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Archive - August 2008
Anywho, it looks like his next hearing has been delayed once again and is now set for Wednesday, September 17th. The reason? His blood test supposedly hasn't come back yet. I say "supposedly" because while blood tests can take more time than people realize sometimes, they aren't supposed to take this long. And during his appearance last month on Bill Mick Live, Hughes mentioned that his lawyers were expecting just such a delay because it's not unusual for prosecutors to sit on blood-test results for as long as possible without releasing them, especially if the prosecutors don't like the results. When Hughes was arrested back in June and began proclaiming his innocence, I was very skeptical, especially when his first hearing in July was delayed at the request of Hughes's lawyer. But the longer this drags on, the more I think the prosecution is dragging their feet on a weak case. If September 17th rolls around and they ask for yet another delay, I hope the judge tells the prosecutor to quit screwing around and either proceed to trial or drop the damn charges already. Hughes has a bruising campaign coming up to unseat the incumbent Property Appraiser Jim Ford, and Hughes also has a life
to live. He deserves an answer on this, one way or the other.
It's not time to go shopping quite yet, and if Hanna hits us, it'll probably be a week away, give or take a day. And it doesn't look like she'll be all that strong, since she's having trouble getting her act together and is going to have another nasty fight with wind shear in the next few days. But wow, this is not what we need on the heels of Fay. If you're still cleaning up or fixing up from Fay, get your work done now. Don't wait. As always, keep reading the excellent tropical weather blog by Dr. Jeff Masters. I do this for a hobby. He does this for a living, and it shows. Oh, and say a prayer for New Orleans... Tropical
Storm Gustav is not lookin' good for them right now.
There were a few election winners that were real head-scratchers on Tuesday night -- John Tobia? Larry Hughes? Jim frickin' Ford?!? -- but I was pretty happy with the results overall. There are some nice match-ups coming up for November's general election, and the voters sent some powerful messages to some candidates who needed to hear them. Only time will tell if Mitch Needelman, Jackie Colon, Ron Stump, Helen Voltz, Jim Ford and Janice Kershaw were paying attention. Below are the results for the elections that took place in my precinct, pulled together in one spot with a quickie analysis from me for each race. The US House, State House and Circuit Judge results came from the Florida Division of Elections website, with the rest of the results coming from the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections website. Oh, and I marked my preferred candidate in each race with an asterisk. *
(If you haven't taken the time to educate yourself on the candidates and issues, do us all a favor and 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 party and then 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. There are a handful of voting locations that have changed due to storm damage from Tropical Storm Fay, so it certainly can't hurt to double-check. 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, you can click here for local results, and you can click here for the US House and State House results. (EDIT: Corrected the second link, which will now take you to TONIGHT'S results. Useful, eh?) And finally, here's a quick run-down of who I'll be voting for, as well as who I hope wins the races that I can't vote in. I've also included links to my write-ups in each race so you can get a refresher on why I chose the person I chose. US HOUSE DISTRICT 15 - 7/21 write-up - 8/25 write-up
STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 31 - write-up
CLERK OF THE CIRCUIT COURT - write-up
PROPERTY APPRAISER - write-up
TAX COLLECTOR - write-up
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS - write-up
COUNTY COMMISSION DISTRICT 3 - write-up
JUDGE RACES - write-up
SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT 3 - write-up
CITY OF PALM BAY REFERENDUM - write-up
Just a last-minute update on a couple of races and items on the 8/26 primary ballot that I just haven't had time to get to until now. Better late than never, right? CIRCUIT JUDGE, 18TH CIRCUIT, GROUP 17 COUNTY COURT JUDGE, GROUP 3 What I didn't like was a spat he got into with Clerk of Court Scott Ellis earlier this year. Florida law states that when a criminal defendant's bail money is released at the end of their case, the Clerk of Court's office is supposed to check the records and see if the defendant still owes any money to the court for fines or victim restitution. If they do, that money is taken out of the bail money, and then whatever is left is returned to whoever posted the bail. For example, let's make up a ficticious man named Tyler. Tyler gets himself in trouble at a local bar one night, gets arrested, and later makes a plea deal where he agrees to pay a $250 fine and avoids any jail time. But he never gets around to paying that fine! Fast-forward a few months later, and Tyler's in trouble again after another rowdy night at the local bar and gets arrested. The judge sets his bail at $1,000 and Tyler gets his Uncle Joey to pay $1,000 to bail him out. The case goes to trial, the jury acquits him, and Tyler's a free man, which means Uncle Joey gets his $1,000 back. But first, the Clerk of Court's office checks the records and sees Tyler still owes that $250 fine from earlier! So they take that $250 out of the bail money, and Uncle Joey only gets back $750 and learns a valuable lesson about bailing his no-good nephew out of jail. Whatever you think of that law (and I personally like it, though you may disagree), that's the law right now. And until it gets repealed, judges have to enforce that law. Basically, what happened in this debate between Hotusing and Ellis was that Uncle Joey complained to Judge Hotusing about how unfair this was, so Judge Hotusing ordered Scott Ellis to return the entire bail without holding back any money. Ellis refused, and Hotusing actually threatened Ellis with a contempt-of-court citation. In the end the dispute ended up getting kicked up to a higher court, and I haven't been able to find out if the case was ever resolved. On the one hand, it looks like Hotusing is re-writing the law, which I don't like to see judges do. On the other hand, the law as-written seems to give the judge some leeway on enforcing this.
