With those words, a large number of Sun readers might skip to the next column. However, for open-minded Democrats, independents and Republicans who read on, I have a question for you: How well have you been served by one-party rule? Indeed, my opponent says the problems with our roads cannot be fixed overnight because they are 20 years in the making.
Yet one political party β one ideological mindset β has dominated local government for those 20 years. This applies to all local issues β from crumbling infrastructure to rising energy costs to a lack of affordable housing. Core services are neglected while your taxes and utility bills increase. Every challenge is filtered through a rigid agenda that matters little to the hardworking people of Alachua County, but matters a lot to conference attendees in Portland or San Francisco.
County commissioners kowtow to Gainesville officials while bullying our small towns and ignoring our rural citizens. I know this because I witnessed it up close from to as mayor of Gainesville. Despite being in the political minority, I charted a different course and challenged the assumptions of the majority mindset.
It worked! With a growing senior population, I created the Freedom In Motion program, providing discounted rides to senior citizens while saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Speaking of tax dollars, I also spiked the downtown streetcar project and bus rapid transit boondoggle that were fiscally unsustainable but trendy in progressive circles. The indifference to core services and desire for expensive projects is not a bug but a feature of one-party rule.
One need not watch many meetings to see how deeply disappointed our leaders are in how most of us live our lives.
