Yup! Just like the Energizer Bunny, or Fred Torrance, Commissioner Fred Bum..er..Brummer just keeps going and going and going, determined to get his agenda through, no matter what anyone does to stop him. Back on March 11 he tried to railroad several proposals from eliminating the Tax Collector’s office to, changing the petition drive rules to adding two new Hispanic districts and making all constitutional officers non partisan into one emergency proposal, under the guise of the “We need it now, because outside interests have WMD and they’re going to use them on us!” and force a special mail in ballot election in May excuse that didn’t fool anyone. Well, maybe a few people bought that line, but not many. After a passionate public comment period, more people against than for, the majority of the Bipartisan County Commission, hereafter known as BCC or just the Commission voted to delay any kind of vote, thereby killing the emergency. Unfortunately, they also agreed to take up the individual proposals on April 8.
One week later, Orange Rising, a coalition of progressive groups, announced their new project Vote Local at a press conference outside the County Commission chambers. The speakers stressed the importance of educating and informing County residents how local elections work and why it is necessary to be involved in primary elections as well as in general elections in all years. The speakers also stressed how harmful the individual proposals are and what we as voters would lose if they passed. Make no mistake about it; these folks are energized and they are going to fight this with everything they’ve got. So, just as in the old TV live cartoon show, The A Team, where no matter how badly beat up the villains have been within the first 15 minutes of the show, they come back for more as if they had no fractures or bruises or gaping wounds until finally defeated, at least for that episode, Commissioner Fred Bum…er…Brummer is back, confident that his now altered four individual proposals will be passed at the April 8 Commission meeting. What hubris this guy has!
It’s an old Republican word game to label anything the opposite of its title. Two prime examples of this are The Clean Air Act, which is anything but that and No Child Left Behind, which leaves at least 40% of our children behind. Commissioner Bum…er…Brummer’s recent interview on WFTV, Channel 9 was a complete smokescreen to his intended charter amendments. Basically, this is an act of protecting the Republican majority on the BCC. His statement that these amendments will give voters more power could not be further from the truth and there are many reasons why:
- Elimination of the Tax Collector as an elected constitutional officer. His statement is that there is no reason for it.
Well, let’s take a look at that. There are 67 counties in the State of Florida and 65 counties have elected Tax Collectors. The two counties that have done away with the office are Volusia and Miami Dade. We can’t vouch for the success or failure of Volusia, however, during Commissioner Bum…er…Brummer’s research he conveniently overlooked the fact that Miami Dade has a myriad of fraud and corruption problems. He also overlooked that this has been addressed before and the task force did not recommend the elimination. This appears to be a personal vendetta against Randolph himself, and not based on sound fiscal judgment or policy. Constitutional offices provide a needed check and balance to an all out power grab such as this is. But wait! There’s more!
Sources indicate that Tax Collector Scott Randolph is interested in pursuing Tax Certificates. Tax Certificates are a normal procedure when property owners do not pay their property taxes. These certificates are issued after a period of time and then sold off to interested parties. Sources also indicate that the Florida Tax Collectors Association also believes the County Commission is dragging its feet on selling off these certificates. Since Commissioner Bum…er…Brummer served several years in the State Legislature, serving on financial and tax committees and, regardless of anyone’s opinions of him, he is an excellent CPA, he knows something about these things. Why has the BCC stalled on collecting the monies owed on these? Of course, that could open up a different can of worms. Tax Collector Randolph has not yet returned our calls to verify this information, however, in a February 11th interview with Jacob Engels, Randolph said “ Another example of a real conflict is the Orange County held tax certificates. State law says that the County shall apply for tax deeds for any outstanding tax certificates on property assessed at more than $5,000. The County has refused to do so for years until we threatened lawsuit this year, and they are still dragging their feet. The County is the only one with the statutory authority to initiate the tax deed process, but only a fraction of the back taxes owed are to Orange County. Most of the taxes are owed to schools, storm water, road improvement districts, etc. If the tax collector was an appointed position inside the county, this process would never happen and other taxing authorities would be detrimentally affected.” Sources also indicate that previous Tax Collector, Earl K. Wood did not pursue Tax Certificates, which by now probably total in the millions or tens of millions of dollars. Thank your county commissioners for this willful neglect.
- Two new commission districts to be voted on in August. If passed a new Redistricting Advisory Committee would be appointed to report to the BCC by March 1, 2015. The Commission would then schedule a special election by August 31, 2015.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? But why? There’s already a lawsuit going on over the redistricting in 2012 which hasn’t been completed yet. The last group ignored the wishes of the minorities involved, and if past performance is any indication these two new districts will further dilute the influence of the minorities. Don’t trust a commission where 6 of the 7 members are partisan Republicans. They are desperately fighting a ballot initiative to turn all county elections into partisan races. More on that later. You can’t just cut out two minority districts; you have to revise every district to reflect its numbers. The gerrymandering that will go on will be beyond belief. Currently there are slightly over 700,000 registered voters in the county, which relates to about 116,000 voters per district. The addition of two new districts would bring that number down to about 87,500 voters. Considering the time these commissioners put in and the salaries they receive it doesn’t make sense. Being a commissioner should be a full time job and if they actually paid attention to their constituents instead of their things would be a lot different.
- The proposal to change the petition initiatives.
This is completely ridiculous and is meant to put a damper on ballot proposals, not empower voters. There is a petition drive going on right now to turn on all county elected positions to partisan elections. Voters should have the right to know, without having to ask, what party a candidate belongs to. There are lots of petition drives going on and yet only one has ever made it on the ballot. That one is the paid sick time initiative which will go nowhere since the legislature has already preempted it thanks to Textgate. The petition for partisan elections would rip off the mask of anonymity and expose the people who actually run the county for who they are. Since six of the seven current members of the commission are Republicans they would like to keep that anonymity as well as their incumbency.
Frankly, what should change is the way we hold our August elections. According to former Democratic Party chairman Doug Head in 2010, August turnout among No Party and third Party (including the infamous “Independent” Party) was 5.6% while it was 25.6% for those registered D or R. In 2012 August turnout among Ds and Rs (together) was 21.6% (fell), while the NPAs and all others rose to 6.8%. Essentially, those not registered in the major parties are four to five times less likely to vote in August than the Major Party registrants. In other words, even though independent voters can vote in August they don’t, so truly their vote is meaningless. This is exactly why Commissioner Bum…er…Brummer wants to avoid doing anything in a general election. To make matters worse Democrats don’t turn out in non presidential midterm elections, even though there are important city, county, state and federal candidates that need their votes. Vote Local intends to change that.
- The amendment that is supposed to enfranchise voters by eliminating all constitutional officers is only a way for commissioners to assert more power. Again, by eliminating all of these partisan elections that mask of anonymity looms large, and accountability becomes murky. This amendment is also a sham.
There are many other reasons for not letting this happen, and you can express your opinions at a Town Hall meeting on March 31 held at Dr. James R. Smith Neighborhood Center, 1723 Bruton Blvd. in Orlando from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Special guest will be Beverly Neal of the Nat’l Congress of Black Women. Here’s the flyer:
Several invitations were sent to county commissioners. It turns out that the only acceptance was from Commissioner Bum…er…Brummer. This is a chance for people to give their input and ask hard questions. You can be sure that the Vote Local people will be there. They do expect a packed house. Bring some towels and some hand wipes because it could get messy.