Emphasis added by me, and it's those words "under the direction of the court" that make me back down a bit on this one. Judge Hotusing may have some discretionary power to waive this law in cases where he thinks it's a good idea to do so. I plan to keep an eye on Judge Hotusing in the future to watch out for any other signs that he prefers to write new laws instead of enforcing the existing laws. But given his otherwise-good performance on the bench, I will vote to keep Judge Oscar Hotusing. Michelle Baker may well be qualified for the bench, but I'd rather keep a good judge on the bench than replace him with someone who may or may not turn out well. PALM BAY REFERENDUM NO. 1 I'm voting YES, even though I think such tax exemptions are silly. I think every business in a city should pay taxes by the same set of rules and standards as all the other businesses in that city. Unfortunately, pretty much every city in the country allows these exemptions, and this vote would only affect Palm Bay while still allowing other cities to keep offering these exemptions, putting Palm Bay at a disadvantage for being fair. So, I'm begrudingly voting YES to keep Palm Bay on the same footing as the other cities they're competing with. BREVARD COUNTY SHERIFF: DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
Bill Mick already did a series of individual interviews with the Congressional candidates to replace Dave Weldon back in July. On August 14th and 15th, he brought everyone back on-the-air in groups by party to follow up and generate some head-to-head debate. And earlier this morning he held one last interview and invited everyone to come in at once, which you can hear by heading to Bill's podcast page. In some cases they simply rehashed old-ground, so I'll try to focus on whatever new information they revealed about themselves and their views. If you want to read what I wrote about their initial round of interviews, click here.
I was impressed with Bill Posey's initial interview, and I remain impressed with him. I'm still probably going to go with Frank Zilaitis in November, but I'll certainly be rooting for Bill Posey to win the Republican primary tomorrow, and I wouldn't mind having him in DC at all.
I liked his energy stance, which is that he wants to get away from using oil at all in the long-term and switch to cleaner methods such as solar, hydrogen, or maybe nuclear, though I would've preferred more detail on his short-term oil policy. Does he want to drill more right now for the short-term? He wasn't clear. Bergman also gave a weak answer about eminent domain. He said people should be compensated at real market value when their land is taken under eminent domain, but that he doesn't mind eminent domain being used "for the greater good," a vague answer that didn't address the specific practice of seizing land from one private owner and then turning it over to another private owner for redevelopment. And he also seemed just a little too comfortable with the use of eminent domain overall, which I believe should only be used when absolutely neccessary, not just because the government can do something good with that land. Bergman was also vague on the issue of illegal immigration, but he seemed to say he wants to enforce immigration laws and document everyone coming into the country. Overall, Bergman shows a troubling tendency to accept government interference in our lives in too many areas as long as he thinks it's a good idea, and that tells me he's not quite the principled conservative he tells us he is. I'm still not sure if he'd be strong enough to stand up to Nancy Pelosi in DC, and I have to stick with rooting for Bill Posey in the Republican primary.
Blythe tried to have it both ways on taxes, stating again he'd be for a flat tax or for the FairTax, but also saying he wants to increase taxes on short-term capital gains. That means he doesn't really support the FairTax, which would replace capital gains taxes and all other income taxes. You can't support both ideas because they're contradictory to each other! Blythe also said he wants to keep the space program going but wants focus on staying in Earth-orbit, and that he has yet to see a cost-benefit analysis that justifies going to the Moon or Mars. Blythe repeated his support for stricter penalties for businesses who hire illegal immigrants and for a guest-worker program, but he also stated he would allow people who are already here illegally but have broken no other laws to enter that guest-worker program -- which basically means he supports amnesty, even if he doesn't want to call it that. Steven Blythe is my preferred Democrat in this race, mainly thanks to his strong understanding of health care issues and his willingness to use free market reforms rather than a top-down government health-care system. But the more I hear from Dr. Blythe, the less I want to send him to Washington.
I do like some of Rancatore's other stances, though. He wants to focus on mitigating the upcoming blow to the local economy that will come with the end of the space shuttle, and hopes to expand commercial space flight at Kennedy Space Center to help fill the economic gap. He's taken a deeper look at the FairTax and has now come out in support of it. He supports using oil shale right now for our short-term energy needs and developing space-based solar power for our long-term energy needs. In the meantime he wants to reduce the number of different fuel oil formulations from 17 down to 1 to cut down the price, and wants to abolish the use of corn-based ethanol. Paul Rancatore actually switched from Republican to Democrat in 2006, which may explain why he's so sensitive about being called a liberal. He has some good ideas, but also some bad ones, and I just can't put my support behind his candidacy.
On the topic of jobs creation, Zilaitis says his role in Congress will be to cheerlead for Brevard County to bring in business and then to get out of the way of local businesses rather than trying to tweak the local economy from DC with an "1800-mile screwdriver." He also brought up that the FairTax would create more jobs by boosting the economy -- which by extension means more jobs here in Brevard as well. On the topic of illegal immigration, Zilaitis stated that a guest-worker program would be a band-aid on the problem of illegal immigration and wants a top-to-bottom reform of the entire immigration system. Amen to that, Frank! Zilaitis also said we have to accept the reality that the shuttle program is done and that we need to move on to the next program, as well as increasing commercial space flight at KSC. He was blunt in his criticism of Space Florida, saying they dropped the ball locally on properly managing the space program to avoid the coming economic hit from the end of the shuttle program, and he singled out Bill Posey as a member of Space Florida who bears some responsibility for this. While discussing our space program's reliance on Russia, he got beaten up a little by the callers for referring to Russia and China as peace-loving countries, and later had to clarify that he was talking about not using the International Space Station to work out our political or military differences with Russia or China. As an independent candidate, Zilaitis plans to caucus with the Republican party as an independent, much like Joe Lieberman caucuses with the Democratic party as an independent. As such, I'm really not worried about his lack of party affiliation in DC. Zilaitis is strong on the issues, knowledgeable, and consistent, and he will be able to get things done. That's why I'm almost certain at this point that I'll be voting for Frank Zilaitis come November.
The primary election is tomorrow, August 26th, so I'm trying to wrap up my series of write-ups on the candidate interviews that have been airing on Bill Mick Live. Next up is County Commission District 3. There's only one Democrat, Ed Geier, so there will be no Democratic primary and Geier will go straight to the ballot in November. So that leaves the Republican Party primary, where there are 4 candidates. Let's take a look, shall we?
