighbor. This will also probably make for trashy neighborhoods and lower property values.

As the new school year starts Wayne Bolla, a School Board member had an article in the Clay Sun writing about what else MONEY or lack of. I talked to Wayne a while ago about the cost of schools. My question was why we have to make schools so expensive by spending money on looks instead of function. His answer was and I quote “we don’t want ugly schools”. I want taxpayer money to be spent to build functional schools not “beautiful” schools. A school should be built to meet code and all state safety standards. It should be cost and energy efficient. In case the school board has not figured it out this is not a rich county.

In a perfect world an elected official would serve the public for one or two terms and then step back and let a new voice and ideas take over. I have lived in northeast Florida since the early eighties, and this has only happened once that I can think of. It was Congresswoman Tillie Fowler, but she kept her word and stepped down as promised.
In an other post on this site people are having a big discussion that it takes a big name, big money, or both to get elected. Not really true, as someone has already pointed out in St. Johns County last election big money and name recognition did not help. People were fed up with development and elected two commissioners that promised to stop or at least slow down development. It was also suggested that only a certain number or “qualified” people be allowed to run. May I ask who gets to pick who is qualified and how many. No thanks this is America anyone that wants to run and meets all qualifications should be allowed to run. Plus it was also said a fund be set up and each candidate be given an equal amount from the fund and that is all the money they can spend on their election, or at least that is how I interrupted the post. Where does the money for this “fund” come from? Let me guess TAX money, no thank you. The sad fact is it takes money to get elected. If you do not like where a candidate gets his money from, run for office yourself, or find someone you can support and go door to door for him or her and collect money, hold bake sales, yard sales, car washes, whatever it takes (but don’t stand on street corners or in traffic earn the money don’t beg it) to get your person elected. On election day offer to drive people to the poles to vote, and that is the biggest problem people do not vote.