Every time I try and give someone the benefit of my doubts, they just come back and prove that I was right all along. I decided that Mr. Levy just had no clue on Florida Hometown Democracy when he debated Katie McGiveron in January at the Lake Worth Democratic Club. He dished out all the same old arguments that are based on false assumptions or just plain wrong that we always hear from politicians, developers, Realtors and the Chamber of Commerce. You see, politicians can't stand the idea of losing any power especially to the people they serve.
David Levy is back in the news today. He is the new mayor of Palm Beach Gardens and in his third, three year term. He is a guy who has never met a developer he didn’t like. He seems like a very nice guy but he is a politician afterall. We had someone in office here for 10 years and look at all the millions wasted. She was "nice" too. Term limits are a good idea.
Now we learn that he is making it very difficult on the right to petition. His challenger in the last election, Rob Palladino, is challenging the terms of elected officials and wants to limit them to two, three year terms and take it to a vote of the electorate. It takes 15% of the registered electorate to get something on the ballot for an Ordinance Amendment and Palm Beach Gardens is around the same size as Lake Worth. Mr. Palladino needs to do a Charter Amendment instead of an Ordinance Amendment and then he would only have to get 10% of the electorate. In this way, if it passes, it would take another vote of the people to change it.
Who ever heard of not being allowed to go to Kinkos and make your own copies of petition forms? Mr. Levy and the rest of the Palm Beach Gardens Commission want to charge Mr. Palladino’s group 15 cents per page and says that he must copy the forms from City Hall. Putting an extra burden and monetary expense on the public is just another stumbling block and meant to be inconvenient and expensive to this arduous process of getting something on the ballot.
No comments:
Post a Comment