Letters to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: To send in your Letters to the Editor, email them to Jessica Luck at [email protected]. Letters pertaining to local issues receive priority. Letters may be edited
for grammar and space.

+ Going down by the bow
Dear Editor:
In the business world, when a CEO is not performing, he can be replaced. In politics, an elected official is performing if he is giving away the store to those who vote for more entitlements in addition to doing whatever it takes to be elected/re-elected. 

Barack Obama is leading in the direction his handlers require, and the Manchurian President is doing as he is told.

He has always been unqualified to be president and fully qualified to do the bidding of those who wanted him in the White House (I am not referring here to the electorate, although they too want him in the Oval Office).

Leadership is an inbred quality. You cannot push a chain, and you cannot deal with a crisis when you are untrained or have no experience in dealing with one. 

The Congress, and most presidents, with a few notable exceptions, have failed for a long time to do the job as outlined in the Constitution. And it is hard to lead an army that has not been trained to fight.

With all due respect to Tom Brokaw and his nomination for the Greatest Generation (the one that fought WWII), he has never absorbed any history about the founding of this country. Those men and women were The Greatest Generation. 

The USA Titanic hit the iceberg on Nov 6, 1932, and is going down by the bow.

Katharine Lee Bates in her ode to “America the Beautiful” wrote:

“O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life.”

Until we find leaders who have that as a guiding principle, we will continue the march to third-rate nationhood.

Thanks for the column.
John W. Minton Jr.
Bradenton

+ Citizens have been heard
Dear Editor:
It is with relief and gratitude to many that The Citizens Voice Committee completes its work in opposition to the proposed new charter for the city of Sarasota. Less than 60% of signatures needed to put the initiative on the ballot were collected over a six-month period. It is important to note that this was the first time in Sarasota’s recent history that petition gatherers had 180 days to complete their task. Until 2012, they were allowed only 90 days. And yet they failed. This was, we believe, yet another confirmation of the intelligence and good judgment of Sarasota’s voters.

It was the seventh time, Sarasota. In 1996, 2002 and 2009 voters defeated a variety of such initiatives — in 2002 by 70% to 30%. The City Commission voted not to put a similar measure on the ballot in 2012.

The 2006 Charter Review Committee and the 2010-11 Charter Review Committee that performed the decennial review of the charter also recommended against a change from commission-city manager form of government.

It was important to us that the Steering Committee of The Citizens Voice be diverse and comprehensive, that it include new voices (chair and treasurer as well as other committee members were new to this governance debate) and that all three districts of the city be fully represented. We are proud to have our members include the majority of past mayors/commissioners of this city, a former city manager and several former members of the 2010-11 Charter Review Committee. We were truly non-partisan, as is our city government — Republicans, Democrats and Independents, neighborhood and business representatives, working together in common cause.

This recent initiative to change the city government was the most radical yet. The proposed charter would have created a mayor with enormous power who could not be recalled. Voters would be allowed to choose only one district commissioner rather than the current three (a majority of the commission). And the March city election would be moved to August with its notoriously low turnout and politically partisan primaries. We are grateful to those citizens and current and former elected officials from Pensacola who shared their candid assessments and strong disappointment with a similar charter recently adopted in that city.

We strongly disagree with the argument that this proposal deserved to be on the ballot regardless of its content. The content of the proposal matters. We are pleased that a great deal of time and money has been saved by ending this effort at the petition-gathering stage. (For the 2009 election, The Citizens Voice spent $10,000 in opposition to similar amendments. Proponents spent more than $100,000. Then, also, the intelligence and good judgment of Sarasota voters resulted in a 65% to 35% voter defeat of the measure.)

The cost of these repeated attempts is not just monetary, however. They have a significantly destabilizing effect on the city, its citizens, staff and elected officials. For this reason, South Carolina, for instance, has a law that prohibits the introduction of initiatives to change the form of a municipal government more frequently than once every four years.

Throughout, citizens observed that this is a great city and it became so under the city manager-commission form of government. We celebrate this city, its vibrancy and, especially, the voices of its citizens. May they always be heard.

The Citizens
Voice Committee