A locally-brewed blog about news and life in Palm Bay and Brevard County. |
Okay, let's say you're a revenue collector for a city that charges its residents for their water usage every month. And it comes to your attention that your automated bill-collection software has automatically sent out a demand-for-payment, at the cost of 42 cents in postage, to a blind woman who mistakenly underpaid an earlier water bill by -- get this -- a penny. One penny. One red cent. And just as it does with all the other demands-for-payment letters it sends out, the automated bill-collection software threatened this woman with late fees and possibly even a lien on her house if she didn't pay this one-cent balance by a specific date. Do you... A.) Apologize for the oversight, waive the penny, and set up your bill-collection software so that it doesn't bother sending out letters for balances lower than the cost of a postage stamp, or... B.) Refuse to budge and tell the local newspaper that this lady owes the city a penny, and she's going to pay the city that penny or face the consequences. The City Collector of South Attleboro, Massachusetts, chose Option B. She chose... poorly. Yes, a debt is a debt and a bill is a bill. But there are so many better ways they could have handled this, ways that wouldn't have turned this city's government into an international laughing-stock. (The story was linked up on the Drudge Report yesterday.) It was a one-time situation involving a blind lady, fer cryin' out loud, and was probably just a mistake on her part. If you can't make a one-time exception and waive that penny in this case, when can you? And if you insist on sticking with the principle of the matter, fine. Tack that penny onto the next month's bill and let her pay it then. But threatening her with late fees and a lien on her house over such a tiny balance is just utterly ridiculous. It's the sort of act that only makes sense if you're an arrogant government agent who believes that your job is to rule and reign over the taxpayers rather than serving them. Reading this story almost immediately brought to my mind a more local example of extreme government arrogance, the multi-year fight between the town of Melbourne Beach and Thijs Stelling, the owner of the Melbourne Beach Chevron. You remember the story... several years ago, Stelling wanted to buy the land next door to expand his locally-owned-and-operated gas station and service station to have a bigger convenience store and more service bays. He lined up the financing to get it done, but the town government told him "No" for ridiculously short-sighted reasons, basically just because they had the power to do so, but citing concerns that the expanded locally-owned gas station would damage the small-town charm of the business district. They then changed their minds back and forth several times, dragging out the process to ridiculous lengths and causing Stelling to lose his financing offer due to the lenghty delays. By the time the town government finally stopped jerking Stelling around and gave their final approval to the expansion, Stelling had already given up and had entered into an agreement to sell his land to Walgreens instead so they could put up a big white corporate box of a drugstore in the middle of downtown Melbourne Beach. And suddenly the town was embroiled in a legal fight over the character of its central business district as they scrambled to keep Walgreens out. That saga finally sputtered to an end earlier this month. Stelling, frustrated with the fight to keep him from selling his own land to Walgreens, finally decided to go back to Plan A. He lined up new financing, made sure the town would still allow him to expand his gas station as he originally wanted to do, and told Walgreens the land was off the market. It's a happy ending for pretty much all involved: Stelling gets to expand his gas station, and the business district keeps its small-town charm. Except that the town could've had this exact same ending years ago, minus the hefty legal fees and harsh feelings, if they'd just allowed Stelling to do what he wanted to do with his own land and property to begin with. Instead, they fell into the arrogant trap of seeing Stelling as a subject to rule over, rather than seeing him as a citizen to serve. These two cases are excellent examples of governments that are penny-wise but pound-foolish. We the people are in charge. We the people elect these officials to serve us, not to look down upon us and serfs and subjects to be controlled and ruled. And when governments forget this fact, we the people often find surprising ways of fighting back against their arrogance and idiocy. In South Attleboro, the blind citizen Eileen Wilbur fought back by taking the case public and embarrassing the city. They'll get their penny, but at a far more costly price. In Melbourne Beach, the town government denied Stelling's property rights on the grounds that expanding his locally-owned business would somehow destroy the local flavor of the downtown area, and his frustrated response almost brought about the very scenario they claimed they were trying to avoid. We the people are in charge. And woe be upon anyone in government who forgets that simple fact.
(Yes, I'm back. Watch for hot updating action later today.)
I feel really, really dumb about this, but I just didn't leave myself with enough time to do full write-ups on the entire ballot for the general election. I really need to allocate more time to keeping this blog going for the future. But for now, I at least want to get my election choices out into the public record. It's better than nothing, I suppose. As I said back in August, if you've taken the time to educate yourself on the candidates and issues, make sure you get out there and vote! But if you haven't taken the time to educate yourself, stay the hell away from voting booths. 'Kay, thanks. You can click here for sample ballots that you can print off and take with you. All you have to do is select your precinct number. If you're not sure what your precinct number is, it should be on your voter ID card, or you can click here to find your precinct number. And if you're not sure where to go to vote, click here for a list of voting locations. All polls will be open from 7:00am to 7:00pm. If there's a line at your precinct towards the end of the day, just make sure you get in line before 7:00pm and you'll still be allowed to vote. Oh, and of course, later tonight you can click these next two links to get results from the Brevard County election office or from the state's election office. The first link will only give you totals in Brevard County, and a lot of the districts being voted on today spill over outside of Brevard, so that's why you'll need the state link to get the complete picture. PRESIDENT
US HOUSE DISTRICT 15
STATE SENATE DISTRICT 24
STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 31
SHERIFF
PROPERTY APPRAISER
TAX COLLECTOR
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS
COUNTY COMMISSION DISTRICT 3
PALM BAY CITY COUNCIL SEAT 2
PALM BAY CITY COUNCIL SEAT 3
STATE AMENDMENTS
NO on #2
NO on #3
NO on #4
NO on #6
YES on #8
BREVARD COUNTY REFERENDUM
SUPREME COURT: RETENTION VOTE
FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS: RETENTION VOTE
YES for C. Alan Lawson
YES for Richard B. Orfinger
YES for William David Palmer
YES for Thomas D. Sawaya
SEBASTIAN INLET DISTRICT COMMISSIONER
BREVARD SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT - GROUP 3
The race for Property Appraiser... geez, I hate this one. Normally as I've been doing my candidate write-ups, I've been able to start off writing about which candidate I support and why I support them. But in this case, my vote really isn't for a candidate, but rather against one, the shady Republican incumbent Jim Ford to be precise. His challenger Larry Hughes is not a particularly strong candidate and wasn't even the strongest Democrat in the race... that would be Charlie Sitton, who Hughes defeated in the primary. But Ford has taken the Property Appraiser's office in the wrong direction and needs to be ousted. And the only way that will happen is to get Larry Hughes elected and hope and pray that he manages not to screw things up. Bill Mick invited both Larry Hughes and Jim Ford to be interviewed for 50 Minutes With segments for the website. Hughes came in. Ford claimed traffic problems as the reason for missing his segment and declined to reschedule, but he did make it in sometime later for a live on-air debate with Hughes on Bill Mick Live. Check them out if you get the chance.