Trudie Infantini knows this county, she knows this government, and she has an excellent plan for getting the County's spending under control. She is head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field, and I will be thrilled if she wins the primary and look forward to voting for her in November.
McLellan also stated that he wants more flexibility to transfer budget money from departments with surpluses to department with shortages, but unfortunately some of his comments on this topic showed a lack of knowledge about the budgeting process. There are times when money is collected by the county through referendums or through state and federal grants that can only be spent on one certain thing and nothing else. If one of those projects ends up with a surplus of cash, unfortunately there's no way for that money to be re-allocated to something else. I do like that McLellan doesn't want to take "no" for an answer on this issue, because it shows he'll bring a can-do attitude to the job. But in the end he'll have to take "no" as an answer on this issue anyway, regardless of whether he wants to or not. McLellan's philsophy, experience and attitude will serve him well if he gets to the County Commission, but the weakness of his knowledge of the budget process holds him back from being my top candidate in this race. But if McLellan wins the primary, he's certainly someone I could get behind, and I have a feeling he'd have no trouble filling in whatever gaps exist in his knowledge once he gets into the job.
I'm not totally closing the door on Jan Conrad. If she somehow wins this primary, I want to give her a closer look and try to find out more about the connections between Conrad and Voltz, and I could still see myself voting for her over Ed Geier. But in this primary, I would greatly prefer Trudie Infantini, and I'm hesitant to roll the dice on Conrad.
During his interview with Bill Mick, I called in ("Vince from Palm Bay," of course) and tried to nail Geier down as either a conservative or a liberal. He went for "moderate," and along those lines he was very difficult to pin down on the questions Bill and the callers asked him. That did not go unnoticed by me. Geier has time before the November election, but sooner or later he's going to have to set aside the gauzy rhetoric about representing the people of the district and start taking actual stands on issues. If my choice in November is between a strong conservative like Infantini or McLellan versus a self-described moderate who bobs and weaves when I ask him point-blank questions, the choice will be easy for me: the strong conservative. That won't change my opinion of Geier as a good man and as someone who I like and respect, but it won't earn him my vote. Talk to us, Ed. We'll listen.
I mention all of this because of a dust-up between Mitch Needelman and Scott Ellis in the Clerk of Court race, one that I initially ignored in my initial post on the Clerk of Court race, but which blew up a bit over the weekend. Mitch Needelman's campaign website includes a series of interview questions from a reporter with the Hometown News, that free newspaper you get in your driveway now and then that you probably throw away. (By the way, don't. There's good reading in there, and it's nice to have an alternative to Florida Today.) Scott Ellis's supporters have been claiming online that Needelman's answer to question b.) initially included the parenthetical phrase, "the current Clerk has unsuccessful (sic) sued the County a number of times in the last eight years." When Ellis's supporters challenged the accuracy of that statement, the sentence in question suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from Needelman's website. If you check Needelman's site now, you'll see that sentence is missing from the answer to question b.). Then it got weird. One of Needelman's staffers responded to Ellis's supporters by threatening to start filing libel lawsuits and claimed the sentence in question had never been on the website at all! It came to a head during the joint two-hour interview Ellis and Needelman had on Bill Mick Live on Friday 8/22. Ellis accused Needelman of doctoring the interview, changing the website and lying about it, and Needelman denied that any such change to the website had ever taken place. (As of today, that interview is still up on Bill's podcast site if you want to hear it for yourself, but it won't stay up for much longer.) The argument hit me as the sort of bickering best reserved for web-forum flame wars, so I ignored it and focused on weightier matters. But then the Hometown News weighed in on Friday afternoon, posting their copies of the e-mails exchanged between Mitch Needelman and their reporter. And there it is, the sentence in question, right there in the answer to question b.). Ellis's supporters were right. Needelman's website initially included that sentence, but it was later deleted. My take? I think it's still a silly web-forum flame war that just happened to get some lighter fluid squirted on it. Some staffer on Needelman's website probably got nervous about that sentence and deleted it without telling anyone, and then denied deleting it when Ellis's supporters pointed it out. Add in an overzealous lawsuit-happy higher-level staffer in a heated race, and there you go. I don't believe for one second that Mitch Needelman personally had anything to do with this silliness, and given the choice between believing his own staffer or believing the accusations of his opponent's supporters, he chose his own staffer and understandably so. It changes nothing for me, especially since I'll be voting for Ellis over Needelman in this race anyway. But the moral of the story? Don't try sneaky-edits on campaign websites. If you say something dumb, own up to it and
move on. Or better yet: be more careful about what you post online in the first place. And of course, never
underestimate the power of people with way too much free time on their hands. That's the best advice of all.
(Geez, I love her.) Anywho, she updated her blog early Sunday morning with this little gem, and I wanted to share it here.
(Seriously, running the sprinklers just a day or two after the worst flooding event in local history? That's all kinds
of dumb.)
The Republicans literally hold all the cards in the race to fill Mitch Needelman's District 31 seat in the State House. There are no Democratic candidates and no minor-party candidates. But the presense of a single write-in candidate means the Republican primary on August 26th will stay closed, with the winner facing that write-in candidate for a probable landslide victory in November. Being a Libertarian, that means I'm frozen out, but I still care who wins. That's why I still grabbed the podcast of their two-hour August 5th interview on Bill Mick Live and did some extra research on my own. Here's my take on this race.
