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.
Clay County is changing , I got here in the early eighties and it was the good ol boy program type of government. To some it may still seem that way, but it has gotten better. Maybe if we had better access to our government, like county meetings after 6:00P.M. so working people could attend. There is no law that says they have to meet in the afternoon, and if they say they can not complete their business in one night is there a law that says they can not meet twice as often? I do believe the money they are being paid is more than the average of a full time worker in Clay County. How about it Chairman Rutledge do you really serve the people the people of Clay County?
It is not my intention to castigate your blog, only to direct you to recent discussions about trying to keep the blogs and threads in some type of categorization. It makes it difficult to follow the threads and references when they are not. Reading your blog I would have to assume that you are referring too the blog Does Money Make It Right? If that is the case it would have been much easier to follow the topic if it had been placed as a thread and not a separate blog. As the popularity of this site grows many more responses has created some issues that need to be addressed by MCS. One is that with the added activity, under the recent comments section on the right side of the web page many responses get shoved to the next page before the blogers that they are intended for get a chance to see them. The site just needs some tweeking. Any way with that being said welcome to the site.