Ford would tell you to ignore that smoke because of Friday's news that the corruption charges against Ford's former right-hand man Lance Larsen have been thrown out by the presiding judge, Circuit Judge Charles Holcomb, last Friday. But if you read through the court dispatches from Florida Today reporter Jeff Schweers from 10/23, 10/27, 10/28 and 10/29, you'll see that the charges were thrown out simply because the judge made a series of technical rulings that large swaths of the prosecution's evidence couldn't be shown to the jury, despite the fact that the evidence consisted of computerized data available in the public record. I'm no lawyer, but that ruling really doesn't make much sense to me. Without that evidence, the prosecution couldn't move forward with their case against Larsen, and Larsen's attorney made a motion to have the case tossed out. It's the equivalent of winning a football game because the referee made the wrong call on the final play and gave you a touchdown that you really didn't score. It's also important to remember that "innocent until proven guilty" is the standard in a court of law. But you do NOT have to apply that standard when deciding who to vote for; you get to set your own standard for that. The judge ruled that the jurors weren't allowed to consider the computer evidence, but that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to either. Also important to note is that the judge didn't say that any of this evidence was untrue or incorrect -- he simply made a technical ruling that the jury wasn't allowed to see it. So do not take the judge's ruling to mean that Larsen or Ford have been exonerated of all wrong-doing, because that's not what the ruling was about at all. So what exactly has Jim Ford been up to? This Florida Today article from September 10th gives a pretty good summary of what led to charges being filed against Ford's man Larsen in the first place. Florida Today also has a copy of the investigative report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Jim Ford, as well as the reports on Lance Larsen for the charges of official misconduct and grand theft. Basically, the FDLE reviewed records from Ford's office and found multiple cases where highly-questionable appraisal breaks were given to various landowners in Brevard who just happened to be campaign donors or political bigshots who Ford would have every reason to curry favor with, lowering their tax bills considerably and costing the county $61,000 in tax revenue. Many of these breaks were signed-off on by Ford himself, who even admits in his campaign literature that these breaks shouldn't have been given out but calls them innocent mistakes. Even if you take Ford's explanation at face value, it means that the county lost out on $61,000 in property tax revenue because Ford's office was incompetent. And when you look at the people who got those breaks (including the parents of State Representative Thad Altman, a fellow Republican), I simply don't buy that there was nothing nefarious taking place. The FDLE also found evidence that the appraisers who Ford overruled to grant the tax breaks feared for their jobs if they spoke out, something that Charlie Sitton could probably tell you more about. And on September 22nd, Florida Today ran a follow-up story about two employees in Ford's office who told the FDLE they were pressured by supervisors to sign false affidavits to try to discredit a whistle-blower named Dana Blickley who had been cooperating with the FDLE's investigation. There may not be quite enough evidence to meet the technical requirements of a criminal court of law or to have anyone thrown in jail, but that's not what this election is about. This election is about whether or not Jim Ford should be allowed to remain in office as the Property Appraiser. The accusations against Ford are serious and are backed-up quite well, and his response has mainly consisted of personal attacks and attempts to undermine the credibility of those who speak up against him, rather than presenting any facts or evidence to back up his own innocence or disprove the facts as uncovered by the FDLE. That's why I want him out. And the only way to get Jim Ford out is to vote Larry Hughes in.
But back to Hughes refusing to take a breathalyzer... in Florida, refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test results in an automatic suspension of your driver's license. You agree to that rule when you sign for a license. So Hughes's license was automatically suspended. Fast-forward to August. When Tropical Storm Fay was bearing down on Brevard, Hughes got popped for driving on that suspended license. Hughes explained that he was only driving because he needed to buy storm supplies. (Ever heard of a taxi, Larry?) He initially planned to plead guilty to that charge, but now the court hearing on the suspended license charge has been delayed until after Election Day. And in his 50 Minutes With interview with Bill Mick, Hughes said that with the DUI charge gone and the blood test showing no alcohol in his system, he and his lawyer are now challenging the validity of the license suspension itself, which in turn would negate the charge of driving with a suspended license. And that sounds like a reasonable argument to me. Now for the issues... Larry Hughes is unsurprisingly running on a platform of cleaning up the Property Appraiser's office and running it with more transparency and accountability. He has been unwavering in his criticism of Jim Ford and has made that criticism the center of his campaign. During the Democratic primary race, I was very critical of Hughes for his apparent lack of knowledge about the duties of the office and for his bizarre proposal to increase the assessments on marijuana grow-houses. I wasn't the only one to express such concerns, and it appears that Hughes took those criticisms to heart even after winning the primary. The Larry Hughes I've heard more recently sounds far more knowledgable than the Larry Hughes I heard back in the primary race, so he's clearly been doing his homework on the Property Appraiser's office. He now seems far more familiar with the duties of the job. That's not to say I'm comfortable with putting Hughes in this job; I'm not. I still have concerns about his judgement,
and just because he's giving better interviews now doesn't mean he's ready to take on the complicated task of setting
appraisal values for every home in Brevard County. But he's the only alternative to Jim Ford in this race. He's the guy I
have to work with, and Hughes has at least convinced me that he won't be a disaster in this office. I have a feeling I'll
be voting against Hughes four years from now to replace him with a better-qualified person, but in this race against Jim
Ford, Larry Hughes gets my vote.
With Rod Northcutt retiring from his post as Tax Collector after running the office since 1992, the Tax Collector's race is particularly important this year. The choice is between a long-time office insider who knows the job well but played a pivotal role in the unionization of the employees, and a private-sector business administrator with plenty of management skills but no experience working in a government office. It's an interesting race, and if you still have time you should check out the 50 Minutes With segments Bill Mick recorded with each candidate, along with the joint debate. But here's what I think.
Dils promised to try to run the office more like a business and to look for areas to save money on the budget. Back in the primaries she mis-spoke and told Bill Mick she would look at closing down one or two branch offices to save money, a statement I picked up on and criticized here on my website. She later reached out to me in a series of e-mails to clarify her position, and she also corrected this in her 50 Minutes With segment with Bill Mick, and I'm satisfied that she did indeed mis-speak. What she intends to do is to find ways to share office space with other county agencies, which would probably include relocating several offices but could save the county money, so I can get behind that. She also stressed that the Tax Collector's website needs more improvement and pledged to make it happen. The total lack of any experience working in a government office does concern me about Laura Dils, but she's not exactly a dumb lady. I think she's capable of learning as she goes, and she seems to have a good relationship with Rod Northcutt and should be able to go to him for advice as she settles in at the job. I feel quite comfortable with voting for Laura Dils.
