Was enjoying a pleasurable Saturday afternoon when someone sent me a text with an 18-minute recording stopped at the 9:49 mark. “The sheriff has something to say about you right before this moment,” the texting person said. Full stop on the beautiful Saturday. I went to the tape. Sheriff Mike Prendergast was speaking to a local organization about the unfair county commissioners who dare to question his budget and not just hand over $40 million. We’re never averse to trying something new here at Just Wright Citrus so today we introduce the photo page. I hear you saying already, “Wait a minute! You’re a TERRIBLE photographer! All we see are pictures of buildings, parking lots and county commission meetings. Good thing you can string two sentences together or there’d be no reason to be here.” Then there’s this guy. What are we to make of Paul Grogan, the no-party affiliation candidate whose existence on the November ballot blocks non-Republicans from voting in the county commission District 2 primary? Well, this should be interesting. Facebook, our key to success through conversation, informed me a few days ago that it is moving Just Wright Citrus from the “classic” page to the “new” page. We haven’t checked in on commission email recently and there’s no time like the present. I started July by randomly selecting Ruthie Davis Schlabach’s emails from last week. It was the usual assortment of email with a theme that is becoming all too familiar: Take care of my problem or look out at the next election. Fix my road or else; stop rowdy boaters or else; give the sheriff all he wants or else. You get the picture. Something I forgot to mention in last week’s excitement: The publisher of your favorite blog is now a Republican. I did it the day after the Chronicle forum. I was just so mesmerized by Paul Reinhardt’s logic for the state Legislature that I couldn’t wait another day to switch sides. Just some Friday musings… —Seeing the demolition Thursday of the old classroom buildings at the Historic Hernando School brought back some memories. Believe it not, this was the site of a fierce battle between nonprofit tenants and the Hernando Heritage Council, which oversaw the property and rehabbed the historic schoolhouse. While the feud ended, the county eventually removed the nonprofits in order to tear down the buildings for parking. Now that we made it through a day of true confessions, let’s circle back to the county commission District 4 debate from the June 30 Chronicle forum. District 4 has three candidates — Rebecca Bays, John Murphy Jr. and Winn Webb — so I thought I’d try this from a different angle. I’ll present the topics, a summation of their responses and then how I see it. We’re taking a break from politics for a day of reflection. Everything in my life is traced to July 6, 2006. There was a life prior to that date and the one I’m living now. That’s the day I stopped drinking and began a journey of sober living one day at a time. Sixteen years ago today and I’m pretty happy about it. There was every intent to come out of the Independence Day weekend with a full breakdown of the county commission Districts 2 and 4 races from Thursday’s Chronicle forum. But after spending FOUR HOURS Monday dissecting, Zapruder style, the District 2 video recording of Diana Finegan and Stacey Worthington, I decided to divide it into two days. (Here's the link, District 2 is around 1:53.) |
AuthorMike Wright has written about Citrus County government and politics for 36 years. Archives
April 2024
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