In the previous article “The Idiots Guide to the Coral Springs March 12 Election (part 1), I discussed reasons why not to vote the current city commissioners back in office. The main reason was that the current city commissioners and mayor changed the people’s referendum on term limits thereby making themselves eligible for this election. This main point above all others is why this election is really important. Government officials can’t change the rules to suit themselves. Not even city officials.
So what must us idiots do now, since the election will be held on March 12? First we must all turn out and vote. The more the better. Out of more than 120,000 people, less than 2.5% will come out and vote in this election. If the incumbents get in, they will of course ignore this fact and say that they got elected by the people. A clear mandate to continue their nonsense and maybe even get themselves a nice raise! Remember, all they have to do is vote on it and it is done. It’s good to be king isn’t it?
Now we come to the part where we endorse one candidate over the other. The difference here is that we endorse all of the candidates except the incumbents. That means we endorse 4 other people for the 3 positions.
Mayor (Seat 1)
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| 3 of the 4 Challengers: Left to right: Vince Boccard, Scott Brook and Robert Pasin. The loyal opposition |
Robert Pasin: He is a nice guy. He is well educated, is an associate professor of law (comes in handy with our legal bills) and seems to see things the Coralsprings.com way. He even pointed out at the city commission meeting that it only takes $829.40 to run for mayor. That is based on 5% of the salary of the Mayor. that means that the mayor makes $16,588.00. Is this enough money for al the aggravation he takes? No. That’s why there must be some other reason why anyone would want to be mayor. It is definitely not the money. Pasin knows this , and he still wants the job. He is one of us idiots also.
Vincent Boccard: Here is what I would call the nice person in town. This guy is all heart and no politics. He wants to be mayor because he feels that he can do a good job. He is the Un-Mayor. No polish here. As a builder he knows how to handle the BS. He is no public speaker. But, Vince would give us a “Mayberry” style of city. Andy would be proud of him. Opie too. I would decently give him my vote as well.
Seat #2 and #4
I still have a problem with this election system. It divides up the commission into seats. We do not have districts where we can elect a representative to sit on the commission. Nope. We have seats. The seats do not correspond to any geographical area other than the seat of the person that is sitting on them. We also vote for more than one seat at this election. It is seat # N and Seat N+2 or something. Seats are not important. It’s the ass that sits on them that is. (oops. I used Ass! I am not a School Board Member, so forgive me.)
There are 2 people running for 2 different seats. They are Phil Roden and Scott Brook.
Phil is a likeable fellow that has spent a lot of time as a volunteer fire department member. He was caught up in an alleged charge imitating a police officer. He apparently stopped someone on the highway using his Fire Department Badge. The charges were dropped. An the hole issue was suspect , as Phil was quite vocal about the volunteers versus the professionals. His heart is in the right place though and his creative talent and opinions should provide for excitement at many city commission meetings. That alone should be a reason to vote for him.
Scott Brook: If there ever was someone in our city that deserves to be elected simply from the class he displays is Scott. He relates to politics well, and knows how to skirt the issues. That is what makes him so good. If Scott had his way, everyone would get what they wanted! and he does it so well. I would definitely vote for him. The city commission meetings would have the right stuff. Here is his website http://www.scottbrook.com/ .
It is not too hard to look at the amount of people running for office to realize that something must be getting in the way of people’s decision to run for office. Only 4 people are challenging the incumbents. Is it the $800 bucks? Probably not. It is the fact that the current slate of commissioners and mayor have lulled everyone to a complacent sleep so that no one wants to get involved anymore. This should all change at the election in 2004, when 2 seats and the mayor are up again for election an the incumbents cannot run. Unless of course they vote themselves another extended stay!
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