But the union issue is very troubling for me. A state agency called the Public Employees Relations Commission has issued a report on the events in 2006 that led to the unionization of the Tax Collector's employees in response to Rod Northcutt's allegation that Lisa Cullen actively participated in organizing the union. Cullen was a manager at the time, and state law forbids government employees in management positions from participating in the organization of a union because it creates a conflict of interest. Such managers are tasked with keeping employee expenses low, but unions are usually formed to increase employee wages and benefits, so organizing a union would put a manager at odds with their job duties. While the commission eventually overturned Northcutt's overall complaint, the findings-of-fact in the report did show that Cullen was very actively involved in the initial formation of the union, and only backed off later once people began to question the propriety of her involvement. The report is only 19 pages long and there's isn't much written on each page, so read through it if you get the chance. On the question of whether Cullen broke the law, I'm not really all that concerned to be honest. It sounds to me like it was a technical violation that Cullen wasn't initially aware of, and I could easily see someone not being aware of this law. What concerns me more is that Cullen was involved in forming the union at all. I don't like unions. Period. I think there was a time in this country when unions were needed to preserve the health and safety of laborers, but today's unions have gone far beyond that role and often serve to put a stranglehold on capitalism. In this case, there were no health or safety concerns at play in the Tax Collector's office. This union was formed to resolve perceived pay inequities within the office -- a pay dispute. And the way to handle a pay dispute is to try to talk to your manager and renegotiate your pay. If management refuses, it means one of two things. One is that you should leave the job and find another one where management understands your worth and pays you accordingly, because if you truly do deserve that raise then you should have no trouble finding a better job for yourself out there. The other is that you need to get over yourself because you don't really deserve the pay you're asking for, and you'll find that out in a hurry when you quit and can't find a new job that will pay you what you think you're worth either. Regardless, it's something that should be handled one-on-one with the employee and the manager. Running off and forming a union is a bad move, because sooner or later that union is going to start going overboard and start demanding exorbitant pay and benefits -- at the expense of you and me, since this is a government office paid for with our tax dollars. Their only concern will be lining their own wallets, and they won't give a damn about you and me or how well the office is run. Lisa Cullen says she wants to save us all money by running the Tax Collector's office more efficiently. That's why I'm
mystified that she would open the door to a unionized office and jeopardize the efficiency of the office. It makes me
question her judgement, and it's cost her my support in this race.
The race for County Commission District 3 is one of those rare races in which I can be happy with whoever wins, whether it's uber-accountant Trudie Infantini or veteran city leader Ed Geier. But of course I can only pick one of 'em, so that's where Bill Mick's interviews came in handy. Infantini made it in for a pre-recorded 50 Minutes With segment for Bill's website. Geier wasn't able to come in for his 50 Minutes With appointment, but he did make it in for the on-air debate with Infantini, which showed the contrasting styles of both candidates quite well.
Normally, when a government agency sets its budget, it uses the previous year's budget as a starting point, leaving all existing spending in place, and then goes back in and makes changes as needed. But if a particular line item doesn't draw scrutiny, it can stay in there untouched for years... and often does. Zero-based budgeting is the polar opposite. You start your budget at... you guessed it: ZERO. Nothing carries over automatically from the previous year; you have to specifically ask for it again. And it specifically forces that government entity to specifically defend everything that they put into their budget, making it harder to sneak wasteful spending through. Zero-based budgeting is an idea for which the time has come, and Trudie Infantini is leading the charge. Infantini also wants to bring more accountability back into the awarding of government contracts, making far more use of bidding rather than just handing a contract to who ever comes along. In her 50 Minutes With interview she had several astonishing anecdotes about how out-of-control the awarding of contracts has gotten in Brevard. I'm not certain there's any true corruption or graft taking place, but it certainly looks like there's an appalling lack of attention being paid to this issue by the current Commission, and that's bad enough. Infantini is pushing for more accountability for the EELS program as well, but in an interesting twist she doesn't seem interested in shutting it down as most conservatives are. In fact, she voted for EELS originally. But she feels the money is being mis-spent on lands of dubious conservation value at inflated prices, without enough money being saved up for future maintenance of the lands that have already been bought under EELS. Every true environmentalist who cares about the future of the EELS program should consider Infantini an ally, because she's trying to get EELS to be run the way we voted for it to be run, rather than the bloated land-grab farce it's become instead. For too long, the members of the Brevard County Commission have spent money like it was going out of style, consistently failing to encourage any true fiscal restraint or future planning. With the economy teetering towards recession and tax revenues shrinking by the minute, the old way of doing things in Viera simply won't cut it. That's why we need Trudie Infantini, and that's why I'm voting for her.
Unfortunately, we have very specific needs on the County Commission right now. Spending must be reigned in and the size of the government must be scaled down, and that will mean cutting optional programs and maybe even laying off workers. And in a recent vote on the Palm Bay city budget, Geier left us a major clue as to how he would approach these issues if he were to be elected to the County Commission. The budget included the elimination of several unfilled city jobs but also included layoffs of a handful of city employees, a neccessary move with the city's property tax-base shrinking in the face of dropping home values. Geier voted against the budget, telling Florida Today, "It's the wrong time to be laying off people. I said at the beginning of this that if any jobs were lost inside this budget, I wasn't going to support the budget." How many actual employees were being laid off? Seven, according to the article. On the one hand, layoffs should never be undertaken lightly. I've said before that government is not a jobs program, but government workers are people too, so their jobs shouldn't be pulled out from underneath them capriciously. But sometimes it's just neccessary. Their paychecks are paid for by the citizens who pay taxes out of their own hard-earned paychecks, and taxpayers are people too. So in an environment in which the taxpayers are finding it more and more difficult to afford their tax bills, I really don't think laying off a grand total of seven city workers is all that unreasonable. Ed Geier obviously disagrees. I can understand why, and I believe in his mind he thinks he's looking out for those city workers who, unfortunately, now have to find other jobs in this economy. But Ed Geier is supposed to represent the taxpayers as well. Geier's answers in the on-the-air debate with Infantini on WMMB pretty much confirmed the way Geier feels on this subject. Geier talked a lot about prioritizing spending and not increasing taxes. But whenever Bill Mick asked a specific question about actually cutting spending, Geier made it clear that he doesn't think now is the time for budget cuts. Since he didn't call for any new spending either, it sounds to me like Geier wants to hold the line on the budget and on taxes. But in the current economic environment, that's impossible. Tax revenue is falling, because people's incomes are falling and people's property values are falling. And if you rule out spending cuts, that leaves you with only one choice: raise the tax rate to try to stabilize tax revenue so that you don't have to cut the budget. And Geier ruled out raising taxes. Which means that his budget philosophy is the very definition of a paradox. There may come a time when Ed Geier will be the perfect choice for the County Commission. I can envision certain scenarios in which he could step in as a stabilizing presence, calm down internal squabbles, and help the county government move forward. But that's not what we need at the moment. What we need right now is someone who understands the realities of the current budget situation and who knows that the current economic climate requires us to either cut spending or raise the tax rate, and who further understands which of those options is more potentially damaging. Ed Geier has not convinced me that he is that person. Trudie Infantini has.
Next up is the race for Supervisor of Elections. Three candidates are running to replace the previous Supervisor, Fred Galey, who leaves huge shoes to fill after keeping Brevard's elections nearly glitch-free during his entire time in office. Republican Lori Scott and Independent Frank Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) both joined Bill Mick at WMMB for individual 50 Minutes With segments, and also a debate segment together. But the Democrat, Frank Grieco Jr., curiously chose not to appear, just as he chose not to appear when he was invited to be on-the-air during the primary season. His loss.
