The Hillsborough County Commissioner comment that drew rebukes and created headlines was that of Stacy White who couched support of another iteration of a transportation sales tax referendum as nothing more than “support for a tax hike.”
No surprise that–given White’s ideology. He also had a flawed plan to attack.
For me, the comment that was more of a revelation was one by Commissioner Victor Crist, the transit swing vote who ultimately voted no on the 20- and 30-year taxes. He acknowledged an inherent voting dichotomy. “I may vote one way up here and another way at the poll as a citizen,” he said.
Let’s ponder that. How you vote as a citizen is at odds with how you vote as a commissioner? The former, presumably, is how you really, apolitically, feel about an issue. Need, plan and honest cost-benefit analysis, for example. The latter, ostensibly, is a reflection of constituency. How they really, politically, feel about an issue.
At the risk of terminal naiveté, I say your gut feel for what is right should not alter because of forum change. It should not be offset in the name of “listening” to your constituents, which will always include the loudest of the loud.
Ultimately, it’s called being a leader, not a sounding board. We have too few of the former; we obviously are over our quota on the latter.