Election Season in Full Swing

Greetings from Rome. We are on the last leg of the trip. 2 more days and I will be back in the US and back to this.. Surely so many people have missed me! haha

This election season is one for the books. We are a little more than two weeks away from the primaries which will determine many of our local races, including the county commission races. I am predicting that the next two weeks will be even more crazy.

I have never seen someone get the treatment that Commissioner Rebecca Bays has gotten on her social media page. With every single post, it is a frenzy of negativity. Looking at her social media page, you would think she is the most disliked person on that board.

The problem is that she cannot delete the comments. As an elected official, just about everything posted to her social media page becomes public record. Every single comment is a public record that must be captured and maintained. She cannot delete anything otherwise its a 1st Amendment violation as the courts have ruled.

I am honestly not even sure why she posts on her page anymore. It has become a billboard for her opponents as the majority of the comments are anti-Bays and telling people to vote for either Holli Herndon or Jennifer Grogan. Or if she posts, at least turn off the comments, like Commissioner Jeff Kinnard does on his page.

That being said, this is an important election for Citrus County and people are fired up. Granted, social media likely represents a small portion of the voters, particularly those most vocal. Most people just sit and watch/read and do not engage. Those people will be key in who wins this election, as well as the ones who are not on social media at all. That is generally why the candidates with the most money win. They can do the mailers to reach the people not online.

But then... Ruthie Schlabach lost to Janet Barek. So anything is possible.

But back to this year.

I have said before that Citrus County is at a crossroads.

We have the "Keep the Nature Coast the Nature Coast" group. They want to see the county tap the brakes on the growth and to stop building, especially approving these large scale developments.

We have the "We need more commercial growth and more job growth". This generally results in more rooftops being added due to the nature of these mixed use developments that are all the rage right now... Tuscany... Dix Developments... Citrus Hills now adding more commercial (Home Depot)... and so on.

We have the "Smart Growth" group. I am not sure what smart growth is anymore as I have heard a million different descriptions... but the general thought here is that the growth goes to where it was planned to go years ago... and after that... who knows. This area being the Central Ridge area... 486/491 area.

And we have people who are a mix of two or three of those.

So where do we go from here? The factions are waring so to speak.

We are seeing it play out on social media. People are drawing their lines in the stand and backing the candidates they feel best represent their views on where the county is headed. And it is getting louder... on all sides.

But this election cycle is weird.

We have a candidate whose husband is sharing flyers of the opponent.

We have a candidate (Holli Herndon), whose team sent out the wrong dates for the election on accident to her email list. Then the supervisor of elections gave some pretty pointed comments about her to the Chronicle.

We have a candidate (Jennifer Grogan) who has not brought in any money since June 18th... and in fact.. returned most of a contribution from someone who supported her early.

And that is the same race.

The other race is getting more crazy than that first one.

Supporters on both sides shared a similar flyer that has been making the rounds... changing the text to support their candidate.

There are flaws on both of those flyers but we will not get into them today.

Then you have people bringing up old stuff about the incumbent (Finegan) or their issues with her personality... or ambitions for higher office... or the May 12th meeting... or just their general dislike of her as a person saying she is unfit to lead.

Then you have her opponent doubling down on information that is not factual (the Suntrust lawsuit against her). When confronted she put out a public statement, but that was not the full truth... Then she did an interview with the Chronicle and repeated the same thing. Court documents tell a different story.

Then with the school board race... some stuff is coming back up about bus drivers being paddled as punishment under the previous administration, in which one candidate (Mike Mullen) was a part of.

Then the opponent being bashed for having never set foot in a classroom as an instructor or any type of role in public education... being bashed due to his connections to a lobbyist that is popular/unpopular depending on who you ask.

And we are still two weeks away. Who knows what will happen next.