Fortunately, there is some comfort in that history. True, she's mostly worked alongside Republicans such as Bill Posey and Mike Haridopolos, but once upon a time she also worked on the staff of Democrat Patsy Kurth. That's probably not something a lifelong Republican like Lori Scott wants people to know, but it shows a bipartisan side to her that makes me a bit less nervous about putting her in a job where partisan impartiality is critical. In every interview she's had with Bill Mick, Lori Scott has demonstrated a solid grasp of the duties of the office and the potential perils that need to be avoided. She pretty much agrees that Fred Galey had things right and that few changes are needed. The few changes she has proposed make perfect sense, such as trimming back the budget. In particular, she pointed out that the current budget plan for the Elections office calls for replacing all of the office equipment every 3 to 5 years, an extravagance that can safely be eliminated to save money. She also prudently plans to continue holding money aside each year to save up for future equipment upgrades, such as replacing the troubled touch-screen voting machines that are used for disabled voters in Brevard. But most importantly, Scott has no plans whatsoever to replace the optical-scan ballots that Galey implemented. That's key. Filling in a bubble next to a name is ridiculously easy, it's a paper ballot that's easy to count and easy to re-count, and it already works. To be fair, the other candidates want to keep the optical-scan ballots as well, but hey, it's an important thing to know. Lori Scott has the knowledge, the temperment and the drive to make an excellent Supervisor of Elections. She has earned my enthusiastic vote.
He wants you to vote for him BECAUSE he's no-party-affiliated. Think about how silly that is. Voting for somebody just because they're no-party-affiliated is no different than voting for somebody just because they're a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Libertarian. All he's doing is asking you to trade in one form of partisanship for another, as if no-party-affiliated was just another party label. And it's every bit as shallow as pulling a party lever. But anyway, Frank Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) has chosen to make this the center of his campaign, so let's look into it, shall we? Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) thinks his non-partisanship is important because it will keep him free from any corrupting partisan influences. His campaign is self-financed, so he doesn't owe anyone any favors. And he won't have party bosses peeking over his shoulder telling him what to do or how to count the votes. All good arguments, to be fair. Except I can't recall a single instance of any accusations of partisanship against the previous Supervisor, Republican Fred Galey. Galey was a big-time Republican. He had party bosses to talk to. He had partisan big-wigs contributing money to his campaigns. And yet when it came to doing his job as the Supervisor of Elections, Fred Galey was above reproach, and was respected immensely by Republicans and Democrats alike. If Galey was using his authority to further the goals of the Republicans at the expense of the Democrats, wouldn't the Democrats have raised a fuss about it by now? Basically, Frank Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) is railing against a partisan corruption problem that simply does not exist. Bill Mick tried on several occasions to get Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) to name any specific instances of partisan malfeasance on Galey's watch, and the best he could offer was that he'd heard things from people but couldn't elaborate, and that anyone who is partisan MUST be corrupt, because lobbyists and party big-wigs don't donate to campaigns unless they expect something in return. He stated it with such an astonishing air of certainty, and yet couldn't offer up one shred of evidence to back it up. But perhaps most telling is what happened during the 50-Minutes-With debate when he pushed Lori Scott a little too far on the lobbyist contributions she's been accepting for her campaign. Scott finally retorted with the fact that Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) only dropped his party affiliation 5 months ago. Before that, he'd spent quite a long time registered as a Republican, and only dropped the party label when it came time to file the paperwork to run for this office. He never denied it or disputed it, and he never offered up any legitimate reason why he would leave the Republican party. And that makes me seriously question the sincerity of his campaign theme. He just kept hammering how important it was to have a Supervisor of Elections office that is free from party influence. Never mind that we've basically had that already under Fred Galey for quite some time now, and I see no reason to believe it won't continue under Lori Scott. Frank Buckoski (who is running as no-party-affiliated) sounds like a man on a mission, a mission which includes a major shake-up of the Supervisor of Elections office. But that office doesn't need a major shake-up. That's why I can't support him in this race.
But he's not doing the best job of reaching out to them either. I can understand a candidate having limited campaign time due to job obligations, but such a candidate needs to understand that they need to find some way, somehow, to get their message out there. And that's where a campaign website comes in. A website is cheap to design, cheap to put up, and cheap to update. You can go as in-depth as you want, as long as you can hold the reader's interest. A website can be a powerful tool for a time-strapped candidate, especially if well-publicized. But looking over Grieco's website, there's just not much there. A few vague issue statements, a few sentences, a sparse resume, and a dark and badly-lit photo. That's it. It's a little hard for me to vote for a candidate without knowing anything about him. Sorry, Frank.
Holy cow, is the election a week away? I'd better get crackin' on these election write-ups. Alright, let's start with the Sheriff's race. Both candidates sat down with Bill Mick at WMMB earlier this month for individual 50 Minutes With pre-recorded interviews for Bill's website, along with a pre-recorded debate. Then on Friday, they returned to the WMMB studios for an on-air debate. All of them are still available for download if you want to check them out for yourselves, like I already have.
The crime rate is up in Brevard County since Parker took over in 2005. Among similarly-sized counties, Brevard's crime rate has increased the fastest, and it also has increased faster than all of our neighboring counties. But the crime rate has been on the rise in the entire state of Florida during that same time period. And while Brevard's increase in crime has been the fastest among similarly-sized counties, the actual crime rate itself still remains the lowest among similarly-sized counties, and still remains below the statewide average. Parker also claims that in the first six months of 2008, the crime rate in Brevard has begun to drop again, though his opponent Gary Young disputes those figures and says they haven't been validated by the federal government yet. For his part, Parker has admitted Young's basic assertions about the higher crime rate in Brevard and accepts the blame for it, and he also hesitates to take credit for the drop so far in 2008 until he knows more about the reasons behind it. Young has also pointed out in his campaign that the Sheriff's budget has grown by $30 million since Parker took office, a figure I haven't heard Parker dispute. But quite frankly, I'm not surprised, nor am I dismayed. Parker oversaw a significant expansion of the jail up in Sharpes, including the construction of the new "tents", a remodeling of the existing jail building, and a drastic and much-needed overhaul of the county's once-failing 911 response center. Those things cost money, and an expanded jail will remain more expensive to maintain. Parker also streamlined the management structure of the Sheriff's office, eliminating many supervisory positions and reassigning officers in order to get more deputies out of the office and back on the streets, so he's taken steps to reign in the budget somewhat to keep it from growing even faster. Parker has also initiated or expanded some very intriguing programs and practices at the jail in an attempt to further curtail expenses and instill more of a work-ethic in the prisoners held there, in the hopes of increasing their pride in the community and keeping them from becoming repeat offenders. He used inmate labor during the construction of the jail expansion, and continues to use inmate work crews for building maintenance, litter clean-up, and even sewing uniforms and bedding for the rest of the prisoners. It remains to be seen whether these will have the desired effect of lowering the crime rate in Brevard, but as more and more of the prisoners from these programs complete their sentences and are set free, we'll find out for sure. In the meantime, I find programs like these to be very forward-thinking and certainly worth a try. However, some of these same programs have been a bit overreaching and have helped to bloat the budget a bit, and Parker should take more care on that front. For example, local blogger Sheree Shatsky has been particularly critical of Parker housing dogs from the Humane Society in one of the jail tents, which currently sits otherwise unused and unoccupied while they wait to finish it for use in housing prisoners in the next expansion phase. The dogs are there as part of a program in which prisoners work with the dogs, care for them, train them, and prepare them for adoption in new homes. Certainly a noble idea... but is it the best use of taxpayer money? Not exactly. Just because a deed is good doesn't mean government should be doing it using money taken from you and me, and it serves as a distraction from the main mission of the Sheriff's office: preventing crime. For the future, Parker wants to continue to add more deputies and continue expanding the jail, which he says still remains overcrowded. He also plans to continue pushing for a cost-of-living pay increase for the deputies, which may be a tall order in the current budget-cutting environment. These are basically extensions of the campaign promises he made in 2004, and he's made progress on all of those promises so far. I think it's safe to assume he'll continue to do so. And that's why Sheriff Jack Parker will get my vote next Tuesday. While he's had some mis-steps and mistakes, I believe Parker has the Sheriff's office moving in the right direction. I simply don't see the case for replacing him at this time, no matter how well-qualified his opponent may be for the job. When things are going well, you don't replace the person in charge without a damn good reason.
