COMMISSIONERS NEVER CHANGE

Editor, The Sun:

Digging through my computer archives I found this letter to the editor dated Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 6:54:40 AM which I never published, but here it is: 

“SPLAT!   COMMISSIONERS NEVER CHANGE!”

“The famous 18th century writer Henry David Thoreau, described a lake called “Flint’s Point,” next to his beloved Walden’s Pond, where he often hiked down just to feel the wind blowing in his face, watch the waves and remember the life of mariners.
“Flint’s Pond!  Such is the poverty of our nomenclature.  What right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it? Some skinflint, who loved better the reflecting surface of a dollar or a bright cent, in which he could see his own brazen face; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers [are] grown into crooked and horny talons from their long habit of grasping harpy-like..
“I go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it.  Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers which grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of  whose history is interwoven with its own; not from him who could show no title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him-him who thought only of its money value; whose presence perchance cursed all the shore; who exhausted the land around it, and would fain have exhausted the water within in; who regretted only that it was not English hay or cranberry meadow-- for there was nothing to redeem it, forsooth, in his eyes-- and would have drained and sold it for the mud at its bottom.”
 Walden’s Pond was published in 1854. If Mr. Thoreau lived in our time, he might have been pleased with the names that developers bestow on roads they carved through the wetlands like “Blue Heron Way,” “Blue Crab Lane,” and “Tarpon Boulevard”. But then when he saw that they were no different than the farmer he despised for trashing nature, he’d initially waste his time like citizens do now, by storming up to the Wakulla County Commission to speak his mind.  When they told him his three minutes were up and if he persisted, he’d be dragged off in chains because the commission is owned and operated by land speculators, mortgage brokers, realtors and developers. But, like Thoreau’s Farmer Flint,  what can you expect from realtors who care nothing about nature and seeks only the dollar.
Wakulla needs to quickly install another type of government free from the puppet masters because their county commissioners are rushing to put in infrastructure and development that will supersede them when they are kicked out.  They are doing an incredible amount of damage that will be felt years into the future.  The four that our citizens mistakenly elected are influencing your future, your health and the environment.  They are making decisions that clearly show they are not in your favor and do so with ignorance and prejudice.
 It matters not what issues you bring before them, or how citizens plead with them not to grant further development in fragile areas. Therefore I propose that the four commissioners who cast the deciding votes over and over again wear the black hoods of executioners, as they condemn wetlands, fiddler crabs, mullet, shrimp and our way of life to death. It really doesn’t matter what I, or anyone else says: they sit before us at the commission meetings waiting for the words to stop, their minds made up. As they stare blankly into space, I’m sure that some of them have learned to meditate to pass the time. They don’t have to answer questions, or state why, but they can sure stifle free speech when they want to.
Unless you’ve filled out a speaker’s card in advance of an agenda item, once it’s taken up, no matter how outrageous it is, or whatever new and surprisingly horrible information gets revealed, you are forbidden to comment. Developers, attorneys, consultants and every proponent for a development on the other hand, generally get to drone on and on without regard to time limits. When I’ve objected to this, I have been escorted out of the commission room by sheriff’s deputies. In fact, it’s happened so often, that I have trouble finding my way out without a stern faced officer pointing the way.
When I first wrote this in 2007 Mr. Ed (the commissioner, not the talking horse) was going to present a new ordinance next week that will make speaking before the commission even more restrictive, supposedly relying on Robert’s Rules of Order. I haven’t read Robert’s rules yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it calls for the construction of a trap door that will drop citizens who are trying to protect the environment through the floor if they exceed three minutes.
Back then in 2007 I countered with Rudloe’s Rules of Disorder advising citizens come armed to the commission meetings with rotten tomatoes, but alas no one had the guts to make the leap. I no longer waste my breath going to commission meetings and wasting what precious time I have left on this earth, but instead voice my opinions to the public with my “weaponized” writing skills, and do my best to  go ‘SPLAT!’ So  Long Live  Henry David Thoreau!
 
Jack Rudloe
Panacea