Guest Column: Welcoming Jeb Smith

Guest Column: Welcoming Jeb Smith

Lance L. Thate
St Augustine Tea Party

There is an entirely different community and way of life just a few miles west of the Nation’s oldest city.

Where St. Augustine is a tourist and college town, Hastings and surrounding communities are the agricultural breadbasket which supplied the kitchens of St. Augustine’s hotels back in the railroad days. Nowadays, Hastings is the Potato Capital of Florida and hosts a variety of farms that produce cabbage, sod, cattle and even fish farming.

The Smith Family has been in Hastings since the 1920’s with four generations farming the land and fighting off the ever encroaching rules and regulations from the EPA and numerous other Federal and State agencies.

From this environment, Jeb Smith, a grassroots candidate emerged. A “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” type, filled with the concepts of liberty as defined in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. A farmer from Hastings, who wanted to do something about a County that, in the name of “Quality of Life”, continually raises taxes and grows government.

Mr. Smith is going to run head on into the world of grants, regionalizing and special deals for corporate developers. The Saint Augustine Tea Party wonders how many “Willett Creeks” will show up.

Mr. Smith ran as a Republican, but avoided the professional politicians at the local Republican Executive Committee (REC), reaching out to the people. Mr. Smith took 43% of the vote in the three way race in the primary. The REC’s choices, Kim Kendall and incumbent Ron Sanchez, split the balance. Operatives within the REC had expected Sanchez and Smith to split the farm vote, leaving their favorite, Kim Kendall the winner. But, when the Democratic candidate withdrew from the General Election, Mr. Smith became the District 2 commissioner.

“Professional Politicians aren’t in season this year,” according to Dave Heimbold, Saint Augustine Tea Party Media Chairman. This grassroots long shot wasn’t expected by elites, but it was no surprise to the members of the local grassroots Tea Party. The Saint Augustine Tea Party is an independent group which is not aligned to any political party. It’s Town Crier Committee which studies the public sentiment reports that Mr. Smith’s victory is exactly what the public has been expressing for the past year.

During the investiture of Jeb Smith to the Board, the newly elected commissioner was given just five minutes to thank God and his supporters for his victory.

Compare this to the hour long eulogy for defeated candidate and former commissioner Ron Sanchez; who waxed over what he believes was a remarkable eight years in public office. Sanchez took credit for pushing through the $510,000.00 golden parachute for Wanchick. Sanchez bragged about this in the newspaper.

“If there was a candle to light for Saint Sanchez at the rear of the Taj Mahal, [County Administration Building] I would have been tempted to light it,” Heimbold said sarcastically after the meeting. “It was just another love-fest between outgoing commissioner Sanchez and Administrator-For-Life Wanchick.”