Babington checked off every box on the conservative checklist. He says the 1986 immigration-amnesty bill was the right thing to do but is angry that it's not being enforced, so he opposes a second amnesty. He wants Florida to step up and enforce the immigration laws that the federal government refuses to enforce, including penalizing employers for hiring illegals. He wants to end our obscene dependence on foreign oil by drilling here and drilling now, including offshore in Florida. However, I would've liked him to include nuclear, wind and solar power in his energy plans for the long-term as well, all of which he failed to mention. Babington supports school vouchers and opposes affirmative action. When asked on several occasions about reforming Florida's arcane property tax system or replacing it with a higher sales tax, he repeatedly swatted those proposals aside and stressed that the bigger problem is the state government's tendency to spend too much, and that reigning in wasteful spending will help the state far more than any tax reform proposal ever would. I disagree and think we need to reform the tax system and slash wasteful spending, but it's nice to see someone so passionate about curbing government waste. Since he's a conservative fundamentalist preacher, it was no surprise to see that Babington supports the proposed state Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, but he lost points with me by opposing civil unions as well. No matter your moral views on homosexuality, pretending that they don't exist or that they aren't creating unofficial families of their own is pure folly. There are all sorts of legal protections and shared rights that come into play automatically when a man and a woman get married. It's possible to use lengthy legal contracts drawn up by a lawyer to duplicate this between a homosexual couple, but it's more expensive and more time consuming, so many such couples don't bother... which leads to bigger legal headaches for the state to deal with later over matters such as child custody, financial support, and medical decision-making. Allowing civil unions is a simple matter of practicality and heads-off these potential problems. Both sides of this debate get so hung up on the details. Civil unions are the way to go and are a logical compromise between the hard-liners on both sides. That last point highlights the biggest thing that makes me nervous about Ken Babington: his fiery religious convictions. Babington says he'll fight hard for conservative political and moral values, but I'm worried about him trying to take his Biblical beliefs and turn them into law. But when I look at the remaining three Republicans, I find myself with no real choice but to root for Ken Babington and to pray -- literally -- that he doesn't go totally overboard in Tallahassee. But I have to ask: are these the best candidates the Republicans could come up with? Yikes.
Ron Stump's experience and views are grossly overshadowed by the sneaky website he set up in his opponent's name, http://www.jasonsteele.com. Incredibly, when Bill Mick asked about that website during the interview, Stump actually defended the site, which features copies of the paperwork for all of Jason Steele's financial and legal troubles over the years but which doesn't provide any easy-to-read context to give the whole story. For example, the site shows 11 different IRS tax lien filings dating from 1986 to 1999, which makes it look like Jason Steele has been a habitual tax deadbeat for over a decade. In reality, Steele got in trouble for not paying his taxes exactly once: in 1986. (See below for details on what happened there.) Since then, Steele's been making regular payments on that debt while filing and paying his yearly taxes on-time every year since. So why the multiple liens? Because standard practice for the IRS is to take each year's tax payment, apply it to the original debt instead, and then file a new lien for that year's tax bill. But most people don't know that's how the IRS works -- and that's what Ron Stump was counting on when he posted all 11 tax liens on the website with no further explanation. He's hoping you'll look at that and think Jason Steele skipped out on his taxes 11 times when in fact it was only once -- which is bad enough, but one time is still a far cry from 11 times. (Thanks to Matt Reed for digging this up in his May 25th article for Florida Today, which alas is in the for-pay archives.) Stump also padded the site by including documents from two lawsuits against Steele that were found to be unfounded and were thrown out of court, and of course he snuck them in down at the bottom, hoping you would just see two more legal documents and skim past them without realizing they were actually dismissed. Holding a dismissed lawsuit against a defendant doesn't make any sense, and it isn't fair. In the interview, Bill Mick went after Ron Stump hard on this. Stump's response? "It wasn't deceptive or dirty, and I don't think it was stupid. All the records come from the Clerk of Courts." Sorry, Ron, that's weak. Those records only tell part of the story, and posting them up on a website named after your opponent to confuse visitors is dirty, especially when your own name only appears once on the website in small print at the very bottom. The honorable way to handle this would've been to write up a quick narrative of the complete story of Jason Steele's financial and legal troubles, imbed some text links to the relevant supporting documents, and then own it by posting it up on your own campaign web site. Hell, Ron, I'll do it right here myself on my own page just to show you how it should be done. The complete story is relevant and makes Jason Steele look plenty bad enough anyway. It did not need to be distorted or embellished, and the fact that you felt the need to do so anyway just makes you look petty, Ron. And your stubborn insistence that this stunt was perfectly acceptable makes me wonder what other such stunts you'll pull in the future to the embarrassment of your party and your constituents if you do manage to get elected. And that's why I can't support you in this race. FAIL.
Even more troublesome is Jason Steele's checkered legal and financial past. (Hey, Ron Stump, are you paying attention? This is how you should've gone after Steele on this issue. Take notes.) It all starts in the '80s, when Steele and three other real estate dealers hooked up to buy a plot of land near where Viera is now. While getting ready to develop the land, Steele changed his mind and wanted out, so the other partners bought out his share with a $300,000 promissory note. That's right, not cash -- simply a promise to pay him the cash later. And what did Steele do with that promissory note? Why, he turned around and used it secure $200,000 in loans, and then used those loans to buy up some beachfront property to put up condos. Then the bottom fell out in the real estate market. Steele couldn't get the condo plans to go through. He needed money to pay back the loan, but he didn't have it, so the bank sued him. Steele turned to his former partners and cashed in on the promissory note to pay off the loan. But then the IRS came along and classified that $300,000 as income and sent Steele a bill for the taxes. He couldn't pay it. The IRS hit him with penalties, then with interest, then with a tax lien. It didn't take long for that tax bill to balloon up big time. And Steele had two choices: declare bankruptcy and start over, or go into a payment plan with the IRS. He chose option #2, and is still making payments to this day. And thanks to the peculiar accounting practices of the IRS, they kept hitting him with new tax liens every year over the same debt. But to this day, rather than owning up to his own poor financial choices, Steele continues to blame the IRS and government agencies for his troubles while saying that this all happened through no fault of his own, as he said to Bill Mick in the interview. In the years since then, Steele has been sued several more times by varying parties, though two of those lawsuits were dismissed. Steele also once sued someone else over a car accident and lost, leaving him liable for the other driver's legal fees. So, basically Steele borrowed against money he didn't actually have yet, sunk almost all of his resources into a bad land deal, didn't properly research the tax ramifications of his financial moves, and has been sued multiple times... and he thinks he's qualified to be in the State House and cast votes on how to spend other people's money? I don't think so. Oh, and the fact that Jason Steele has been appointed to positions of authority by several governors convinces me of nothing, except that I must have higher standards for filling such positions than Governors Martinez, Chiles or Bush had. (Now, see Ron? I told the whole story, I didn't distort anything, I included links, I put it up on my own website under my own name, and I was still able to blast Jason Steele with both barrels. And I'm not even running for office! If I could figure out how to do this, why couldn't you?)
