Commissioners, Break Down the Walls

Two themes provide a foundation for the petition drive Wewahitchka High School students are undertaking to bring about a uniform time zone for the county, as reported elsewhere in this paper.

The first, which is surely an encouraging one, is a sense that fundamentally the government is the people’s.

That is a breath of fresh air when such statements come from a high school senior.

The second theme is the sense, again coming from students prescient beyond their years, that this is a polarized county, that there are divisions in this county that are obstacles to a brighter future.

For example, it says volumes that the one reason for seeking a county exclusively on Central Time is Gulf County’s economic ties to, some could assert reliance on, Bay County, which runs on Central Time.

But when 17- and 18-year-olds understand as well as most that they live, attend church and school in a divided county it is time for change that can only come from the county commissioners.

Commission chairman Nathan Peters, Jr., the ball is squarely in your court, pardon the pun.

You have, exclusively, the power to make this change unilaterally, by agreeing to settle the lawsuit that resulted in the federal injunction that created single-member districts.

The year is no longer 1982. Times have changed.

Yes, some of the nonsense that has been spewed since the most recent presidential election can be attributed to race, and Lord knows we all have a ways to go relating civilly to one another, but there is sufficient evidence that 1) being a person of color no longer excludes one from the conversation of bettering Gulf County and 2) a minority voice does not guarantee progress for the disenfranchised.

Mr. Peters, you have spoken little when this issue has been raised, instead writing an opinion piece five years ago that outlined the reasons you believed single-member districts remained the way to go.

We could spend time dissecting that explanation, but the reality is that even five years later it is dated, its most potent contentions undermined by the current landscape.

Mr. Peters, the time has arrived. With a wave of the pen you could end this bastardization of government and in doing so become a hero to the many county voters who believe the expiration date on single-member districts has long expired.

If you need further evidence, Mr. Peters, please consult the last time the issue was on the ballot. Nearly seven in 10 voters that day, a number roughly equal to 50 percent of all registered voters in the county, desired a return to county-wide voting.

Every district and every precinct, save one, favored county-wide voting in 2004. Yes, there might some voters in your district who’d strenuously object. But is the question about satisfying a certain slice of constituency, or moving the county forward?

For commissioners Billy Traylor and Carmen McLemore, time has come to cease with the political gamesmanship on the issue.

The argument against single-member districts shifts, but to assert that your districts don’t want county-wide voting is misrepresenting what the majority of the voters stated in 2004.

And the money issue is canard –when it comes to Franklin County a federal judge has all but signaled that if the county enters his court arguing for county-wide voting he would find in favor and in nearby Washington County the legal bill amounted to $35,000.

And if Mr. Peters decides to sign off on a settlement, the cost issue is moot.

Primarily, though, this is a county where a man is still sized by his word. Mr. Traylor and Mr. McLemore, you have pronounced, at various times, that you would fight for county-wide voting all the way to Washington if necessary, and if ever either of you were an obstacle in the way of county-wide voting, you would resign.

Based on the two most recent votes on the county-wide voting, therefore, neither of you should be in office because your words proved empty.

Be men of your word. This is not a political game in search of winners and losers.

We all lose, Messrs. Peters, Traylor and McLemore, by your continued satisfaction with a status quo that is polarizing the county.

As for Commissioners Warren Yeager and Bill Williams, your continued relevance in government and among your constituents depends on your continuing to press the issue.

Yes, under Robert’s Rules of Order you are barred, since you were on the losing end of the last vote, from bringing a formal motion before the board to go county-wide.

But Robert’s does not bar you from using the commissioner’s comments portion of each meeting to broach the subject. Filibuster. Make each meeting four or five or six hours, but keep up the heat.

It does not satisfy any campaign promise to raise the issue once or twice, lose a vote, and then let the matter drop. Be relevant; push the county-wide agenda until you lose your voice.

The result of single-member districts has been government taxing and spending to the point of driving people out of the county – where is the town hall meeting on that? – and constraining economic development, a government out of touch with the economic hardship people are feeling outside the Robert Moore annex and an entitlement mentality concerning commission seats.

Time is long past due to tear down the walls that divide this county, commissioners. Just ask the American government students at Wewahitchka High School.