Someone directed me here to look at Skunkape's comments on the referendum. I wish I hadn't because this thread is really disheartening.
I was one of the original three people to file the paperwork. I feel sure no one thinks of me as arrogant. And yet I see comments that make me think people made this decision based on personally not liking the people behind it.
We, none of us, had ever worked on a political action committee. From reading the law, filing the paperwork, teaching the bank how to open this type of account, trying to boil the message down to its essential message, creating websites, compiling complex weekly electioneering reports (did you know a cashier's check is cash in Florida?) writing letters, talking to everyone we could think of and explaining as best we could. We spent Fourth of July at Lake DeFuniak painting hundreds of faces and trying to engage north Walton parents in conversation only to hear things like, "you don't understand our hometown values."
I, along with five or six others, have spent the vast majority of our waking hours thinking about how to communicate the issue, how to most effectively spend the money we raised in small donations from people who love in this community, and how to reach across the bay to build our network.
Let me go back -- a few years ago I was more in to politics and I realized that I would need to not just be involved in the south Walton community, but also north Walton. I did everything I could think of -- joined Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, worked on the Morrison Springs Park, volunteered at the open pantry in Bruce, tried to learn the community. I did my best to make friends there, and can tell you no one really seemed open to the idea. I always fly like an outsider.
When this campaign started I sent a letter to all of my contacts in Walton County, and none of those in the north responded. Two did later tell me that they were scared to get involved. The one person from north county was attacked by his tea party colleagues for being a liar for daring to tell people that 1) there were not lawyers from Birmingham behind this and 2) we did not receive all our money in one $10,000 donation (that was actually the opposition and they spread that lie at the Liberty forum, which we weren't invited to attend). They also would not return our calls for the Red Bay forum.
Finally, let me tell you my "agenda". A friend of mine from high school moved here with her daughters last year. She came from Columbus, Georgia which has good schools, not great schools. They aren't making any national top ten lists. The schools were a couple of years behind what her daughters had been doing in Columbus. She asked me to introduce her to other moms so she could figure out what to do. There weren't good options--sending them fifty miles away wasn't a option for her. She and her husband took their small business back to Georgia. At this point I was interested in why such a well funded school district wasn't better. I attended a teacher contract meeting and saw a barracuda of a lawyer hired by Carlene Anderson at great expense chew up and spit out the teachers' representative. He tricked the educators into accepting a partial settlement that he realized would obligate them to take the whole settlement meaning no raise and not even the whole bonus from the governor. For the fifth year in a row. Any one in business knows you don't step on the neck of your employees just because you can. If you are a good executive, you want the most competent staff with good morale, you want to retain your highest performers. That was when I began to suspect the superintendent was the root of the problem. I looked at her management of district funds and the fact that year after year she has to borrow from the general fund, I saw that most of the teachers were scared of her and that their fears of retaliation were not unfounded. I saw how much money went to the administrative staff. These are high paying jobs that are only advertised on the school districts website and seemed to be filled by political cronies. These are not the practices of a good executive but the actions of a politician.
This feeling was confirmed in conversations with school board members who repeatedly used the excuse that they had no authority over the superintendent because she was elected. No one would be held accountable.
It seemed to me the most efficient way to improve school district would be to make it like every successful company and public entity in the country -- a board that has authority over a highly competant administrator who is not having to run for office all the time. 88% of Florida's students are already in hired school systems. I fail to see how coming to this conclusion makes me arrogant. Maybe wrong, but not arrogant.
What seems arrogant to me is that this issue was never really discussed on its merits. It immediately became a populist message of losing your right to vote even though it would have been a vote to make the politicians accountable, and then personal attacks, and then lies about agendas and funding.
What seems arrogant to me is spreading your message in two different ways north and south of the county. It seems arrogant say you must elect a superintendent because you can't trust people in the north to elect a decent school board. I think it's arrogant to lie to a room full of first responders about the other side getting an untraceable $10,000 donation knowing it was in fact your own PAC that did that. I think it's arrogant and illegal to send untraceable electioneering materials with no disclaimer about who paid for it full of lies and personal attacks. It is arrogant to shut one side out at forums. But mostly, it is arrogant to refuse to entertain an idea because the people who came up with it live in a different part of your community. It is arrogant to make them feel like they should somehow feel ashamed for bringing the idea up at all, as if their tax dollars are good enough but not their opinions. It is arrogant to reject the messenger instead of the message.
Finally, I promise that WINGS was a completely transparent and open operation. We were constantly asking for volunteers on our website, Facebook page, and even on this very forum. It was always the same small group who showed up. We did the best we could with the resources available to us. We invited input.
And speaking for myself, I always tried to be respectful.