So, if I were a Republican, those would be my choices: a rabidly fundamentalist preacher, a dirty political trickster,
a heavy tax debtor with a history of absurdly risky financial moves, and a meek political newcomer. I'll go with Ken
Babington, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Perhaps the biggest race that will be decided on August 26th is the "universal primary" between incumbent Scott Ellis and challenger Mitch Needelman for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Brevard County. Both candidates are Republicans, but because there are no candidates from any other parties and no independent candidates, the Republican primary has been opened up as a universal primary. That means anyone, regardless of party affiliation, can vote in this race -- winner take all. I've never met Scott Ellis, but I've had the pleasure of meeting Mitch Needelman before, though I'm sure it was thousands of handshakes ago for him and I'd be amazed if he truly remembered me. I have immense respect for both of them, and for what they've done to fight for the citizens of Brevard County. Whoever wins this election will do well. That's why I've been so frustrated with the tone this race has taken. Things have gotten ugly. Very ugly. Mitch Needelman and his supporters have made strong claims about Scott Ellis's job performance and his choice of priorities, and Scott Ellis and his supporters have fired back with claims that Mitch Needelman has distorted Ellis's record and the facts. And what was supposed to be a high-class all-star race between two excellent candidates has degenerated into a crass mud-slinging contest, permanently sullying my opinion of both Ellis and Needelman. But... one of them has to win.
Along the way, Ellis has made enemies. Sometimes it's been because of the waste and abuse he's exposed. And sometimes it's been because of his caustic attitude. Ellis does not suffer fools easily, and when he takes aim on you, he hits hard. He gets nasty. He gets personal. And boy, has that side of him come out in this race, both online and on the radio.
I've stayed out of the online fighting between the two campaigns, but I made sure to catch their interviews on Bill Mick Live. Needelman went first on August 7th, followed by Scott Ellis on August 8th, and then both candidates together for two hours yesterday. Needelman's criticisms of Ellis have pretty much dominated the debate, so those criticisms are what I'll focus on. Needelman's main avenue of attack has been the money that the Clerk's office receives from the state government every year under a program meant to assist smaller and more rural counties with the operating costs of their clerk's offices. Needelman went so far as to refer to it as "being on welfare," and stated that Ellis's office most recently received nearly $3 million to cover to cover a budget shortfall for fiscal year 2006-2007. Interestingly enough, Ellis didn't deny receiving that money, but went on to say that his office returned $2 million back to the state at the end of the fiscal year, an amount Needelman never disputed either. Ellis also stated that the shortfall is primarily because Brevard has three different courthouses when most similarly-sized counties have only one. Ellis has long advocated consolidating all criminal proceedings into one courthouse and using the other two for civil and family court to save money, and stated that the County Commission agrees with him but the county judges refuse to go along with it. On the one hand Needelman was, strictly-speaking, telling the truth... but not the whole truth. The shortfall was only $1 million, but Needelman tried to make it sound like it was three times as much. I do not like that sort of deception. On the other hand, Ellis seems far too proud of returning that $2 million. That still leaves $1 million in state money that Ellis needed to keep the Clerk's office open and operating. He raises a good point about Brevard having multiple courthouses and the role that plays in the higher expenses of the Brevard Clerk's office, but what I didn't hear from Ellis is an alternative plan to get away from relying on state money besides consolidating the criminal courts into one courthouse. That's Plan A, but since the judges don't want to go along with Plan A, a Plan B would make me feel a lot better. Needelman disagreed with Ellis's multiple-courthouse explanation for the budget shortfall and offered his own explanation: that Ellis has been coming up short of the state's 90% collection-rate standard for traffic fines. Traffic fines are a major source of funding for the Clerk's office, so collecting those fines is quite important for balancing the budget. So, just how much has Ellis been short by? Needelman said Ellis is only hitting a 70% collection-rate. Ellis said it's actually 89%. And as they quibbled over the numbers, they eventually revealed that they were arguing over projected numbers for later this year: numbers that haven't even been finalized yet. That's just plain silly, and they both ought to know better. Ellis's reaction to Needelman's criticism was interesting. The state standard is 90%. Needelman says Brevard is at 70%. Ellis got mad at that and countered with 89%. Uh, Scott? That's still 1% short, and I noticed you didn't dispute it when Mitch said that other counties are usually around 95%. However, Ellis had another counter, and Needelman's response was equally interesting. Along with traffic fines, County Clerks also collect criminal fines. The state standard collection-rate on criminal fines is only 40% since criminal fines are harder to collect than traffic fines. Ellis stated that Brevard is well above that standard for crminal fines. Needelman's response? He didn't dispute that, but instead tried to downplay it as insignificant. Again, Ellis acts overly proud of a record that could use improvement, and again Needelman shows a penchant for cherry-picking numbers that make Ellis look worse and ignoring numbers that make Ellis look better. Needelman's third line of attack was to criticize Ellis for spending too much time, attention and resources on the auditing apects of his job and not enough on the task of making sure the record-keeping for the courts runs smoothly. The jabs between Needelman and Ellis flew fast and furious on this topic, but rather than go through the blow-by-blow, I'll just say this. Florida Today is no fan of Scott Ellis. If Ellis was so frequently falling behind on the record-keeping for the courts, wouldn't there be monthly stories about it in the newspaper? Seems to me the record-keeping is going just fine, and in the meantime Ellis's audit work is saving us all money. Undermining Mitch Needelman's credibility even further was his sloppy attack on Scott Ellis over the infamous Sarno Landfill deal in 1999, where the county vastly overpaid for a plot of surplus land near the landfill to help a political crony turn a nice profit. During his solo interview with Bill Mick, Needelman accused Scott Ellis of signing the county check that paid for the land and of not recognizing the scam, failing in his duties as Clerk of Court. There was just one problem: Ellis didn't become the Clerk until 2000. Needelman quickly apologized after being called out on it, but it showed a definite lack of attention on his part. In my mind, I went into this debate with the opinion that Scott Ellis has done a fine job running the Clerk of Court
office, which put the burden of proof on Mitch Needelman to show why Scott should be replaced. Mitch did bring up some
good critiques and areas where Scott could improve, and I still remain troubled by Scott's often fiery and insulting
reactions to criticism. But Mitch did not meet his burden of proof. I believe Mitch Needelman would do a good job as the
Clerk of Court, but I see no reason to replace someone who is already doing a good job. On August 26th, I'll be voting for
Scott Ellis.
