Guest Editorial: Are you prepared to vote?

Carol Anderson
St Johns, FL

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, the coming primary election on August 20 is crucially important to the healthy future of St Johns County.  And now that all the primaries are closed, Historic City News readers who are registered Republicans will most likely select our elected officials.

It would be easy to just ignore it and either not vote or vote a party line.  But this is not a typical election year.  This election will determine whether the County will continue the economic growth that will handle the continuing influx of residents or will fall prey to those who want to slow development and negatively impact the already stretched infrastructure by not paying attention to the realities of economic development.

Campaign signs, websites, and ads tell a simple story. They are carefully crafted to tell an ideological story aimed at citizens who don’t look deeper, and possibly are looking for an easy answer. They don’t tell the story about how candidates plan to navigate the complexity of running a local government sandwiched between state statutes and the desires of individual constituents.

When ideology guides your vote, you risk voting for a marketing campaign, not a government official who is supposed to represent all constituents in the community.

Now is the time to learn about candidates beyond ideology.  In past elections before I learned so much about local government, I would get my mail-in ballot and cram to learn about the candidates so that I could cast an informed vote.  Last minute cramming on a website, today, will not provide the information necessary for an informed vote.

We are hyper-focused these days on ideology and the marketing campaign that pushes whatever story their client wants them to push.   Marketing campaigns have a singular goal – make the sale or get the votes.  They share the benefits.  Rarely do they share the possible consequences.  Doing that would not serve the purpose of getting the sales or getting the votes. We can and should do things differently.

We have an incredible privilege as residents of St Johns County

We have the privilege (and responsibility) to elect our local government officials.  These elected officials are then charged with our safety and our economy.  Falling down on the job in either category can be catastrophic for those who work, play and live in St Johns County.

These elected officials have a unique challenge, as well.  They cannot possibly please all the constituents, yet they have to make decisions that, in their educated opinion, benefit the County as a whole.  Often, the decisions require letting go of their own personal opinions in favor of a decision that benefits the most stakeholders.

How can voters prepare for this important election?

There are some excellent things that voters can do to prepare for the election.  Here are a few suggestions, and I am certain there are many more.

• Take a drive

Wherever you live in St Johns County, chances are you are not familiar with the County as a whole. But St Johns County is large and diverse, from beaches and waterways that attract tourists, to miles of farmland that produces $57 million in revenue (2022 data), to the oldest city in the United States and all of the history, culture and entertainment that goes along with that, to beautiful housing developments that offer families so much.

Drive down County Road 13 along the St Johns River and over to Hastings – the potato capital of Florida. Drive Race Track Road in the Northwest and see the growth of residential and commercial property (I’m told that driving that route in the morning while school is in session is a good way to experience the traffic woes of the residents). Drive down A1A from Ponte Vedra to Crescent Beach where neighbors dread weather events that flood their property.

As you drive, ponder the needs of the communities you pass.  Do you see the challenges that the size and diversity offer to local government officials?

• Read the County’s website

The County website recently got a lovely facelift and has an incredible amount of information for anything that takes place in the county, from beaches, to parks, to turtles, to social services, to utilities, to fire rescue, to the environment, to libraries, to emergency management, to housing and community development,  to trash….and those don’t even factor into the issues around development like planning and zoning, building regulations, growth management, and code enforcement.

Reviewing the breadth and depth of responsibilities of our local government should provide a sense of just how large and complex our County is, which leads to the importance of looking beyond personal agendas to what is right for the whole County.

Do you see the complexities of our County government?

• Meet the Candidates

There are ample opportunities to meet the candidates and ask good questions.  Most likely they will come prepared with their presentation of their platform, but they should also request that participants ask questions.

Ask them good questions that don’t relate to their platform.  As Commissioners, they must think under pressure, so posing questions that require the candidates to respond more broadly will provide an opportunity to see beyond their marketing campaign.

Have you learned more than the marketing campaign provides?

The Bottom Line?

Take your voting privilege seriously, learn about the County needs and the candidates’ capabilities, and vote. Now is the time.

Misinformation abounds these days, and everyone wants to distrust government – at all levels. That is distressing because without trust, we have no government. My name is Carol Anderson, and I have been a resident of St. Johns County for almost ten years. The opinions expressed here are my own. Three years ago, I knew nothing about local government. I have since learned that there is a great deal of misinformation floating around that paints our lawmakers in a negative light. That is a shame because we, the residents, have the power to change that narrative through knowledge and critical thinking about facts. I plan to present what is available in public record to stand in contrast to the negative misinformation we see.