Our View

If you’re in to politics and political campaigns, you probably have a good sense of the heightened, emotional epinephrine coursing through the campaigns of Sarasota County’s two school board candidates, Ken Marsh and Bridget Ziegler (see “The ugliest race,” on this page last week).

They’re good people. It’s unfortunate others around them have made their race as contentious as it has become.

As we pointed out last week, the weapon of choice — for both sides, as it turns out — is email. Each campaign has accused the other of having its supporters engage in either illegal or school board prohibited use of the Sarasota County schools’ employee email system (see Ken Marsh’s letter on page 9).

Here’s the deal: State law prohibits public employees from using his or her “official authority or influence” in a campaign. That would include sending political emails on the government email system. State law also prohibits such activity while a public employee is on the public clock.

What’s more, the school system’s policy manual, under a heading entitled, “Appropriate use of email,” prohibits using the school system’s email for “mail that may be perceived as harassment, political campaigning or commercial solicitation.”

In contrast, there are no statutes that prohibit outside organizations or people from sending political (or otherwise) emails to public employees through the government-operated email system. This is what Ziegler’s campaign has been doing.

And as such, it prompted this email from Barry Dubin, executive director of the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association, the union. See the accompanying box.

The email from Christian Ziegler, husband of candidate Bridget Ziegler, urged Sarasota County school employees to vote for his wife and included a copy of our Oct. 23 editorial.

The email was legal. Some of those sent by school employees have not been legal.

Dubin, nonetheless, made a point. The Ziegler campaign would have taken the higher road had it not used the school system’s email addresses. Legal is one thing. Perception is another.

Politics is ugly.

+ Hillary and the pie test
First: “You didn’t build that …”

Now comes:

“Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs. They always say that … My husband gave working families a raise in the 1990s. I voted to raise the minimum wage, and guess what? Millions of jobs were created or paid better, and more families were more secure…

“And don’t let anybody tell you that, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs…”

And she wants to be president?

Here’s a test for Mrs. Clinton:

Eight people are sitting at the table. In front of them is a pie. It’s cut into eight pieces. Everyone gets a piece.

Now those same eight people are sitting at the table. In front of them is a pie that is cut into six larger pieces. Who loses? Who doesn’t get a piece?

Hillary Clinton and everyone else advocating raising the minimum wage ignore facts in favor of feelings.
We’ll cite a few facts, but first consider this simple economic principle: When prices rise, consumers typically buy less. Yet advocates of higher minimum wages think that the government can raise the price of labor without reducing the amount of labor that will be hired.

Now consider these facts from noted economist Thomas Sowell:

“Unemployment rates have been very much lower in places and times when there were no minimum wage laws.

“Switzerland is one of the few modern nations without a minimum wage law. In 2003, The Economist reported: ‘Switzerland’s unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9% in February.’ In February of this year, Switzerland’s unemployment rate was 3.1%. A recent issue of The Economist showed Switzerland’s unemployment rate at 2.1%.

“Most Americans today have never seen unemployment rates that low. However, there was a time when there was no federal minimum wage law in the United States. The last time was during the Coolidge administration, when the annual unemployment rate got as low as 1.8%. When Hong Kong was a British colony, it had no minimum wage law. In 1991, its unemployment rate was under 2% …

“In the United States, the last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate — 1930 — was also the last year when there was no federal minimum wage law.

“In 1948, the unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4%. This was a fraction of what it would become in even the most prosperous years from 1958 on, as the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation.”

Hillary Clinton is completely disingenuous when she tries to make you believe raising the minimum wage does not kill jobs. Someone always loses — the people who can least afford it.

She needs to take the pie test.

+ St. Armands Park: Buy it
The new Sarasota ordinance governing events in St. Armands Circle Park should not be the last word.
Be sure of this: The residents who live around the Circle are not satisfied. In surveys, 85% of respondents said residents should have a say in events permitted in the park; 92% say City Hall should not be the sole decision maker on park events.

“Residents should have the final say over what takes place in their own backyard,” said Ed Rosenblum, a member of a new residents group, Citizens Organized to Protect St. Armands.

Here’s the answer: Buy the park, or lease it, from the city. St. Armands merchants and residents should form a not-for-profit corporation, create a board with equal representation and then buy the property from the city.

And part of that deal should include a reduction in property taxes to account for what the city spends on the park each year.

This isn’t far-fetched. New York City is already a model of success for this.

Who will take the lead?

+ Mote Marine re-set
Timing is everything, so says the cliché.

Mote’s timing was off when it approached the Sarasota City Commission for an endorsement of an aquarium near the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.

We don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but often in matters like these, the party seeking the favor tries to line up its votes in advance. If it cannot secure them, it delays the process to avoid embarrassment or rejection.

It looks like Mote’s strategy now is to align itself with the Bayfront 2020 process, while at the same time continue to operate where it is — and send out tentacles to entice developers that it can be an anchor on the privately owned Quay property.

Now that makes sense.

OBSERVER RECOMMENDATIONS
U.S. House
District 16 — Vern Buchanan

Florida
Governor — Rick Scott
Attorney General — Pam Bondi
Chief Financial Officer — Jeff Atwater
Agriculture Commissioner — Adam Putnam
Amendment 1 — No
Amendment 2 — No
Amendment 3 — No

District Court of Appeal
(Shall these judges be retained?)
Judge Chris W. Altenbernd — Yes
Judge Morris Silberman — Yes
Judge Daniel Sleet — Yes

Manatee County
County Commissioner District 6 - At Large — Carol Whitmore
School Board District 5 — Julie Aranibar
Mosquito Control District, District 1 — Ralph C. Garrison
Mosquito Control District, District 2 — Tim Matthews

Sarasota County
County Commission District 2 — Paul Caragiulo
County Commission District 4 — Alan Maio
School Board District 1 — Bridget Ziegler
Charter Review Board District 1 — Steven Fields
Charter Review Board District 2 — Richard Dorfman
Charter Review Board District 3 — Joe Justice
Charter Review Board District 4 — James Gabbert
Charter Review Board District 5 — Bruce Dillon
Sarasota Soil & Water Conservation District Group 3 — Todd Underhill

‘HYPOCRISY’?
On Oct 27, 2014, at 11:17 AM, DUBIN BARRY wrote:
Matt, here is your editorial being sent to the school board members’ secretary at her work e-mail address. How ironic is that, is hypocritical a better word?

The content of your endorsement knocks us for communicating with our members in spite of our reimbursing the district for all costs incurred, whereas it is OK for him to annoy and distract people while at work with impunity?

Gee, I wonder how he got her school board work address?

Barry Dubin
Executive Director
Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association

From: Marshall Zoe >
Date: Monday, October 27, 2014 at 8:49 AM
To: Barry Dubin >
Subject: Observer Newspaper Recommends: Ziegler
Look what was in my email inbox this morning!

From: Christian Ziegler [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2014 9:10 AM
To: Marshall Zoe
Subject: *****POSSIBLE SPAM*****Observer Newspaper Recommends: Ziegler

Marshall --

My wife is running for the Sarasota County School Board for two simple reasons …