But when you're the challenger in an election, you need to do more than just convince me that you'd do a good job. You also have to convince me that the person currently holding the job needs to be replaced. And that's where Gary Young falls short with me. I've already mentioned the Brevard crime statistics that Young has been trumpeting, and they are troubling numbers and trends. But Brevard hasn't exactly become an extension of the south side of Chicago in the past four years, and this is still a pretty safe county to live in overall. That's why Young has to do so much statistical cherry-picking to make his case, and it hurts the effectiveness of his argument. Young's criticism of Parker's budget is valid as well, though I've already discussed that up above, and the excesses in Parker's budget, while also troubling, haven't exactly risen to egregious levels. Young also relies greatly on anecdotes of individual incidents involving the sheriff's office under Jack Parker while failing to make the case that these are more than just isolated incidents. During the on-air debate on WMMB, a caller opened up a discussion on Parker's 2005 hiring of Armor Correctional Health to provide medical care for prisoners in Brevard. Armor has been caught up in shady dealings elsewhere in Florida, including a no-bid contract awarded by a sheriff in another county. The resulting back-and-forth ended up invoking the name of local blogger Sheree Shatsky, who back on September 18th stumbled across an old Sarasota newspaper story from 2007 which said that Armor had actually gone so far as to pay Sheriff Parker as a lobbyist. There's just one problem: shortly after running the original story, the newspaper in question retracted that claim, something Sheree wasn't able to track down until October 2nd. And with that, there isn't really much left to say about Parker and Armor. I'll grant you that Armor is dirty, but that doesn't mean everyone who's ever done business with them is automatically dirty as well. Unless someone can point out to me something more substantive to show that Parker's dealings with Armor have been unethical, this story doesn't hold much water with me. But it is, however, something to keep an eye on in the future. In the meantime, Sheree has of course written a brief piece on that part of the debate that you may want to read. It's also worth nothing that Gary Young was one of the deputies who was demoted and reassigned during Jack Parker's initial reorganization of the sheriff's office. Young responded by filing a lawsuit which later failed. And oddly enough, I actually talked about this lawsuit last year when I subbed in for Carole Nelson on WMEL radio. I wasn't impressed with the lawsuit then, and I'm still not now. You can hear the audio of that segment here. (It's around the 14-minute mark, and apologies for the bumper music... I didn't pick it.) I truly believe Gary Young would make a good sheriff. But we already have a good sheriff: Jack Parker. I simply don't
see the need to replace him at this time.
But those are just the on-air interviews. In a neat twist, Bill has also been doing recorded off-the-air interviews with the candidates. No callers, no commercials, no interruptions, just 50 minutes with Bill. He's been doing both solo interviews with each candidate and debate-style interviews with all the candidates for each race in at the same time. I'm looking forward to hearing the ones for the races on my ballot. Here's the schedule for the live on-the-air interviews:
Looks like there are some races that won't have any on-air interviews. Not sure why...
Bill's also not doing any of the city council races either. I'll be doing write-ups on the Palm Bay City Council races
later, but those are the only city council races I'll cover for any city. (Well, okay, I already skewered Pat
Poole in the Melbourne City Council race, but I'm not planning to go into that race any further.)
Just a quick note to say that I saw a welcome sight earlier today: gas below the $3.00/gallon mark. $2.99/gallon at the GasQwik at the corner of Babcock and Eber. That's an important psychological barrier, and I expect other gas stations to quickly follow suit, even if it means losing some money on gas in the hopes of drawing you inside to buy drinks and snacks. Of course, Barack Obama will continue to ignore this and will still insist this is the worst economy since the Great Depression. Unemployment at the height of the Depression? Around 24%. Unemployment now? Around 6%. You do the math. I'll do some further research and get you some links to back this up later when I have more, but I've read both of those numbers recently from mainstream media reports, so I'm running with them. You could probably argue this is the worst economy since Jimmy Carter's administration... but then Jimmy Carter was a
Democrat. I wonder if that's why Obama doesn't use that as his benchmark.
The year was 2001. I was still on-the-air on WMEL, doing a local political talk show on Saturday nights, and on this particular Saturday night I had a hum-dinger of a topic. Due to "popular demand" (which was conveniently and coincidentally led by a former high-ranking staffer for Weldon who had just quit a few months previous), Congressman Dave Weldon had just announced he would forgo his pledge to serve only four terms in the House of Representatives and would run for a fifth term in 2002. Many other Republicans around the country were breaking similar pledges, and the spirit of the 1994 Contract With America seemed to be on life-support, if not already brain-dead. I was mad as hell. A promise is a promise, and that promise was one of the reasons I had been supporting Weldon despite his milquetoast demeanor in Washington DC. And now he was breaking that promise, forever crossing the boundary into the land of power-hungry Washington insiders. So I talked about it on the air, and I ripped Weldon a new one, laying out the conservative case for why Weldon should not be supported for a fifth term. Then I opened up the phone lines for calls. In the audience that night were two new listeners, two little old ladies who thought they had me figured out after listening for a grand total of ten minutes. They called in back-to-back to tear me a new one under the mistaken belief that if I was criticizing a Republican, that must mean I was a Democrat. I was still a registered Republican at the time (I'm now a registered Libertarian), and they were completely unprepared for the concept of a Republican who didn't allow his principles to be overridden by blind partisan loyalty. I verbally sparred with the first one for several minutes but couldn't get her to understand this, and she got me quite worked up. When I moved on to the second caller and she started down the exact same line of attack, I actually hung up on her in anger. In partisan politics, there are just some people who don't understand the concept of ideological purity. The Party is everything, and if you don't support The Party, you are The Enemy. Those two callers on my show were perfect examples of this way of thinking, and it is this way of thinking that allowed Dave Weldon to break his promise and run for a fifth term without retaliation. And a sixth term. And a seventh term. The whole time, he's remained the same ol' mild-mannered politician, unwilling to take strong stands on anything, dancing around pointed questions from constituents (getting a straight answer from him on the FairTax was always an exercise in futility) and doing everything he could just to hang on to his House seat and all the perks it entails. Meanwhile, other well-qualified Republicans and conservatives have languished in the shadows, people like Bill Posey or Frank Zilaitis or Mitch Needelman or Scott Ellis who would be perfectly capable of representing Brevard County in Congress and fighting for the conservative ideals that so many of us hold dear. But people kept voting for Weldon thanks to that magical R next to his name, never questioning if he was the best person to represent not just the county, but to represent the party, to represent a wider set of ideals. Oh, they'd give you reasons, chief among them that "we need Weldon's experience in Washington." But I defy you to name one accomplishment from after 2002 that Weldon's experience made possible that, say, Mitch Needelman couldn't have done too. As long as the blind partisans kept allowing Weldon to run for that fifth, sixth, seventh term, they prevented anyone else from going for the Republican nomination. All the partisans wanted was to make sure someone with an R next to his name won, and it didn't matter whether or not he was actually the best person for the job. It might've been tolerable or maybe even forgivable if we at least had a fighter, someone willing to take a strong stand for conservative ideals. Instead, Weldon kept going along to get along, staying out of big fights in a vain attempt to appeal to everyone, to reach out to the other side of the political aisle and avoid offending them. Not that it did him much good, considering the rhetoric that the Democrats and liberals in Brevard have continued to blast Weldon with over the years. You'd think he was the unholy clone of Pat Buchanan from the way some people in this county talk about Weldon when in fact he's one of the tamest, most-harmless members of Congress in either party. That attempt at a broader appeal won him zero from the other side. So, no, I'm not going to miss Dave Weldon in Congress. He seems to me to be a good enough guy, even if he has gotten too
attached to life in DC, and coming back home and stepping away from his power will do him a world of good. He has been a
significant help to NASA and the space program, and bringing the VA clinic to Viera was a surprising and positive
accomplishment early in his Congressional career. But his time in Congress was over six years ago, and he has accomplished
nothing of consequence since his broken term-limits promise. Hopefully his replacement, whether it be Frank Zilaitis or
Bill Posey, will understand that we want someone who will fight for conservative ideas in government, not just talk
about them.
