Ann Taylor endorsed for St Johns County Commission District 5

After careful consideration of the candidate’s qualifications for the office, the Historic City News Editorial Review Board has endorsed Ann Taylor for St Johns County Commission District 5. Volunteer members of our Editorial Review Board did not quickly come to a decision who, or if, to endorse in this race.  It was not a unanimous vote.  We did unanimously agree, after we worked through the steps, that there are longer range implications if we do not share the outcome of our analysis with our readers.

Next month, Historic City News Republican voters will select between three choices for St Johns County Commissioner Seat 5, currently held by Henry Dean.  In a twist, the winner of the August 20th Republican Primary will have to face a REAL candidate before they can take the seat.  Between Henry Dean, who is seeking re-election, John Higbee, III, a Jacksonville political insider, and political newcomer, Ann Taylor, the Primary Election winner faces local political gadfly, Merrill Paul Roland in the November General Election.

Although a “write in” candidate can close the Primary Election, keeping voters affiliated with minor parties out of the decision-making process, all those qualified get to vote in the General Election regardless of party affiliation. Higbee, running as a Republican, paid $5,387.40 to buy a slot on the August ballot and Roland, running without party affiliation, paid $3,591.60 to get his name on the November ballot.

This was how our Board evaluated our choices:

• First.  We can eliminate Higbee immediately.  He doesn’t live in St Johns County and is ineligible to hold the office.  He is a political operative.  A pawn played by people way above the paygrade of most residents.

• Second.  We don’t have to be concerned about considering or eliminating Roland because he doesn’t come into play until November.  In 2020, Roland was defeated in an open General Election by Henry Dean.

• Third.  The first serious contender is the incumbent, Henry Dean.  This is Dean’s third run for this seat, he was first elected to Seat 5 on November 8, 2016.  Historic City News has a general policy against endorsing any candidate for the same seat for a third time.  I only remember us doing it in the case of Cyndi Stevenson.  Last month, Dean turned 77-years old.  A retired lawyer, currently “of counsel” to the Ponte Vedra Beach law firm of Woolsey Morcom, we feel the Board needs new blood, preferably without a bloodbath.

• That takes us to our fourth case, Ann Taylor.  The strongest observation we make is that she appears to be running a lower-budget campaign than the front runner.  We like that.  Dean started in 2016 raising $139,731.  In 2020, he raised a bit less, $135,215.  However, this year, his third campaign has raised $238,620.  Taylor, by comparison, has raised only $18,576.50 to operate her campaign.  We like that as well.  She did not pay a qualifying fee like Higbee or Roland.  She gathered volunteer supporters to canvas the residents for the thousands of signatures needed to qualify for her spot on the ballot.  We like that, too.

Is Ann Taylor prepared to hold public office?  We’ll have to wait and see.  Unlike her opponent Henry Dean, she has not spent the last 30 or 40 years working for a government bureaucracy.  Ann graduated from Arizona State University on an academic scholarship with a Bachelor of Science in Business. She has over 25 years of experience in the medical industry, retiring from her sales and marketing career two years ago. She helped bring to market medical breakthroughs for patients with cardiac and other life-threatening conditions.

Her work also helped improve the quality of lives of patients with neurological challenges. She tells us that she would like to advocate for residents the way she once advocated for patients.  She says that St Johns County’s quality of life has declined over the past 10-years.  She told us that during her career in the private sector, she was successful through empathy, ethics, and effective problem-solving.  She believes she can bring all three skills to her role as a County Commissioner.

Our weakest observation is that Ann is relatively new to our community, having relocated to St. Augustine from Arizona only ten years ago.  For some people that is a “long time”, but not by comparison to her opponents and not by comparison to me or our Board.  It is only noteworthy because we don’t have hands-on experience working with her.  We are open to gaining that experience and would like to see her get her chance to show us what she can do.