As we get closer to election day, things are getting more and more heated and perhaps not in a good way.
After last week’s mess over a racial slur spray painted on a candidate’s sign for the Palm Bay City Council Seat 5, that same candidate is embroiled in another controversy that is more like rain on a summer afternoon in Florida – it is covering everyone.
People posting in various forums claim that candidate Kenny Johnson has an arrest record from an incident that occurred in 2015. We will not get into the charges as they don’t seem relevant to us, but as of this writing, there doesn’t seem to be a conviction. Even if there were a conviction as some have suggested, the sentence seems to have been community service.
By the lack of a conviction or even a conviction with community service as a sentence, it seems somewhat obvious to us that the infraction was either not proved, or minor.
Which leads to the next question: “how long do we, as voters hold someone accountable for their past actions and statements?”
Before you answer that, some statistics may be in order: (more…)
Designed / created / built / envisioned or what ever you want to call it, they are the brainchild of Theo Jansen.
We aren’t sure whether they are proof of a concept or some type of kinetic sculpture or something else, but they do have a certain elegance that is fascinating.
There are no motors (all wind powered) and it is very easy to see them rolling down the sands of Cocoa Beach.
The track and football field at Holmdel High School in New Jersey was experiencing a rather weird problem: someone was defecating in and around the area.
Every day, the staff would come out and find a pile of human excrement that the staff had to clean up.
The staff and the police decided to do something about, and decided they would first find out who was using the grounds a their own personnel toilet. They installed cameras to cover the area.
Before too long, they had video of the person “dropping trou.”
The police made the identification of the culprit.
It was the school district’s superintendent, Dr. Thomas Tramaglini. You read that right – the SUPERINTENDENT OF THE KENILWORTH SCHOOL DISTRICT!
Police in New Jersey on the hunt for a mystery pooper at Holmdel High School set up surveillance that led them Monday to superintendent Thomas Traglini.
The arrest of the Kenliworth Public Schools superintendent followed weeks of employees finding feces on a “daily basis” near or on the high school football field and track, Holmdel Police said.
Tramaglini, 42, was arrested around 5:50 a.m. on the athletic field, which is about 3 miles from his home, NJ.com reported.
He was charged with defecating in public, lewdness and littering in connection to the pooping problem.
The fact that this clown was doing this is bad enough, but it gets worse – much worse. (more…)
Last year, Kellie Collins was running for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican, for Georgia’s 10th congressional District.
Collins ran on a liberal platform including calling for gun legislation in order to protect people from gun violence.
Collins dropped out of the race for “personal reasons,” but it appears now one person people had to fear from gun violence was Collins herself.
Kellie Lynn Collins, 30, surrendered to authorities in McDuffie County on Tuesday and was charged with murder and grand larceny. The victim was identified as Curt Cain, 41, and found at his residence on the 3000 block of Old Powderhouse Road on Tuesday after his employer requested a well-being check.
An autopsy revealed that Cain had been shot and died due to loss of blood, according to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton. Cain is believed to have died on Saturday.
Think about that for a moment. The person who wanted to control other people’s Second Amendment Rights went out and shot someone. (more…)
The Palm Bay City Council will hold an “off day” regular meeting tonight starting at 7:00 PM. The agenda can be found here.
There are several things we find interesting.
First is the proposed language for the ballot for the proposed issuance of a bond for City infrastructure (New Business Item 1):
OFFICIAL BALLOT
CITY OF PALM BAY, FLORIDA
BOND REFERENDUM ELECTION- NOVEMBER 6, 2018
BONDS FOR ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS IN PALM BAY
Shall the City be authorized to issue general obligation bonds for the exclusive purpose of improving local roadways and ancillary facilities and eliminating potholes in an amount not to exceed $150,000,000, payable from annual ad valorem taxes maturing not later than twenty years from the date of each issuance and bearing interest at a rate not exceeding the maximum legal rate, with all expenditures reviewed by a citizens advisory committee?
For bonds _____ Against bonds _____
We always get nervous when we terms that are not defined. There is no definition in the ballot language or the ordinance itself which tells people what an “ancillary facility” is, what projected plans there are for these facilities or even some estimated costs.
Second item of interest is the Position Control Plan (New Business Item 2). This is a fascinating look at the number of people and pay scales for Palm Bay employees. (more…)
It had been an itch we could not scratch. As we returned from the Palm Bay City Council Meeting last week, we kept thinking “we’re missing something.” None of us could put our fingers on it, but we knew something wasn’t right.
We finally figured it out.
Last week the City Council passed a “lobbying ordinance” that requires what the City defines as “lobbyists” to register with the City and pay a fee. The ordinance had been proposed by Councilman Calvin “Tres” Holton.
We can debate the need for this type of ordinance all day long. We understand those who think there is a need for it, but the ordinance will catch unsuspecting people out in it and it won’t do a darn thing to help “transparency” within the Palm Bay City government.
Assume for a moment that a vice-president of a company is sent down to Palm Bay to talk to City officials about building a new facility where the company can build world class widgets. The company is looking for tax incentives and things like that. If the vice-president gets concessions and the company moves, he gets a bonus. That Vice President is not considered a lobbyist under the ordinance.
If that same company hires someone in the area to come down and talk to Palm Bay officials about moving here, that person is considered a “lobbyist” under the ordinance. They are performing the same function as the vice-president, but they have to jump through a different set of hoops under the ordinance.
We can’t see a practical difference. If the City is worried about “lobbyists” and “who is meeting with who,” they should keep a database on the meetings. Problem solved. The same accountability for both the speakers and the public employees / elected officials is there which we suppose is the goal. In other words, put the onus to do the right thing on the people making decisions, not just the people trying to convince them.
Yet there is more to this ordinance and it is one of those things that chills us to the bone as generally speaking we are against governmental compelled speech.
This past Friday, one of the Johnson electioneering signs was found to have a racial slur painted on it. (We are including a picture of the sign below the fold.)
A vandal spray-painted a racial slur on one of Palm Bay City Council candidate Kenny Johnson’s campaign yard signs near the intersection of Minton Road and Jupiter Boulevard.
Councilman Brian Anderson spotted the defaced sign while driving past about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, called Johnson, and showed him the racist graffiti during a Facebook video call.
“I was immediately upset,” Johnson said. “I got over it, but then I became upset again because I knew my parents were going to find out about it — and I knew they were going to be hurt that somebody said that about their son.”
There are all sorts of theories as to who may have defaced the sign. Some have said it was racists. Some have said it was someone who wanted to use race to divide the City of Palm Bay. Some have said that the Johnson campaign manufactured this incident to drum up support and portray Johnson as a victim of racial hatred. Whoever did this is a vile human being and deserving of every ounce of scorn that can be heaped upon their brainless heads.
However, in some ways, who did this despicable act doesn’t matter. What matters is how you, we and us react to this. We can condemn it as we should, but whoever did it is relying on the idea that Kenny Johnson is a black candidate running for office.
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