So, yeah. Pat Poole is running for her old seat on the Melbourne City Council. She retired from the council a few years ago after years of cantakerous contrarianism, and I foolishly believed we were finally rid of her. But over the past year, she's gotten increasingly vocal on the issues of development in Downtown Melbourne and especially over the proposed expansion of the Daily Bread soup kitchen. She has a small but devoted group of followers that adore her for the stands she's taken, and it seems to me that she's gotten a taste of the power she once held and is now hungry for more, culminating in her decision to run for election to the City Council once more. I went through my old radio show program notes from 2000 and also used my Google-Fu to give myself a refresher of some of her inaner moments over the years, and a consistent picture emerged. Pat Poole seems to love picking fights with people and almost thrives on having people royally pissed off at her. She's shown no signs of mellowing out, and I expect a return to the City Council would mean more of the same. Let's review, shall we? First there's this old Florida Today article from September 7th, 2000 which brings out several items from Poole's past: Moving on from that article... in October 2000, I attended a candidates' forum hosted by a local chapter of the NAACP, and Pat Poole was one of the candidates who showed up. Most of the audience was black, and Poole had some flippant remarks about how nobody in the room was going to be voting for her anyway. She had a sour attitude all the way through the forum and clearly couldn't care less about whether a room full of people from her own council district liked her or not. Her complete disdain for her own constituents was in full view, a shocking display of arrogance from the person who was running to represent the very people she held in such disdain. And she knew she could get away with it, thanks to the fact that Melbourne uses city-wide at-large voting in its City Council elections. She could piss off her own district and still get elected thanks to votes from people in other districts, thus guaranteeing that her own district would have no true representation on the City Council. Lovely, Pat. At that same forum, Poole dodged a direct question about whether any Melbourne street should be renamed after Martin Luther King Jr. Her reason? Commenting on upcoming Council business would create a "conflict of interest." Never mind that she answered every other question posed to her about upcoming Council business on a variety of other issues. She was just too cowardly to tell a room full of black people what she thought of Martin Luther King Jr. And it's not just racial issues where Poole has shown this sort of attitude. In the aftermath of Hurricane Frances in 2004 when Poole was still on the City Council, large swaths of the city were without power for up to two weeks, and many people resorted to running generators to run their refrigerators, lights, and air conditioning in their homes. At the time, the Deputy Chief of the Melbourne Police Department got fed up with the noisy generator being run by his neighbor, so he went next door late one night and threatened to have the neighbor arrested for violating city noise ordinances. The neighbor went to the media, and soon Florida Today, WMEL and WMMB were all loudly trumpeting the idiocy of this abusive officer. Then-Mayor John Buckley convened an emergency meeting of the City Council to vote on temporarily rescinding the city's noise ordinances so that people could run their generators until their power came back on, and the measure passed 6-1. Who voted "nay," you ask? None other than Pat Poole. In the minutes of that meeting, Page 2 shows she opposed it basically because she's lived in a house without air conditioning since she was 6 years old and has gotten along fine, completely ignoring that some people were running generators to save the food in their refrigerator, to keep a business running, or to power medical equipment at home. Well, actually, she did address people who had health issues, saying they should just go to a hurricane shelter instead of running a generator at home. Yeah, swell, Pat. Tell people to abandon their home in the aftermath of a major natural disaster while looting is actively taking place. Makes sense to me! She also criticized the media for stirring up the story of the threatened arrest, effectively defending the Deputy Chief for his blatant abuse of his law enforcement authority in a personal dispute. That should show you what she thinks of the citizens of Melbourne: you should all just shut up and roll over if a cop wants to throw you in jail over something incredibly stupid. And how dare the media report on it! More recently, Poole has led the charge against expanding the Daily Bread soup kitchen in downtown Melbourne, and I actually agree with her on that point, thought not quite with the same fervor she brings to the issue. She also managed to get herself ejected from the audience at a City Council meeting back in March of 2007 for going past her speaking time, but I've heard Mayor Harry Goode is a bit of a stickler on enforcing the rules at Council meetings, plus I wasn't there to see what happened for myself, so I'm not sure how useful that info is. But there you go. Pat Poole is the wrong person for the Melbourne City Council. Her attitude towards the citizens of her own district
borders on contempt, and her attitude towards the citizens of the rest of the city isn't much better. She has a history of
being combative and cantankerous just because she can. She seems to go out of her way to piss people off, and while a
little dissension in government is a good thing, dissension solely for the sake of dissension is pointless. That's all Pat
Poole has to offer, and the city of Melbourne can do better than that.
Coming up later today will be my long-promised article on Pat Poole. But first...
If you were paying attention during the Notre Dame-Stanford game last weekend, you could pick out the precise moment at which my vacation schedule actually allowed me to turn on the TV and start watching the game: the start of the 4th quarter. That's when Notre Dame went into their ingenious three-and-out offense with a 28-7 lead and allowed Stanford to score two quick touchdowns, making it 28-21 with way too much time still left in the 4th quarter. Thank goodness for that stupid, stupid Stanford punt returner for catching Notre Dame's final punt at his own 2 yard line and getting nailed right there, dooming Stanford's chances at completing the comeback. But it pretty much confirmed my status as Notre Dame's official bad-luck charm. The instant I turned on the TV, they forgot how to play football and did everything they could to hand the game to Stanford. Imagine if I'd turned on the TV earlier! Further evidence... Notre Dame is 0-5 in games in which I am personally in the stands watching. In 2005, I was watching the close finishes to Michigan State and USC in which the Irish lost, but I was unable to watch the close finish against Stanford in which the Irish won. I also missed the entire 4th quarter of the '06 Michigan State game, in which Notre Dame capped off a furious comeback with a miraculous victory. Oh, and during the disasterous '07 season, the only game I couldn't watch was the UCLA game... which turned out to be Notre Dame's first victory of the year, and their only win until mid-November. Maybe I shouldn't turn on the TV for the Notre Dame-North Carolina game later today. At any rate, if I'd posted before the Stanford game, I would've predicted a loss, because I genuinely fear the ability of Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh to get his guys fired up for a big game. And hey, Stanford came pretty close, but in the end the Irish held on for the win. Now we're 4-1, but the offense is one-sided, the rushing game is woefully anemic and shows scant signs of improvement, the defense isn't particularly stout, and we haven't beaten anybody of any real worth yet. So, I'm sticking with my prediction of a final record of 8-4. That means we're gonna lose 3 more games. USC is a gimme -- we ain't got the horses to keep up with them. Two more losses... I still say one will be to Pittsburgh, because Dave Wannstadt ("the Wannstache") has that infuriating ability to steal a big game one week and then lose to Southeast Rhode Island A&M Tech the following week, so he's fully capable of getting a sneaky trap win on the Irish. That leaves one loss left, and North Carolina has looked pretty strong so far. Butch Davis has them playing well there in Chapel Hill, and it's a road game against a ranked opponent. So, you heard it here first. Notre Dame loses to North Carolina today, 24-13. And as always, I hope I'm wrong. Hey, I was wrong about the Stanford game. GO IRISH!!!
