Columns

My area's fine, but yours I'm not so sure

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published November 19, 2006

More Floridians believe things will be worse in our state five years from now than believe things will be better.

Floridians don't have an abundance of faith in government. No more than 40 percent of us rate any level of government, federal, state or local, as excellent or good.

Neither do most Floridians believe their local government is doing a good job of managing growth.

On the other hand, we like our local schools - 50 percent of us say they are excellent or good.

Despite all the recent tax protests, the biggest share of Floridians says their overall tax level is "about right."

And a strong majority of us - 62 percent - would still recommend Florida as a place to live.

These are some of the results of a poll taken by Leadership Florida, a statewide networking program run by the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Called the "Sunshine State Survey," it's billed as the first in what is planned to be an annual in-depth look at our state's attitudes.

The poll of 1,200 adult Florida residents was taken Oct. 2-11 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.

When asked to name our state's biggest issue, Floridians named four most often: K-12 education (18 percent), insurance (13 percent), growth (10 percent) and health care (10 percent).

No other issue cracked single digits - not taxes, crime, the economy, immigration, the environment or higher education. And no issue beyond those was named by more than 1 percent.

When asked to rate Florida's performance in a long list of areas, a majority gave a good or excellent rating in only four, and three were about elections: convenient voting (79 percent), easy voter registration (76 percent), and informing the public about elections (60 percent). In case you're curious, election equipment got only 43 percent.

The only other area that got a majority rating of good or excellent: higher education, at 59 percent.

Of these numbers, the one that strikes me the most was the 59 percent excellent or good rating for Florida's universities. I think that's wishful thinking and sports-enthusiasm talking.

In fact, our support for state universities - either tax dollars or tuition rates - is low. The universities are doing heroic work with what they've got, but it's not enough.

The school in Gainesville is desperately trying to scratch up extra dollars with a new "fee" in lieu of tuition. And there's a huge enrollment crunch coming.

It's also interesting that a majority of Floridians say their local government isn't managing growth well. That's significant news for the Hometown Democracy movement, which wants more direct voter control of growth.

Finally, who would guess that transportation and the environment would be named by less than 1 percent of Floridians each? Here I think polls can be a little misleading. The fact we automatically think of education first doesn't mean we aren't thinking about the others.

As for saying that Florida will be worse off in five years, we may simply be hedging our bets. The same poll, after all, has more Floridians believing their own neighborhood will be better than worse. See, it's not ourselves and our own neighbors we're so worried about, but all those other characters out there.

[Last modified November 18, 2006, 23:57:44]