Next up: the primary candidates for the office of Supervisor of Elections to replace the retiring Fred Galey, who has done a bang-up job at keeping Brevard County out of the headlines in 2000 and 2004 with glitch-free elections. The Democrats have only one candidate in this race and won't get a primary, while four Republicans will square off in the primary for their party's nomination. Three of the four Republicans and an independent candidate chose to appear on Bill Mick Live on NewsTalk 1240/1350 WMMB, and of course I saved the podcasts of those interviews and have listened to them on several occasions. Here's what I thought of their on-air appearances. Of the three Republicans who appeared on Bill Mick Live, nobody really stood out head-and-shoulders above the rest of the candidates. J.B. Kump, Lori Scott and Beth Allen all stressed the importance of continuing the excellent job Fred Galey has done and their desire to increase voter outreach, especially in schools. Nobody hit a home run, and nobody struck out. Nobody has any significant experience working in the Elections office. They all pretty much agreed on the issues. Even Beth Allen, who I was expecting to sound like a weak also-ran, presented herself well. So, that forced me look into the websites and experience of Kump, Scott and Allen to come up with my preferred choice in this race. And my choice is J.B. Kump.
Kump's opponent Lori Scott has a similarly strong resume and similar positions, however, so for me the tie-breaker was Fred Galey's decision to endorse Kump in this race. Galey's time in the Elections office went very well, so when he points to a candidate and says "That's the one," that's important to me. The one thing that gives me pause is Kump's close ties to Weldon, who I am not a fan of at all. Weldon allowed himself to be completely consumed by the Washington political machine, and I'll be watching for signs of that in Kump as well. But it's not enough to shake my belief that Kump is the most qualified of all the Republican candidates to run the Elections office in Brevard.
Unfortunately, that strength is also her weakness. Scott has scant experience working in the private sector, with the vast majority of her career in political positions assisting legislators. That will make it a challenge for her to harness the sort of business-minded approach that can improve the efficiency of any large government bureaucracy. She's also a long-term confirmed political animal, which could raise suspicions if any problems ever do pop up in any Brevard elections. That's a big "if," but one that can't be entirely ignored. I still think Lori Scott would make an excellent Supervisor of Elections, and I won't mind at all if she wins the Republican primary. But my concern about Scott's insider status combined with Galey's endorsement of Kump makes me lean more in Kump's favor.
That said... Allen's resume is diverse and well-rounded, and she stayed as plugged-in and involved in her husband's long political career as she could. But while Kump has been an Air Force officer and a Congressional campaign manager and Scott has been a Chief of Staff for a State Senator, Allen has limited experience with leadership roles in her life. That's a problem. Supervisor of Elections is an important administrative position with a great deal of responsibility, and it requires a strong and sure leader. Kump and Scott have both proven they're up to the task. There's a good chance that Allen is as well, but it's difficult to know for sure. I also have questions about how distracted she might be as her husband's criminal appeals drag on. Beth Allen is poised to make a political splash of her own, and she has potential. But she still needs more seasoning and fewer distractions in her personal life. However, I get the feeling we will see more of Beth Allen in the future, regardless of the outcome of this primary.
With Glenn Willis's website, he turned down a similar opportunity to reach out to his voters and explain what exactly makes him the most qualified to take over for Fred Galey. He goes into very little detail, just a vague blur of a biography highlighting good experience in the private sector along with government that ultimately has little to do with the job of Supervisor of Elections. On the issues, he promises to control spending, stick with paper ballots in the short term, and look for technological solutions in the long-term, and again it's all very vauge and lacking in specifics. And since he won't provide more detail, I can't give him my support in the Republican primary.