Sorry it's been so quiet here lately. Things have been tumultuous at work, and then things quieted down just in time for me to go out of town for a vacation for a few days. But now I'm back, I'm rested, and I'm rearing to go. Give me a day or two to catch up, and then I'll start filling this page with updates once again. It's good to be back,
in more ways than one.
First of all, apologies for the spotty updating this month. I feel like I've been running down lately... I think I'm trying to do too much while not getting enough sleep, and it's catching up to me. Maybe my life needs a reboot. But anyway...
Ah, Purdue. Owner of the World's Largest Drum, not to mention an obnoxious student body. Purdue notched some upsets over Notre Dame during the Bob Davie / Ty Willingham era, and that got 'em feelin' cocky. Weis took 'em to the woodshed in '05 and '06, but then they got us during the disasterous '07 season, so they're feelin' mighty full of themselves... kinda like Michigan State, actually. Except Michigan State has a cohesive team, a solid coach, and a phenom by the name of Javon Ringer. Purdue doesn't. Purdue will play us tougher than Michigan and San Diego State, and they'll keep it close, but they're not good enough to beat us. Irish win, 28-20. GO IRISH!!!
For the longest time, going back to my childhood days, my favorite word in the English language has been defenestration, the act of throwing someone through a window. It's a fun word to say. Go on, say it out loud. Defenestration. Fun, huh? When you use it in front of someone who has never heard that word before, you can get some great reactions as they try to figure out what it means. * And the definition... oh, the definition! The mere fact that there is a word for that in the English language! That, ladies and gentlemen, is awesomeness defined. And as a bonus, knowing about the word defenestration is almost like being a member of some secret society. Drop the word into a conversation and watch for that flash of recognition to cross someone's face. Ah, another member of the brotherhood! It's a tough word to top. But it's been topped. In an e-mail to me over the weekend, Linda McKinney dropped in the word kakistocracy. The word jumped off the screen and crackled with negative meaning, and I just had to look it up. So I did: a government run by the worst, least-qualified people. It's derived from the Greek word kakisto, meaning "worst," which makes a kakistocracy literally "a government of the worst." The fact that there is a word for that in the English language is awesomeness distilled. Kakistocracy! Apparently I'm late to the party, since Google turns up an awful lot of bloggers who have used that word before, but hey, I'm not bitter. I feel priveleged just to be made aware of such a wonderful word at all, even if it did take this long. Linda McKinney, you have my most profound thanks. _____________________________
** Am I pretentious for asking my own questions and then answering them? You betcha. Do I care? Not really, no.
(Well, if there are Jedi squirrels, of course there'd be Sith squirrels, right? And no, sorry,
I don't know who to credit this to either.)
I saw one of her campaign signs two days ago and thought I must be seeing things. She mercifully retired years ago, didn't she? Wasn't she forever gone from our lives? No need to worry. Then I saw another one of her campaign signs this morning. Read it more carefully. Realized I was reading it correctly. Got home and checked the Supervisor of Elections website. There it is. Pat Poole is running for the Melbourne City Council. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Melbourne, I am imploring you, BEGGING you, do NOT allow this embarrassment of a human being to return to the City Council! Man, now I've gotta go back deep into my archives and see what notes I have from her previous stint on the
Council. I wasn't planning on commenting on any of the Melbourne races since I live in Palm Bay, but this... this must be
responded to.
Except it's not. Not yet. Michigan beat Notre Dame in every stat except for the one that matters most: the score. 14 of Notre Dame's points were pretty much gift-wrapped by Michigan and handed over during the first 4 minutes of the game. That McGuffie kid ran all over Notre Dame's defense, we showed an alarming tendency to give up big plays and long drives, and our rushing game continued to sputter along with an average yardage per carry of 3-point-something yards... not bad, but not enough. At least we showed the poise to take advantage of Michigan's mistakes and to make big plays when we absolutely had to make them, but Michigan was threatening to get right back in it the whole game, held back almost chiefly by shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly. Many of my friends in the Irish Nation think we finally proved something against Michigan, that it was a statement win, a turnaround game. It was none of those. It was a convincing win over a hated rival, and a major confidence boost to a young squad, but it doesn't prove much. The real test comes later today on the road against Michigan State and their punishing ground game. If Notre Dame can beat the Spartans, I'll be thrilled. I'll agree then that Notre Dame has proven themselves as a legitimate threat to win every game on their schedule and to reach a BCS bowl. But I don't think Notre Dame can win this one. We've come a long way but we still have a long way to go. Michigan State wins 28-17, but we'll keep it respectable. But you know what? I hope I'm wrong. I'd LOVE to be wrong. And that's why I'll be shouting my lungs out when I tune the TV to ESPN at 3:30pm today. GO IRISH!!!
(Quite frankly, I'm surprised I've gone this long without quoting Ben Folds Five.) The upcoming Property Appraiser race between the incumbent Jim Ford and the challenger Larry Hughes has to be one of the more bizarre races we've had in Brevard County in a while. The latest twist this week was the announcement that the blood test in Hughes's open DUI case came back showing no alcohol in his blood. So the case is over, right? Nope. The prosecutor is still expecting results back from another blood test for drugs. But with the trial set to begin on Monday, time's running out. And the judge is clearly annoyed with the prosecutor for taking so long on the blood tests, because he denied the prosecutor's request for a two-week delay in starting the trial. So, the case could very well end up getting dropped altogether on Monday. We'll see. Regardless, with Ford and Hughes, we have two candidates who, to put it bluntly, both suck. I'm really not sure I care who wins, because either way I won't be happy with the results. The only decision to make is to decide who sucks worse, and then vote for the other guy.
Great record, huh?
