Goodbye and Good Riddance: 2009

One common theme for this year’s end is apparent as the days tick down – 2010 surely must be better.

This has been a roller coaster year by anybody’s measurement and a year that maybe needs a new yardstick.

As with the front page of this newspaper, the theme at this juncture on the calendar is to encapsulate the year in tidy numbered lists.

This year, 2009, seemed instead to be bathed in much more than black-and-white stories, but also in how those stories played on our individual and collective psyche.

In that vein, we offer a different format, the year not in numbers, but in themes that seemed tied to our souls like an umbilical cord.

Anxiety

The economy was in shambles nationally, which seemed enough for heartburn, but also locally, as the unemployment rate skyrocketed, property values went in the opposite direction and tax bills continued to, generally, climb.

Arizona Chemical was shuttered and Bayside Savings Bank was the fourth bank in the region in which the feds intervened in operations.

Sometimes it was hard to tell if the damage was bottom-up or top-down, as state lawmakers created all sorts of ways to try to stanch the bleeding in their budget.

Primarily, though, they passed much of buck down to local governments, who simply continued doing what the state had: whittling away at the programs that had the quietest advocates (nay, lobbyists).

Folks, rightly, were on edge.

Anger

When Congressman Allen Boyd visited Gulf County during the summer for a town hall meeting he was met by a standing-room-only and often hostile crowd, a reflection that in the current times not even a once sure bet – Boyd and easy re-election, dating back to his days as state legislator – is no better than even money anymore.

Surely, the election of President Barack Obama played a significant role in the wider debate that has often trickled down to the local level and was on full display during that town hall meeting.

People are outraged about the direction of the country, and party affiliation or spot on the political spectrum seemed almost an afterthought.

Locally, folks seemed tired of government which sees more wisdom in debating the merits of a town motto than tackling the town’s messy finances, fatigued of the infighting among government bodies that should be partners instead of adversaries in providing the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic development.

Sick of government that turns a deaf ear to all but the favored few.

Skepticism

Many residents had a growing skepticism about elected officials really having their best interests, even the county’s best interests, at heart and who feel that local government, in too many instances, has turned the concept of public services on it ear.

They see government that does not have courage of convictions that they share, government that is not only dismissive of dissent, but outright hostile to the participation in government guaranteed in the First Amendment.

Open meetings and public meeting notice issues were thorns for residents in Port St. Joe during the debacle that was the move to oust city manager Charlie Weston.

Having been called on it enough, county commissioners have moved their post-meeting conclaves from one restaurant to another.

And in Mexico Beach proper public notice of a meeting the past week was debatable and further evidence of what some perceive as a council disconnected from its citizens.

Some voters had to all but hold their noses, or voted no, when voting for the school levy they were skeptical was needed.

And many folks, including those living at St. Joseph Shores, along Cape San Blas between the Air Force property and Indian Pass and Avenue A and U.S. 98 in Port St. Joe could attest that local leaders’ concept of stormwater management needs work.

Parochialism

The debate over the petition drive by Wewahitchka High School students opened the festering wound of a county divided fault lines that can be traced to the moving of the county courthouse and county seat decades ago.

A county divided by time zones is one hindered in luring prospective new businesses.

The school district can not fiscally support much longer not moving to a consolidated school system, but such a thought is anathema on both ends of the county.

Most of all, though, single-member districts serve to divide this county, which is essentially operated at the behest of three men, three majority votes, who hold a power that is, as an examination of any adjacent county would attest, almost unheard of in today’s politics.

Hope

There may have been plenty of rain – literally and figuratively – this year, but there are rays of sunshine for 2010.

The hospital is due to open in March. A biomass plant could be permitted and nearing construction by then. The Port of Port St. Joe may have secured a $39 million grant to accelerate its growth into an operational economic engine.

And, maybe most encouragingly, the people, the residents, the taxpayers, of this county seem, due to a host of emotions that we attempted to define in this space, have become more engaged, and in turn more educated, on local government, how it operates and how the individual can enact change.

No matter how gloomy the year, there is always hope in that.