So much for "Non-Partisan"

Year 2016 is going to be an important year. Not only will we be voting for a new president of the United States to ascertain whether our country will continue on its road of socialism or turn our country's direction back to capitalism and smaller government where we are all paddling our own canoe, Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher wants local municipalities to move their elections back by a week and set their qualifying times by December this year for the primary that is held in March 2016. This will affect Lake Worth, as three incumbents come up for re-election in March:  Triolo, Maxwell and Amoroso. There very well could be another issue that the city wants on the ballot such as another Lake Worth 2020 bond. Local issues usually get lost on a large ballot as voters have to read all the way to the end to usually find local issues and candidates and many don't bother.

If you recall, former Lake Worth commissioner John Szerdi instigated the vote of this majority commission to change the qualifying time for candidates from one month to three months before the election.  So, we're already doing what Bucher has suggested as far as qualifying times. According to political consultant, Rick Asani, moving the qualifying time probably helps incumbents and candidates with more money. Luckily, this self-serving move didn't help Szerdi as his opponent, Ryan Maier, won by a landslide.

Vice Mayor of Lake Worth, Scott Maxwell, was quoted in the Palm Beach Post yesterday saying that more voters means more expense for candidates to reach them and he worries about the effect the partisan primaries will have on the non-partisan municipal races.

"The biggest concern is the partisan piece. We're supposed to be non-partisan," said Maxwell.

He didn't worry about partisan politics a few years ago. Remember the days when Tom Ramiccio was running for mayor again in Lake Worth? The Republican Party's Chair was called in for some heavy duty campaigning. Sid Dinerstein, who was the Chair of the Republican Party Palm Beach County at that time, was always poking his nose into Lake Worth politics thanks to a certain Republican commissioner. Dinerstein gave Tom $250 in a campaign contribution and helped campaign for Rene Varela, a Democrat, against Laurence McNamara by doing a robo call. Guess whose idea that was?

So much for "non-partisan."