What Buckoski failed to do was to finish the argument, to explain why it matters that the Supervisor of Elections race should be nonpartisan. He acknowledged the fine job that Fred Galey has done in the elections office, and quite clearly stated that Galey had never allowed partisan interference to affect his handling of the job or his tallying of the votes. And yet Buckoski kept raising the spectre of partisan interference as an imminent threat that must be stopped and headed-off by electing an independent candidate to the office. He spent some time talking about voter education, about improving the removal of dead people from the voter rolls in a speedier fashion, and about sticking with optical-scan paper ballots because they work, but not much time at all. Whenever possible, he went back to banging the Independent Candidate drum as loudly as he could without ever fully explaining why this is so important. See, here's the thing. It's all well and good to declare that this office should be nonpartisan. It sure sounds nice, right? We can't let the Republicans or the Democrats have sole control over who's counting the votes. It would be unseemly. It would invite abuse. The election process must be protected by removing the parties from the process. But there's only one problem. Making this race nonpartisan would simply remove the party LABELS from the process. It does nothing to remove the parties themselves. The parties would still be there, and the Supervisor of Elections would still be a member of one of those parties or would at least lean towards one or the other. For example, Buckoski himself admitted he once ran for partisan office as a Republican, and it sure seems like that's the direction he still leans in politically. But without that party label there for all to see, it will be more difficult for the voters to figure out which side that Supervisor might want to favor in an election. With a known Republican, we would know to look out for fishy results that favor Republican candidates. Same with a known Democrat. But with some mysterious black-box candidate, we wouldn't know where to start looking for signs of election tampering, which would make such tampering easier to get away with. But the worst part is that, by focusing so much on this non-starter of an issue, Buckoski stole time away from himself in which he could've elaborated more on the other issues that he merely touched on briefly. Buckoski may very well be head-and-shoulders the most qualified candidate in this race, but we have no way of knowing if he is or not because he spent so little time discussing it. If the two major party nominees in this race turn out to be blatant partisan hacks, Buckoski will get my vote in November. But otherwise, he's going to have to do a much better job in the meantime explaining who he is and why he's the best man for this job. Simply being outside the two major parties isn't enough. It it were enough, I would be running for this office, and I can tell you right now I am in no way qualified. Buckoski still needs to tell us why his is. Fortunately, he has time before November.
But November is a long way off. Grieco still has time to introduce himself to the largest radio audience in Brevard
County... if he's smart enough to accept the next invitation when it comes between now and the general election. I strongly
sugggest he accepts it. Supervisor of Elections is an administrative position, and my number one question in such races is
this: can you do the job? Political philosophy still matters to me in these races, but not as much, as my previous votes
for Democratic Tax Collector Rod Northcutt have shown over the years. If Grieco thinks reaching out to Bill Mick's audience
is a waste of his time, he's making a huge mistake. After all, Bill did endorse a Democrat to replace Bob Allen in
the State House.
Several weeks ago, the primary candidates for the office of Tax Collector appeared on Bill Mick Live on NewsTalk 1240/1350 WMMB. They're all running to replace Rod Northcutt, who has served as Tax Collector since 1992 and decided to retire earlier this year. I saved the podcasts of those interviews and have listened to them on several occasions. I haven't made a final call who I'd like to see win in November, but I've certainly decided which candidates I would prefer to see winning the Republican and Democratic primaries.
In her interview with Bill Mick, Cullen laid out several priorities for improving the way the office does its job. She wants to make processing payments easier for the taxpayers, including lowering credit card fees, lowering the minimum required amount for using a credit card, and speeding up the processing time for checks. She also plans to do away with the silliest part of Rod Northcutt's term: requiring people to make checks payable to "Rod Northcutt, Tax Collector." Cullen will shorten that to just "Tax Collector." She took several questions about the budget and staffing levels, and Cullen made it clear that she doesn't plan to close any of the Tax Collector branch offices, saying that 8 offices are needed for a 70-mile-long narrow county like Brevard. But she does plan to look at possibly lowering staffing levels, with an eye toward cross-training existing employees and widening what the Tax Collector's office is capable of getting done. The most contentious part of the interview came when a caller brought up last year's unionization of the Tax Collector employees. Cullen often disagreed with Rod Northcutt's handling of the union dispute and various employee complaints, and even ended up joining the union herself to send a signal to Northcutt. The caller implied that this was illegal due to Cullen's director position, but here's where the timeline breaks down for me. The unionization vote didn't happen until August 2007. Cullen left the Brevard County Tax Collector's office in January 2007 according to her website, before the unionization vote took place. Adding to my confusion, Cullen avoided addressing whether or not her joining the union was illegal, but did say she signed a union card to get Northcutt's attention. I guess this was prior to the unionization vote and prior to her leaving for Orange County. This is something I would want to get clarification on before November. What I do know is that the union wants a raise for all of the Tax Collector employees during an economic downturn and signing bonuses for all new hires regardless of the fact that such bonuses aren't currently offered to any other county employees. So I'm a little troubled that Cullen says she wants to build a bridge between the leadership and the union at the Tax Collector's office, since the union is basically trying to elevate the Tax Collector employees above all of the other county employees with no concern for declining tax revenues and the need to cut budgets. But for right now, the Republican primary is coming up first on August 26th. And union questions aside, Lisa Cullen is head-and-shoulders above Jackie Colon in terms of qualification for the office. She knows the office, she knows the job, she knows the issues, and I like what she plans to do. It's too bad I'm a Libertarian and can't vote in this primary, but I sure hope Cullen wins this one.
The longer Colon has remained on the County Commission, the looser she's gotten about spending our money, especially with land-buying votes for the Environmentally Endangered Lands program, EELS. She's become a very well-connected political animal in Viera and seems to have gotten dangerously accustomed to holding the reigns of power. She seems to have reached the point where she feels that such power simply belongs to her and that she shouldn't be held accountable for what she does with that power. I guess that's why Colon turned down her invitation to appear on WMMB alongside Lisa Cullen, waiting until late the night before to do so. She knew she would face criticism from Cullen and tough questions from Bill, and, well, someone of her formidable stature is simply above such things, of course. So she backed out. But that didn't stop her supporters from calling in on her behalf, including one particularly fishy woman who called in from Orlando. Y'know, Orlando. Where WMMB's signal can't be heard at all. Orlando. Over in Orange County, where they can't vote for Brevard County's Tax Collector. Why would someone from Orlando call in to a Melbourne radio station to support a candidate from outside of her area who she can't even vote for? Very strange. And yet all of this could be forgivable for me if Colon could at least demonstrate that she is qualified for this job. Tax Collector is an administrative position, and I'm willing to overlook some aspects of your political philosophy and your personality if you can at least demonstrate that you have the ability to run that office effectively. I've looked over Jackie Colon's resume on her campaign website, and I don't see anything there that even remotely resembles leading a large governmental agency responsible for serving half-a-million citizens. She's gotten involved with a lot of charitable agencies, she's held a few middle-management positions at several companies, and she's been elected to legislative positions at two different levels of government. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's also completely unrelated to the task of running the Tax Collector's office. She is simply not qualified for this position. I've also never heard a good explanation as to why she is specifically running for this office as opposed to running for something else. This makes me believe she is simply running for Tax Collector so that she can run for something, anything, to stay in some political office of some sort until she's ready to make the next leap. Congresswoman Jackie Colon, anyone? It makes sense... the Republican Party probably made it clear to Colon that Bill Posey would be Dave Weldon's successor, so Colon is likely biding her time, waiting for Posey to retire so she can step in and take his place. Serving as Tax Collector in the meantime will keep her in office and politically connected, boosting her chances at becoming the front-runner to replace Posey later. This is not a good reason to hand Jackie Colon a government office to run. An administrative position like this needs someone who can do the job, not someone who just views it as the next rung on the climb to more political power.
