Opinion
By George Miller, 11-20-24
The Nation
After seeing prosperity, peace and at least some improvements, it was agonizing to see our nation next go backwards, bearing the onerous burden of the wrongheaded approach to COVID, the brilliant, mentally sharp, patriotic and morally lofty Biden-Harris administration, with its absurd policies for: budget busting spending, foreign trade, open borders, climate change, foreign relations, wars, uncontrolled rioting, rising crime, “”Lawfare” against political opponents, Fascist censorship approach, military deterioration, highest inflation in our lifetimes, DEI, CRT, bizarre appointed officials, etc., ad nauseum.
So, it was a real relief to witness, even help, a sea change in the electorate this year, running the table with a Presidential party switch, sweeping all seven swing states, winning the popular vote, retaining the House majority, regaining the Senate, all of which will be working with a constitutional Supreme Court. It’s far from perfection, but it’s definitely the lesser of evils. Trump’s unpredicted by almost all media/pundits inroads into the Black, Hispanic, Libertarian, moderate and women’s vote made the difference between victory and defeat.
Nassau County resoundingly voted Republican with a very high turnout this year for the Trump/Vance and Republican federal and state legislators. We are blessed with a particularly good Congressman, Aaron Bean, who has a 90% Conservative voting record- way better than our previous representative. Our state legislators strongly support Governor DeSantis’ policies, most of which, but not all, are good. Unfortunately, quite a few Congressional Republican representatives have supported some of the Biden policies and many are still in office.
The County & Fernandina
While the County Commissioners run a fiscally sound house and crime is lower here, infrastructure, roads specifically, has not kept up with the meteoric growth. We are starting to look like some of the crowded South Florida cities with heavy traffic- gridlock all the way from 95 to the beach, strip malls that all look alike and more Levittown housing. Yulee and the smaller cities to the west are doing well, maybe too well growthwise. I’m hoping that the county will put most homes on city sewers rather than septic tanks, since our vast marshlands and water table don’t go well with such plumbing on a massive scale. I watched the marshlands and waterways go to hell where I lived while I was growing up and would hate to see that happen here, too.
Two areas that are especially concerning are The City of Fernandina Beach Commission and the Nassau County School Board. Most people may not be aware that the City just voted in a more “Progressive” ticket than they had before. Fernandina Pride Founder Genece Minshew and uber left wing environmentalist Joyce Tuten in particular move the Commission hard left. New Mayor James Antun proved that he is nowhere near as Conservative as he professed when coming to Conservative strongholds hat-in-hand looking for votes. But he seems more reasonable. Local businessman Tim Poynter is still an unknown, but his very close association with Minshew may be a “tell.” Asycue may be a stabilizing influence. tellingly, the very first act of the new Commission this week was too pass a controversial transgender proclamation. Why the heck are they even involved in something like that?
In fairness, the incumbents’ handling of things like development policy, transparency, residents speaking at meetings, handling of the City Manager replacement and the proposed bioethanlol plant, were all cringeworthy. Progressives and other dissatisfied voters combined were enough to bring in the new regime. The Progressive media gave a very one-sided presentation of the candidates which kept some voters in the dark abut who the candidates really were. Jack Knocke’s research articles (READ 1 & 2) about what has become known as “The Mishew ticket” were very revealing and reviled by the local Left. But, have voters taken the city out of the frying pan and into the fire? We will see.
As far as the Nassau School Board? Send your kids to private school or homeschool them. It is more like good news /bad news. The good news is that the schools are mostly “A” rated and students test out with some of the highest scores in the state. But keep in mind that the District is overwhelmingly white middle class, a demographic that does better than any other except north Asians. But what if the test answers are not what kids should be learning, Also we hear that there is very good vocational education, something that much of the nation had neglected but is moving to correct. In spite of problems reported, we get a lot of secondhand feedback on the good quality of most teachers. Teacher turnover rates have been quite high in the past. Compensation was a problem, but has improved somewhat. But this are has a high cost of living for the SouthEastern U.S. We hear anectodal reports of teacher burnout. Discipline is a big issue.
The worst school district news is the almost total lack of transparency except what they want to tell you and creeping “wokeness.” Meetings are not all that informative. I have attended a few and watched more on video, as well as reading my reporters’ and other publications reports. There is usually very little informative discussion before voting, question are not encouraged, speakers- even representatives of large groups are only given the same 3 minutes as other speakers, so there is no way to build an alternative case in open meetings. Board members and District officials will not respond to our queries and attempts to talk to them directly. I have had two district employees say we never write anything good about them, but the low level of transparency makes it hard to know what is really going on. We run any press releases that they send us, but sometimes find stuff run by the local Progressive press that we haven’t seen.
The school board election did not solve any problems. The groups dissatisfied with Superintendent Burns did not run a strong change candidate. Her opponent incredibly disclosed that he agreed with most of her policies and voted for virtually all of them while a board member. Only one new “fresh blood” candidate, a former school district employee, got in and it is unknown what she will do in office. Two district employees who were squeezed out ran for school board this year- one succeeded.
The upshot of all this is that (examples) dozens of books which are allegedly pornographic were first removed, then returned to school libraries and is still in contention with more objectionable books identified; A new 1200+ page Social Studies book was deemed unacceptable by dozens of objectors, but was ruled OK by the district and board via a questionable process; troubling student counseling curriculum was not disclosed upon request and is now in litigation.
There are many articles abut these issues in Citizens Journal Florida.
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing the executive (10 years) and manufacturing management professional.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
