Alachua Voter Guide

Since I started following the Sheriff’s race, I have been hearing all kinds of accusations against Sheriff Sadie Darnell. I heard those accusations directly from her opponent on my porch, wrote about it here, and made it plain that the Sheriff could weigh in on this.  I went to two political forums where these accusations were made in public, and the Sheriff did not respond to the charges of corruption and mismanagement that were laid at her feet.

I expected this to get some play in the Gainesville Sun, but it never came up. It wasn’t until this past week, with less than a week left in the contest, that there was a “Speak Out” editorial written by a former SO employee. It was followed, the next day, by a rebuttal from Sheriff Darnell, but there was still no mention of the major complaint leveled by her challenger, Lonnie Scott: that she spent half a million dollars to create a department that duplicated services performed by another governmental agency and that she gave a $80K per year job to a friend and political ally.

So, here we are, the last Sunday before Election Day, and the front page story says that the big draw to bring in the voters is the PRIMARY  race between Rick Bryant and Mike Byerly. And why is this big news? Why, it’s because so much money has been raised in that race! Rick Bryant has raised a little over $65K! Then, continued on page 5 is the tiny mention, pictured above, that there is a contest in the race for Sheriff. End of story.

I had the opportunity to speak to a Gainesville Sun reporter this week. I asked why the Sun has not been covering this explosive race, and giving so much space to the Bryant-Byerly race instead. She told me that the Sun did not have the money to do the kind of reporting they used to.

But they do have the collumn inches to waste on extra coverage of John Edwards’ mistress and her Ocala connection. It is no wonder that this paper is in financial difficulty. Without local relevance, why should people read it?