archives Inside Venice Florida

Home

November 8, 2006

Good news and Bad News from the Voters.

by Ed Martin

I played competitive athletics in high school and college and know that finishing second is not as pleasing as finishing first, so Ernie Zavodnyik's close loss to John Simmonds for city council seat 3, is not a victory.

Congratulations to Simmonds. May this close election help him to realize that half the citizens who voted want a representative who is less supportive of growth than he has been. My guess is that incumbents running next year may be thinking about that also, because the likelihood of competition is greater with Ernie's strong showing.

Simmonds victory is not the result of a mass of pro-growth voters rallying behind him, but rather the tens of thousands of dollars spent on his behalf by developers and supporters who either do not understand, or do not want to understand, that these huge dollars distort our democracy and in the long run are not in their own interest or in that of others who will live here in the future. I was listening to a Republican campaign expert speaking on television of Charlie Crist's victory and explaining, "winning is all about money and we had more than Davis." Same was true in Venice.

If Simmonds follows the line he used in his victory remarks that he was going to show Zavodnyik's voters that they were wrong and that most growth is in the county, he will miss a chance to improve his performance. While there has been growth in the county near Venice, the real issue, he does not get, is that he and other council members have annexed property the county had slated for low density and in almost every case, nine of eleven if I recall correctly without checking, gave these areas designations which allowed much more dense growth; in fact more than the maximum the country could have allowed. Venice allows up to 18 units p er acre, the maximum in the county is 13

Ernie Zavodnyik deserves the appreciation of all citizens, including those who supported Simmonds. He willingly, at sacrifice to himself and family, knowing he would be greatly outspent and willing to lose, brought Venice the first real, competitive, election in many years and in doing so, focused attention on growth, an issue that polls indicate concerns a majority of Sarasota and Florida voters. Elections that give the public a chance to consider issues, strengthen our democratic form of government.

Let's look for a moment at the election. When the final dollar figures are reported I will write about those numbers in more detail.

Zavodnyik almost won despite being a newcomer with no name recognition and being outspent at least five to one. (at last available count). He improved his skills as a politician at each appearance, becoming more forceful and sharply focused. Unfortunately, he did not get the endorsement of the Venice Gondolier or the Herald Tribune.

The Tribune does not cover Venice as closely and with as much inside knowledge as the Gondolier, ( in fact they reported the charter votes incorrectly, today), so the incorrect decision, in my view, by the Gondolier, which should have been more familiar with Simmonds' record and abilities, may well have been a deciding factor in such a close race, where a swing of a couple of hundred votes would have reversed the result.

Growing up a Dodger fan, so often disappointed on the final day or in the World Series, I know the famous refrain from my heart, "Wait until next year."

Paper Trail

The campaign to require an auditable paper trail passed and that is good news. With a glitch holding up 50,000 votes last night, and a strange much lower vote total in the Jennings-Buchanan congressional race than in other races, there is every reason to suspect errors, chicanery or possibly both.

Some folks are suggesting that voters here skipped that election while voting for governor, etc. I would hope a major media outlet would do a post-election sampling to see how many voters report they deliberately did not vote in the Jennings-Buchanan race while choosing to vote for other candidates. If any of you reading this did that, how about emailing me. I will not publish your names.

Voters across the country have complained about the electronic machines and so now we will have a better system in 2008; one which will have a paper copy of each voters choices, so errors can be detected and recounted if necessary.

Ed Martin can be reached at: Ed@insideveniceflorida.com

Home

Webmaster

Website Designed and Maintained by

Joe@McKee.net