Stop wasting effort on charter government

Of all the issues on this year’s ballot, I am most concerned about the outcome of the proposal to establish a charter form of government for St. Johns County.

Nineteen of Florida’s 67 counties operate under charter government. The other 48, like St. Johns County, are home rule general law counties. More urbanized counties are more likely to have charter Government.

Just two days after this document was proposed and defeated on the August 26th ballot, three men made a decision that 15,314 St. Johns County voters didn’t understand what they were doing when they voted against adopting this charter.

Out of 25,566 ballots cast in this election, 15,314 said NO.

Tom Manuel has been indicted on public corruption and bribery charges and has been suspended from office by the governor.

Ben Rich lost his bid for a second term in office. He is being bitter and contrary in his remaining few weeks as a lame duck commissioner.

Ron Sanchez only has two years left in office, yet these three men decided that the voters made an uninformed decision and that the commission should spend about $35,000 of our tax money to re-educate us so that we can re-vote correctly.

This proposed charter will never stand. If it were approved, the process under which it was proposed, balloted and re-balloted would be the foundation for lawsuit after lawsuit which we can not afford.

St. Johns County needs to begin healing itself from past mistakes and earnestly move forward by addressing the real needs of our communities; a charter form of government not being near the top of such a list.

Please vote no against the charter once again.