BCC Candidates for District 1

[BeachSiO2]

Once again, doing the "right" thing based on moral / honesty reasons paid off, as per some entertaining (and yet to be verified local gossip), if I had gone through with it I would have quickly received a visit from an iconic local figure threatening my 30-A livelihood if I ran against Scott Brannon!

Supposedly 2 others have already been dissuaded via this method!

What the puck is going on?

You know I have heard the same gossip. Has anyone heard it DIRECTLY form one of the people that were going to run and has pulled out, or is everyone hearing the same story passed around. I don't understand the benefits to the person I heard that was doing the dissuading. Based on your post, I am pretty clear that it was the same iconic local figure.

 

[DuneLaker]

Going back to JDarg's original comment of why so many District 5 candidates and so few District 1 commissioner candidates. Besides the points made about past campaign organizations with 30+violations which might deter candidates not under their influence, when the County Commissioners redistricted after 2004, SoWal was poorly served. Instead of looking at the growth and allowing a more generous deviation to accomodate communities of SoWal, Freeport's Cuchens and Brannon, Paxton's Pridgen, Mossy Head's Jones (at that point SoWal's Meadows is in, but you'll remember in the early days there were a lot of 4-1 votes and the boys were beating up on her pretty bad) had District 5's border be 395. This cut down on the available number of SoWal candidates that could have qualified in District 1. The damage was done and this scenario was predictable. Nothing much we can do about this now. However, SoWal needs to be very involved in the next redistricting process and be sure SoWal gets the representation it deserves.

 

[wrobert]

Going back to JDarg's original comment of why so many District 5 candidates and so few District 1 commissioner candidates. Besides the points made about past campaign organizations with 30+violations which might deter candidates not under their influence, when the County Commissioners redistricted after 2004, SoWal was poorly served. Instead of looking at the growth and allowing a more generous deviation to accomodate communities of SoWal, Freeport's Cuchens and Brannon, Paxton's Pridgen, Mossy Head's Jones (at that point SoWal's Meadows is in, but you'll remember in the early days there were a lot of 4-1 votes and the boys were beating up on her pretty bad) had District 5's border be 395. This cut down on the available number of SoWal candidates that could have qualified in District 1. The damage was done and this scenario was predictable. Nothing much we can do about this now. However, SoWal needs to be very involved in the next redistricting process and be sure SoWal gets the representation it deserves.

From my experience with redistricting, I do not recall being allowed to take into account what MIGHT happen. Everything that I could find pointed to what actual numbers were at the time of redistricting. Without a good solid census to go on, and without any other direction other than past case law and Florida statute, the only thing the majority felt could be accomplished last time was cleaning up some district lines and numbering, while we wait until 2011.

Our direction came both from Ken Little and from other committee members who worked with Tallahassee officials to provide guidance.

I was very surprised at the number of people on the panel, who were from south Walton, that did not have a clue as to how elections actually worked in Walton County.

 

[DuneLaker]

Not talking about what MIGHT happen. Talking about real numbers and deviation allowed. Up to an overall 10% is allowed and this is good as it gives room to keep communities together. I believe there was much less deviation adopted. This kept all districts around 8,100. SoWal would have been better served by a larger overall deviation, clearly allowed within the laws of redistricting.

 

[wrobert]

Not talking about what MIGHT happen. Talking about real numbers and deviation allowed. Up to an overall 10% is allowed and this is good as it gives room to keep communities together. I believe there was much less deviation adopted. This kept all districts around 8,100. SoWal would have been better served by a larger overall deviation, clearly allowed within the laws of redistricting.

That number was mentioned repeatedly yet no one could point to it in a court decision or statute. In fact there was support of a much greater deviation in a county in Florida that was similar to Walton in that it had a large urban area along with a large agricultural area. After they redistricted they were sued by local citizens and were able to defend the decision to have a district with a much larger number than the others.

The problem that we ran into was that no one could reach a consensus on which numbers we would use to make a determination of the district boundaries. The argument of lack of representation fails, according to case law we found, due to the fact that each district is elected at large.

The result was not necessarily what the committee wanted but with few legal guidelines and defined sources of numbers it was the only choice we could make until 2011.

 

[ShallowsNole]

Other issues notwithstanding, remember that Brannon is from Freeport. I love Freeport. Went to high school there, lived there for 10 years, still have many good friends there. I actually consider Freeport as part of "south Walton" as it is certainly not "north" Walton.

But Freeport as a rule does not want to share their county commissioner with South Walton. This was true when my dad ran for District 5 BCC in 1976, and it is still true today for District 1 BCC.

 

[DuneLaker]

The United States Justice Department which has the final say ultimately in redistricting cases has this. Someone should have looked it up. I know all those lawyers and lobbyists that work on redistricting in Tallahassee know this. Redistricting is in some ways more important than elections. The professionals know this and plan and scheme way in advance for election scenarios. Remember all the Texas hoopla over redistricting. Hopefully, SoWal will get some good appointments to the redistricting board next time and SoWal will be vocal and engaged. Most don't realize how the system works. Most voters didn't understand much about voting laws and regulations until the 2000 election, either.

 

[wrobert]

The United States Justice Department which has the final say ultimately in redistricting cases has this. Someone should have looked it up. I know all those lawyers and lobbyists that work on redistricting in Tallahassee know this. Redistricting is in some ways more important than elections. The professionals know this and plan and scheme way in advance for election scenarios. Remember all the Texas hoopla over redistricting. Hopefully, SoWal will get some good appointments to the redistricting board next time and SoWal will be vocal and engaged. Most don't realize how the system works. Most voters didn't understand much about voting laws and regulations until the 2000 election, either.

Everyone tried to look it up. No one could find it. No one in Tallahassee could show us. No case law or other guidance could be found. A couple of people just kept saying that they knew it was so, but without a source. Maybe people will start doing their homework now so when we do redistrict in 2011 everyone can be prepared. I know this information was researched for several months to no avail, maybe with years to find it, we can uncover it.

 

[DuneLaker]

Maybe who was asked in Tallahassee did not want you to know. Redistricting is full of shenanigans. Take SoWal's crazy Congressional House District 2. Geez, it snakes through SoWal up and picks up Blue Water Bay. Rep. Bev Kilmer, once SoWal and District 7 representative was on the legislature's redistricting committee. She helped draw SoWal numbers and Blue Water Bay numbers into that Congressional House District. And, guess what? She ran for that seat the next election. Fancy that coincidence.

 

[wrobert]

Maybe who was asked in Tallahassee did not want you to know. Redistricting is full of shenanigans. Take SoWal's crazy Congressional House District 2. Geez, it snakes through SoWal up and picks up Blue Water Bay. Rep. Bev Kilmer, once SoWal and District 7 representative was on the legislature's redistricting committee. She helped draw SoWal numbers and Blue Water Bay numbers into that Congressional House District. And, guess what? She ran for that seat the next election. Fancy that coincidence.

Maybe. But I do not personally subscribe to conspiracy theories of such magnitude. We were doing a county commission redistricting, not a state house. When they did the District 7 one didn't a sitting county commissioner or two go to Panama City and testify in a public forum that those rural counties east of here had more in common with south Walton than north Walton?

Pretty common for those state and national districts to be gerrymandered. I think the ones in Walton were to some degree this last time, based on whose house was placed in which district. But with some solid numbers from a credible source, I do not see that happening again. There was way too much interest and a desire by the people to try to do something this last time. None of us were able to find what we thought was a way to make a change with legal standing. I thought the last redistricting occurred in 2001 after the census. I know it has to be done in odd years that is why we looked at it in 2007.