Issues
Property Taxes
Property taxes have doubled in Escambia County over the past six years. Property assessments skyrocketed after Hurricane Ivan. The county collected an additional $30 million in property taxes the following year.
If I had been a Commissioner at that time (I wasn’t then, but had been earlier), I would have pressed my fellow Commissioners to join me in rolling back the millage that year, saving the $30 million that was forced on the community as an additional and fiscally painful tax burden.
Budget and Finance
Despite property taxes currently at an all-time high, Escambia County’s financial condition is making necessary massive, debilitating cutbacks in local services, along with painful layoffs of employees, many of whom counted on those jobs to send their children to school and literally put food on the table.
I’ve spent 44 years in Escambia County’s private business sector, and I understand the ebb-and-flow of money that runs through any business. However, this level of financial disaster shouldn’t be happening, and it’s a very human crisis that no hard worker should have to face. I know how to manage a budget. I do it daily in my own business life. I’ll work with my colleagues on the Commission to get us back on an even keel and keep us there. Yes, it’s true: Commissioners can cease their squabbling and actually work together. I’ll prove it.
Transportation and Mass Transit
There are many, many roads in District 1 that need widening and/or resurfacing. In order to get this done, we need to maximize both the local option sales tax and the current gasoline tax. We also need to identify and put to use a dedicated funding source for mass transit in the County and the entire region. Easy? No. Important? Ask anyone who needs a bus to get to work or school.
Economic Development
Escambia County must offer better, more attractive incentives and tax breaks to prospective businesses, making it easier to choose us as a strategic business site, a hometown and an employer. We need to attract higher-paying jobs to ensure the futures of our children and grandchildren. Too many --- and in fact, most of them --- are forced to seek employment away from the County and people they love and grew up with. In Alabama, Mobile and Baldwin Counties have been very successful in attracting corporations that will provide jobs and stability for their workforce. There is much we can learn from Alabama, and with enough learning, perhaps the student can eventually become the teacher.
Construction Services
The process of getting things built in this area is slow and confusing, to say the least. Local residents, small businesses and out-of-town entrepreneurs alike find themselves discouraged when dealing with the paperwork and the frustration that bureaucracies can cause. We need to improve this existing system of land use permits, plan reviews, permitting, inspection and all that accompanies those needs. These processes should work more smoothly than they do currently, to enhance the construction process while simultaneously benefitting economic development.
Ethics and Accountability
Ethics and trust in government have gone missing, along with the sanity that was once the hallmark of a deliberative and thoughtful governmental body. The press is filled with so many lurid accounts of ineptitude, malfeasance and outright greed or stupidity that it’s becoming harder and harder to pick up a newspaper or watch TV for fear of what’s been done to our County or in our name.
That will stop the moment I am sworn in.
In the 12 years I served in public office, I have never once been charged or even alleged to have committed any illegal act that would violate the public trust.
It doesn’t take a saint or a genius to understand that District 1 and this area deserve someone who can make that statement. Right now, that’s not the case. You deserve better, and you know it.
Consolidation of Services
The County needs to combine some services with those of other agencies such as permitting and other construction services, parks and recreation, human resources, insurance and other functions. This could provide significant savings within our government, just as “merging” functions and departments has historically done for the private sector.
Restoring Respect among Fellow Board Members and Constituents
I will reestablish respect for my colleagues and our constituents. The infighting that has seized the board, the talking down to the people who elected the board members and the publics logical and obvious disgust with all of it, well that’s no way to run any government anywhere. Arrogance is uncivil and unwelcome in any person, particularly when those individuals’ income and “status” derive from people who made the temporary and fortunately reversible mistake of voting for the wrong person.
Parks and Recreation
We have some neighborhoods without parks and recreation facilities. The local option sales tax was originally pledged to provide these quality of life services, and I intend to try my level best to fix what I see as a fundamental inequity in who gets treated right and who doesn’t.
Better Relationships with other Elected Officials and Agencies
We must restore our relationship with out State Legislators. Our County greatly needs the cooperation of other elected officials as well, for the good of our entire region. One way to obtain that goodwill from both parties is to spend less time publicly criticizing them, and more time sitting at the table with them, explaining what we need, why we need it, and then getting it.
Sanity
Sanity. I’ve got it. Not to brag or anything, but I’ve always had it. Never lost it. If loose cannons and itchy trigger fingers make you nervous like they do me, Bring Sanity Back. Vote for me on August 26th.
