In the past few blog posts, I have shared concerns about what I see happening in St Johns County. I intentionally did not mention names because I wanted to be subtle and not to use the same nasty tactics I was seeing play out in social media. You see, there is a fight going on in St Johns County. It is a war of words, and it is becoming very nasty.
I believe in people’s ability to want to learn the facts, and so when I wrote I was deliberately subtle. I didn’t want to appear to be fighting, but rather sharing important information to facilitate a good dialogue, discuss issues below the surface and learn from each other.
Silly me.
I am beginning to realize that when you are engaging with someone who has a personal mission and is going to win regardless of the cost, subtle doesn’t work. So, I want to go back in time and explain what I know about how we got to the war of words.
I will split this up into several posts and will do everything in my power to be factual. But I cannot stand by and let one individual hijack the community.
On December 19, Nicole Crosby said that she wanted to stop the political infighting and mudslinging and work together as a community.
Eight days later, on December 27, she posted a photoshopped meme of my head on a bulldozer, saying that I was cheerleading for developer-tied commissioners and launching new attacks against a resident who has only helped her (me) in the past. (If you’re on Facebook and want to see it, search for “Fight for St. Johns County” – it’s pretty spicy.) Presumably, that resident is Nicole. True, she did provide help to our organization by sharing the name of an attorney who specialized in land use, but that was about it.
In that same post, she called me out for not mentioning her name in my blog but instead referencing actions that she has taken to undermine the County and the Board of Commissioners. Apparently folks realized I was talking about her and shared the blog with her – thus the Facebook meme post today. So that I don’t make that mistake again, I will mention her by name going forward. Actually, I thought it was more rude to call her out, but it’s her rule.
I was encouraged by her public call for stopping the political infighting at the December 19 BoCC meeting, but obviously that only goes one way. If you don’t agree with her, you become her punching bag, and she is not afraid to use personal attacks to rile up her cadre of people who just want to be angry at the government for any and every decision they have ever made, whether in office or not.
We have become so used to the war of words in our every day life, that we barely blink an eye. But when it is happening in a local community, that is so unfortunate.
I don’t have to do this. I could easily sit back, play my guitar and make jewelry. I don’t have to take being humiliated in social media by someone who only wants to win, and only sees things one way – her way.
But I believe in this County and believe that we need to (in Nicole’s words) stop the political infighting and mudslinging and work together as a community. I’m not trying to change the mind of those who have already decided that the commissioners are corrupt, but I do believe that there are many community members who want to engage in polite, respectful dialogue and debate and make up their own minds.
I don’t claim to have the answers. But what I do know is that, if we have any hope of doing good for the whole of the County, we need respectful dialogue, debate and open minds, and that means respectfully discussing opposing views.
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