Wake up. You missed the Gainesville City elections. Again
I gripe about low voter turnout every year, so I am not doing it this year because I lost a runoff that went to a mandatory recount. On March 16th, in this University town, only 14% of voters cared enough to vote for their next mayor. In District 4, made up of the precincts that encompass parts downtown and much of the University, the turnout was only 11.8%. That means that 86% of Gainesville residents could not care less who governs them locally.
I was well aware of the low turnout, and for that reason I focused on our electric bills, which have been astronomical lately. I believe that 100% of Gainesville voters get their electric sewer and water from GRU, so it was reasonable to think this would get people to care enough to come out. I made sure that they knew that the city OWNS GRU, and that my opponent actually voted for the increases. This was never disputed in the various candidate forums nor in the press.
Of course, the press never really covered the issues. They spent a lot of time looking into the flyers someone made that warned about my opponent becoming Gainesville’s first gay mayor. Although it appears (if the voter turnout means anything) that this meant almost nothing on election day, this was the Maypole that the Sun and the Alligator continued to dance around throughout the campaigns. So, either the voting public was distracted by an irrelevant issue or people actually LIKE rapacious electric bills.
Unfortunately, there is probably something true about that last point. Each year, as the City of Gainesville continues to elect big spenders with huge appetites for your money, I tell other members of the Loyal Opposition that, “The people of this town like high taxes, gridlock, and less economic opportunity.” I actually met some of these people while knocking on doors throughout the city. I stumbled upon a dinner party at which I was invited to come in and pitch my candidacy. I started with our high electric bills and the millions that the city depends on getting from GRU to pay for their spending. The hostess told me we deserved to pay more because other people in the world were suffering. She could make no correlation between my high bills and the suffering of Darfur, but that didn’t matter. The argument seems to have more to do with Karma than logic.
I was going to post the results here, but I thought I would just send you to the Supervisor of Elections site for the complete results of both the March 16th general election and the April 13th Runoff. It includes a precincts by precinct breakdown so you can see what are the most apathetic (Precinct 31, Reitz Union, 1.95%) and most civic minded (Precinct 64, Westminster Presbyterian Church, 31.65%) parts of town are. That was in March. It April, it was the same precincts, only they improved to 2.45% and 42.51% respectively. The runoff actually had an improved turnout of 16.75%. Very sad indeed.