And yet Hughes managed to win the Democratic primary over an opponent with 21 years of experience working in that same office and a reputation as a whistle-blower, namely Charlie Sitton? I'd ask what the hell is wrong with you Democrats, except that the Republicans voted to re-nominate Jim Ford in that same primary. Makes me glad I'm a registered Libertarian. But anyway... I guess in November I'll probably end up voting for Larry Hughes. His judgement is highly questionable, his experience in running large government agencies is virtually nonexistent, and his grasp of the job he's running for is tenuous and bordering on incompetent. But hey, at least he's never gotten in trouble for official misconduct in his job on the school board. The closest he's come to that was when he sent a campaign e-mail to the work inboxes of school board employees, which later turned out to be a protest move to highlight how inconsistent the laws are on who is or isn't allowed to e-mail political campaign information using state resources. That's it. His record in that regard is pretty much squeaky clean. In contrast, Jim Ford knows full-well how to run the Property Appraiser's office. In fact, he knows how to run it too well, given everything that's been happening on his watch that just happens to be benefiting people who are close to him and have helped his campaigns in the past, all at our expense of course. So yeah. I'll be voting for Larry Hughes in November. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I forgot all about the Michigan Wolverines, those bastards. After teaching Notre Dame how to play football and promptly finding out we're better at it, they tried to smother Notre Dame football in its infancy -- and failed. And now we hate them. (Oh, don't bother me with the fact that this was a century ago. This is college football fandom. Logic and rationality will not be tolerated.) This year, Michigan has a new coach, a brand new offensive system, new players at key positions all over the place, and some rather unfortunate injuries. In short, they're in a rebuilding year. But Notre Dame ain't exactly in top form right now either, though we're further along with the rebuilding process than Michigan is. Last week, I predicted we'd beat San Diego State 28-10. We ended up winning 21-13 and looked pretty shaky for three quarters before pouring it on in the 4th. But the running game showed signs of life, Jimmy Clausen shook off his early miscues to lead two rock-solid touchdown drives, and Golden Tate emerged as the star of the wide-receiver corps. Last week, I also predicted we would lose to Michigan. But after seeing how both teams have played so far this season, I'm changing my mind. I'm still sticking with an 8-4 mark for the season, and I'm flipping the Stanford game to a loss since I think they could pull one over on us. But for today's game, I think we'll see more of what we saw in the 4th quarter of the San Diego State game. Notre Dame will score 3 touchdowns but botch another extra point, and will win 20-17. GO IRISH!!!
Everywhere you turned yesterday, I'm sure you were told to remember September 11th. I'm taking a different tack here. I'm going to ask you to remember September 12th. On September 11th, 2001, terrible things happened. We as a nation were shocked and off-balance, reacting to changing conditions on the fly, no time to think, just act and act NOW. On September 12th, we woke up a new nation. The dust had settled. We'd had a night to sleep on it. We'd had time to catch our breath, to think, to ponder, to consider what the previous day's events meant for the future direction of the United States of America. We had a general plan to go find who did this and kick their ass, and September 12th was when we started filling in the details for that plan. It was our nation's finest day. For the first time in a long time, we were almost unanimously united behind one cause, one identity. We were all Americans first and foremost, and everything else was a distant second. We were united in a way that had once seemed impossible in the aftermath of the divisive 2000 presidential election. We had a goal. We had a mission. We were united. You don't need me to tell you how far we've gotten from that day. For those of us who follow politics, it is so damn easy to cluster up with people who hold similar views to our own, and to look upon anyone who doesn't share those views as The Enemy. We smear, we insult, we twist the truth. I do it. You do it. We do it because we think these battles of political ideology are all-encompassing and overarchingly important, and that we must do anything -- anything -- to win that ideological battle. News flash for all of you, liberal or conservative, who have taken a side in the ideological battle that divides our nation right now. To both sides, I say to you that the vast majority of those people on the opposite side of you are not engaged in an insidious plot to destroy the country. They actually think their ideas will help the country. You believe they're wrong, of course, and that's fine. I'm not asking you to give up on the debate or to roll over and accept ideas you disagree with. But I am asking you to acknowledge the good motives of those you disagree with, those who truly believe their ideas are what's best for this country, even though you disagree. Yeah, okay, there's a few miscreants on the other side with baser, more selfish motives. Look around and you'll see a few of those same miscreants on your own side as well. But they're a tiny minority, and they're dwarved by the sheer hordes of people with purer motives, who just want a better nation to live in. We forget what our true goal should be: to make the United States of America a better nation. We focus on the short-sighted goal of winning the argument just for the sake of winning the argument, and we lose track of the actual reason why we should be having that argument at all. And in the process, we forget who the true Enemies are: those who have the explicit, stated and intentional goal of bringing down the United States of America. On September 12th, 2001, we knew who our true Enemies actually are: radical, fundamentalist Islamic terrorists who hate everything about this nation and want it brought down, who twist our own freedoms against us to find and exploit our weaknesses until they can strike at those weaknesses with devastating force. Kinda puts that argument with your next-door neighbor about government-run health-care in perspective, doesn't it? He isn't the enemy. On September 12th, 2001, you knew that. It's time to remember that again. Remember September 12th, 2001.
It's true! I read it on the Voter Turnout page on the Florida Division of Elections website! Well, okay, it's most likely a typo, since the chart shows only 35,984 registered voters in Volusia, compared to 300,000+ in Brevard. I'm pretty sure there's a digit missing from Volusia's number, and that in turn threw off the turnout calculation. I've already e-mailed the webmaster to have it corrected, but it was still funny to see more votes counted than actual registered voters. For a second there, I thought I was gonna break a major voter-fraud story, but alas, it was not to be. :) I also saw that Brevard County finalized it's election reporting with the state on 8/29, and the only counties that turned in their results on earlier days were tiny little rural counties with only a handful of votes to count. So, Brevard continues its streak of smoothly-run and quickly-counted elections, truly a testament to the quality job done by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections office. It's also a great contrast to Miami-Dade County, which 12 days later still hasn't finished counting their absentee ballots yet. (I also noticed Gilchrist County is missing entirely from the state's election website for the 8/26 primary. Why did I notice that Gilchrist County is missing at all? Because I'm an insufferable nerd, that's why.) UPDATE: 9/9 at 4:15pm - The webmaster for the state election website fixed the Volusia County
numbers yesterday. She also advised me that Gilchrist County only had local elections on 8/26, no state elections; hence
the omission.
But I still find it odd that it took 12 days for anyone to notice Volusia County had a reported election turnout of 106%,
and that it took some rookie blogger from Palm Bay to find it at all. I do this as a hobby for a few hours a week.
Reporters get paid for this. Nobody in the mainstream media looks for election anomalies
at all?!? Yikes.
Hang on, I've just been handed a note... hmm. Apparently, the alien invasion of Buenos Aires did not, in fact, recently happen, but was instead a plot point from Robert Heinlein's sci-fi tour-de-force novel Starship Troopers, which of course was waaaaaaaay better than the awful, awful movie of the same name. Also apparently, I need to get more sleep.
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Just when you think government can't get any more
arrogant...
Bad blogger! No cookie for you.
Starting on Monday morning, 
Lawrence Salberg over at
So, yeah. 
Oh hey, look, my first full update since my
vacation and it's about Notre Dame football. Shocking, I know.
Between Tropical Storm Fay, Tropical Storm
Hanna, Hurricane Ike, the 8/26 primary, and the invasion of Buenos Aires by an army of voracious bug-like aliens, I've
once again fallen behind on a bevy of great local stories. And I'm just not gonna have time to do full write-ups on all of
them, but I don't want to let them slip into the ether unnoted either. So let me cue up "Janitor" by Toad the Wet Sprocket
here, and then I'll give ya some quick-hits.