The only voice that counts

Certainly there have been critical junctures in the history of this community and we seem to have arrived at another now.

Economics are playing havoc with everything from schools to libraries to utility rates.

The county population and job growth are stagnant; enrollment in the schools steadily declines.

Unemployment hovers around 12 percent and that is does not count those who have simply given up on this job market.

Property values figure to drop by double digits percentage-wise.

Economic development could be characterized anywhere from scattershot to mired in a quagmire of political and personal agendas.

There are positive signs, though.

A new hospital celebrated its first anniversary by dedicating a medical office building it hopes attracts providers of an array of services, some already on board, such as much needed dialysis services.

The Port of Port St. Joe seems poised to crack its potential and a renewable energy center is a permit away from reality.

Tourists are returning and real estate shows some signs of life.

Against that backdrop the city of Port St. Joe elections offer the opportunity for voters to provide the input, the framework, on what they believe the template of the future must look like in the short- and long-term.

The city faces a hornet’s nest of issues.

Rising utility rates are putting a crimp on public goodwill and patience as the city continues to grapple with a new water plant and a new water treatment process.

An $8-$9 million project to replace and upgrade the wastewater treatment infrastructure will likely begin by summer.

At some point in the future, there will be nearly 30 miles of water pipe that must be replaced.

Water quality is, city official say, the number one priority.

WindMark Beach has not turned into the property tax bonanza it was envisioned to be five or six years ago and in turn the city’s price for annexing that development, a ransom from the county, is debt that is a significant underlying factor in rising utility rates.

Ongoing budget restrictions fueled by the drop in property values will mean a continued strain on providing essential, and non-essential but desired, services.

Further, this is a year in which three of the seats on the commission, a majority, are before the voters and multiple candidates are in pursuit of those seats.

That is a good thing and anybody willing to put their name on ballot has earned respect.

However, the hope is that the candidates provide contrasting ways forward, differing viewpoints addressing the issues pressing in on the city from a host of angles.

Voters and taxpayers can no longer afford elections based on a popularity contest or who attends a specific church, belongs to a particular civic organization or is friends with so-and-so.

Back-scratching politics is one of the reasons the community is the straits it is in.

There is an old line from a movie about democracy being messy and citizens must have a desire to corral it. In turn, candidates must offer substantive answers to the serious and messy questions facing the city or those issues, facing every citizen, will only grow exponentially, delaying the inevitable.

For example, the problems that seem to be caving in to such an extent that public school officials are compelled to examine a four-day school week are the result of declining enrollment that has steadily grown from troubling to chronic to seemingly intractable.

The track is the same the county has taken on economic development the past decade, the stages of chaos and the intrusion of political and personal agendas parallel and linked at the same time.

The problem of declining enrollment in the schools sprinted ahead of solutions with a tailwind bolstered by the hope that things might change. As it is, the four-day school week is more band-aid than recovery plan from an illness that provides no signs of abating as long as the local job market remains what it is.

So there could scarcely seem a time more pregnant for an injection of vision and leadership from the candidates offering their names to lead the city in the next two years.

There need to be plans, how-to’s for addressing so many issues and candidates must, and voters demand to have more than broad platitudes on how each candidate intends to use their vote to provide the way forward for the city.

Nobody would put their name in the hat if they did not want to make the city better – the question voters need answered is how.

And every one of the city’s registered voters should provide the one substantive input offered – an informed vote.

Learn about each candidate and what they perceive as government’s role in helping the city move ahead on the pressing issues – job creation, economic development, utility rates and infrastructure improvements among others.

In the cities, Port St. Joe and Wewahitchka, voters find the most representative governments available in a county divided by district boundaries and the inherent fiscal inefficiencies and political gamesmanship that system has manifested and nurtured.

Every voter has a vote on every single city commission seat. They have a say in three of the voices, not just one, that will represent them, serve them, the next two years.

In this county, that is an opportunity not to be taken lightly, by either the voters or the candidates.