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Local politics is more than rhetoric, it's about neighbors

Dollar for dollar, the local elections today in St. Pete Beach and 13 other Pinellas County cities and towns are the best deal going.

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published March 13, 2006

Here's real politics. The other day, a voter in St. Pete Beach got mad at finding an election brochure in his mailbox. So he got in his car to track down the offending candidate, a city commissioner.

He indeed found her. In the ensuing encounter, according to police, the voter offered the city commissioner an unfriendly gesture involving a finger. She in turn was accused of whumping his car with her hand, which does not sound like an entirely unreasonable response. She said she was trying to keep him from running over her. The accounts differ.

See? You won't get that level of debate in Washington. That's why, dollar for dollar, the local elections today in St. Pete Beach and 13 other Pinellas County cities and towns are the best deal going.

Pinellas County has 24 municipalities, and with a few exceptions, most notably St. Petersburg, they do their voting in March. Besides today's elections, four others were canceled for lack of competition.

This year's election season kicked off last Tuesday with elections in Largo, Palm Harbor and Pinellas Park. In Largo, one commission candidate accused a local paper of lightening the photograph of his African-American opponent. Making this accusation did not prove to be a winning strategy for him.

Dunedin is electing a new mayor today. One blip in that race is that the city attorney's wife sent out an e-mail endorsing one of the candidates. "My opinion is my own," she said, and of course she is quite right. If the other guy wins, his opinion of whom to hire as the city attorney will be his own, too.

In Safety Harbor, a city commissioner's re-election bid was perhaps slightly complicated by the news that she drove one of her neighbors to her lawyer's office (the commissioner's lawyer, that is) for a new will, which as it so happens left 40 percent of the estate to - the commissioner. (How come this never happens to me?)

On a more pleasant note, here is a passage from our reporter's account of a race in Treasure Island:

Opposing Commissioner Alan Bildz in Sunset Beach is his friend and frequent candidate for local office, Donald V. Callahan.

"I'm not running against Alan, I love the guy," said Callahan, whose campaigning has been limited to standing on the street corner with a homemade sign.

Too bad this man isn't running in St. Pete Beach.

Lastly, somebody should put in a good word for Seminole, which has a sort of Survivor-style electoral competition for three seats: the top two vote-getters win a three-year term; the third-place finisher only gets a two-year term (and has to wash the dishes).

Often just as interesting as the candidates are the referendums and charter amendments.

Dunedin will vote today on whether to forbid the use of condemnation for a private purpose. The amendment is a reaction to last year's controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Dunedin also will vote on whether to require voter approval to sell certain land.

Indian Rocks Beach will vote on a city program to allow neighborhood property owners to pay for underground utilities, a big topic on the beaches. Kenneth City will vote on whether to ease its limits on political party activity by candidates. Tarpon Springs will vote on whether to issue debt and build its own water plant and on an annexation.

Largo, the county's third-largest city, voted on nine such measures last week. The first of them was sort a grab-bag of ideas, not the least of which being that city commissioners convicted of a felony have to forfeit their office. Seems fair.

Showing that they were indeed reading the ballot, Largo's voters rejected two of the nine ideas, which would have made it easier to hire and fire the city manager. But they passed a measure making it easier for citizens to challenge city ordinances.

Oh, and they voted to move Largo's elections from March to November, the same month that we choose our presidents, governors, senators and members of Congress. It is their business when they vote, not mine, but I'll kinda miss the old way.

[Last modified March 13, 2006, 21:36:02]