about my county st johns county florida

A recent comment on my blog said “any politician who cannot handle a political cartoon (which those memes are) should try another line of work. That comes with the territory, and so does criticism.”

This was in response to my describing what (in my mind) would be humiliation on the part of those Commissioners at finding their heads in a pickle jar, or a Senator’s head superimposed on their bodies – with the inference that four of five were puppets (my word – paraphrasing) of a state Senator.

None of the Commissioners, to my knowledge, said anything about those memes.  I was simply projecting how it might feel to see your “reputation smeared.” And with the bulldozer incident, I think I have a right to project how they might feel.

That statement might be right – caricatures and cartoons are probably aimed at politicians all the time.  I’ve laughed at a few myself.

But these local politicians are our neighbors.  They live in our districts, their children go to our schools, they own property in the County, and their reputation is being smeared by those who continually say that they are in the pockets of developers and unable to make their own decisions. 

I really do understand where these angry folks are coming from.  I don’t like clear cutting of vegetation, I don’t want the stress on our infrastructure, and I don’t like developments being cleared and left for years, 

There are decisions made by the Board of Commissioners that I don’t agree with.  I wish that every decision made by the Board could meet with 100% approval from stakeholders.  Dream on.

But there are better ways to go about effecting change than demeaning others because they don’t agree.

What troubles me most is damning these four people who have put themselves in the political arena to be judged, caricatured, and ridiculed because a group of people – however large – don’t like them and believe that they are acting against the wishes of the residents.

At what point did it become acceptable to demean those who live in your community and who have accepted the call to serve the County?

How would you feel to be the target of a smear campaign?