In response to the union question, Exline disagrees with the union's calls for signing bonuses that no other county employees get, and isn't wild about them getting 3% raises in the current economic downturn either if no other county employees will be getting raises either. She thinks the dispute with the union is going to have to go to an arbitrator before it can be resolved. Exline did state that she thinks county employees aren't paid enough compared to their market value, though she criticized the union for only focusing on getting raises for the Tax Collector employees at the expense of the other county employees. But she has no problem with the union itself and says that if government employees want to unionize, they should be able to.
In keeping with her intent to run the office more like a business, Dils stated she already has in mind several ways to save money in the Tax Collector's budget. Her main idea is to share office space with other county agencies in order to cut down on all of the county's expenses, a prudent idea. She also wants to close down one or two branch offices and wants to strongly encourage people to use the Tax Collector's website more. I like the idea of driving traffic to the website, but there are a lot of people who still aren't comfortable with using the web or who don't even have reliable internet access at all because they can't afford it. Imagine how it would be for someone with a low income who lives near one of the Tax Collector's branch offices, and that office gets closed. They'd have two choices: shell out money for internet access, or spend more money on gas to drive to another office that's further away. Neither one is a good option. Add in the fact that the Tax Collector's office may soon be handling more driver's license duties, and I'm not sure that closing down any of the branch offices is the best idea right now. On the union dispute, Dils stated that she wants to reach an agreement with the union employees so that we can stop wasting so much money on the related legal expenses. But she also pointed out that employee salaries are ultimately decided by the County Commission anyway, so if the Commissioners say no raises, there won't be any raises. Dils also took an indirect shot at Lisa Cullen for signing the union card, which she said is illegal for a director to do. As I said above, I want to learn more about that, and there's time to do so before November, especially if it comes down to Dils versus Cullen. I do like the approach and the mindset that Dils would bring to the Tax Collector's office, even if I disagree with some
of the specifics of her policies. She certainly has enough related experience to overcome her lack of direct experience
working in government, and I think Laura Dils would do a fine job. But I think Carie Exline would have a smoother time
running this office thanks to her familiarity with the operation of county government, so Exline is my preferred Democrat
for winning the primary. Regardless of who wins, I would certainly give either of the Democrats a solid look compared to
Lisa Cullen, and I would absolutely prefer either Democrat over Jackie Colon.
For the first time in days, it actually looks kinda sunny outside. I live in Palm Bay, of course, so I've been dealing with street flooding, work closures, and lots of disruption to my sleep cycle for the past couple of days. Not very conducive to writing coherently about news, issues or political candidates. Now that Fay is finally making her way back inland to our north and the floodwaters are starting to recede, I'm ready to
move on. We've got a primary election in less than 5 days, and I'm way behind on my candidate articles. Time to catch up.
But there is good news. I'm hearing lots of people comparing Fay to Charley in '04, and they're worried about a last-minute burst of strengthening like what Charley did. However, Charley crossed Cuba much further to the west than Fay is, giving Charley far more time over that hot Gulf water. Fay won't have nearly as much time to recover from the mountains of Cuba before striking Florida. She'll make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, and I'll be surprised if she reaches Cat-2. A better comparison for Fay would be Hurricane Irene in 1999, which struck the southern tip of Florida as a Cat-1 but managed to hold herself together as she travelled up the coast, even bringing hurricane-force winds to Brevard. The worst we can expect from Fay is a scenario similar to Irene. Look for the weather to start getting bad Monday afternoon and evening, then getting steadily worse through Tuesday and reaching it's worst point early Wednesday morning between midnight and sunrise. If Charley and Irene are any indication, I don't think any evacuations would be ordered for Brevard at this point, because riding out the storm in a mobile home is still safer than trying to drive somewhere else in a car at the height of the bad weather. The causeways never closed for Charley either, but they could be closed for Fay if the winds get high enough. Keep watching the news anyway, just in case. Oh, and of course, keep reading the excellent tropical weather blog by
Dr. Jeff Masters. Dude is good.
Me and my "hunch" are going to have a little chat today. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I got curious about the Larry Hughes DUI case
because I haven't seen anything about it from Florida Today lately, so I did some Googling. I didn't find much from
Florida Today, but I did find 
It's primary election day! If you've taken the time
to educate yourself on the candidates and issues, then get out there and vote!
One of the perils of the Internet age is that
once you post something on a public website, that's it. It CANNOT ever truly be taken down or deleted!!!
There's always going to be some joker somewhere out there who took a screenshot of the original page, and if you're dumb
enough to change your site and deny that you changed it, he'll be glad to post that screenshot. Those who try sneaky-edits
very rarely get away with it, and it usually blows up into something far bigger. So don't try it. If you posted something
dumb on your website and later wish you hadn't, just leave it up and then post an update admitting that you said
something dumb and wish you hadn't. If you DO feel the need to delete it, post an update admitting that
you've deleted something and explain why.
My fiance has a real name, of course, but in the
interests of preserving her privacy, I refer to her on my own site by the name she has chosen to go by on her own blog.
