about my county st johns county florida

In the past several weeks, I have been the target of a campaign that I believe is focused on trying to get me to stop writing about my concerns with the tactics being used in St Johns County related to the upcoming election. Perhaps they think my writing resonates, and that is concerning to them? That was sort of the point.

I started the blog to offer my hope that residents will read it and think for themselves without being swayed by propaganda, but others have publicized a false narrative of what they think is my “stand on things.”  For this reason, I feel it is appropriate for me to provide clarification about my “stand on things.” 

My Clarification

This is mine; I encourage everyone to develop their own.

• Our country is run by corporations and powerbrokers that overpower the voice of the private citizen.  Things get done behind the scenes, deals get made and the public never sees what happened – only the result.  Is that the way I’d like to see it?  It is not.  But it is how things work and to think it possible to blow that up is a serious misconception.  It is a deeply woven and systemic system of power. Trying to dismantle it with a single county election is putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
• We, 21^st century human beings living in this country, have become lethargic.  We have had a great run for decades – we take for granted things like electricity, clean water, healthcare, housing, communication tools (phone, internet), and the fact that someone [to be defined] will protect us and keep those things working smoothly and properly.  [I could add here, at no cost to us, but that would be a bit cynical.]  We, citizens of this land, have established this intricate network of levers to “keep the lights on,” requiring rules, regulations and laws.  We established a fundamental framework that is intended to give every citizen one vote for what happens, with the idea that the majority [will of the people] will prevail.  Instead, we allowed our lethargy to make us blind to what was happening in 2010 with the Supreme Court decision “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission”, a controversial decision reversing century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabling corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections. that gave so much power to the wealthy and to corporations.  How many even know today what I’m talking about?
• I love trees.  A lot. Having lived in northern Virginia and watched the pavement grow for so long, I must admit that I was a bit inured to the clear-cut land, the constant development, and row after row of homes that had no relationship to what the land used to be.  I was just used to it.  It wasn’t until I began hearing folks talk about clear-cutting that I woke up to the problem.  But like all complex, systemic problems, there is no one answer, nor are there individual people who can truly influence change, particularly if those individual people are in constant conflict with those who might actually be able to influence change.  We’re so busy in-fighting that change is more and more elusive.
• I like the current Commissioners. There are those I disagree with more routinely than others, and there are those I believe represent the County and the citizens better than the others.  As I was continuously hammered throughout this campaign against me, I did some reflective thinking and realized that much of my writing may have indeed sounded as if I was defending the (four) commissioners’ decisions. To clarify, my comments were intended to defend the people and the roles they serve, not the decisions.  Having allowed myself to be pulled into the conflict, I began to look for and write about the “other side.”  But defending the people and the role of an elected official, as I have tried to defend, is not the same as defending their decisions.  If my writing was sufficiently vague that readers couldn’t tell the difference, that is on me.  I do not agree with all of the decisions coming out of the BoCC and I do not agree with all the decisions of those who attack the BoCC.  There is no one who ever will.  That is the way the world works.
• I also believe that our BoCC has a much bigger role than simply approving or denying development.  They hold the future of the County in their hands – for you, for me and for every citizen now and tomorrow.  That is an awesome responsibility and not one to be taken lightly.  For anyone to run for public office on a singular platform tells me that they don’t understand the significance of the role they are seeking and would not get my vote.  
• We (the county and its residents), are but a tiny cog in a very big wheel. Oh, how naïve I was…I thought that providing a logical argument to state legislators about the dumb idea of pre-empting local government control of vacation rentals might actually be heard.  Surely, I could be sufficiently eloquent to make the point, right? They just stared at me.  So much for logic and eloquence. In reality, we are bound by state law, and our state is bound by federal law.  We are also beholden to state and federal funding.  In all honesty, it is all about the money.  You want trash bins on the beach, who will pay for the maintenance? You want to make a stand against a state legislator at the same time as you are asking them to fund our roads and our infrastructure? Good luck with that. An effective County Commissioner has to be able to work within the system to get anything done. 

Back to the issue of lethargy, perhaps it is time for all of us to begin taking an interest in our county, our country and our world.  And not just by reading or watching our preferred news, but by learning how things work in this complicated world we have created.  The only way I know to do that is to be open to different ideas, think critically and explore possibilities, be a part of the solution, not part of the problem. 

I am not going to allow comments here.  I needed to write this in response to what has been written about me, in social media and in emails to friends and colleagues.  I don’t need anyone to comment or refute what I said.  This is just me – it’s not right or wrong – but it is what I believe.

I suspect the campaign will continue on social media.  It’s what they do.  It’s how they think they will win. But I cannot let their characterization of me, or their one-sided view of the County stand without a challenge.