Light-up McIntosh December 15
Light-up McIntosh will begin at the Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. The event will host Santa Clause and an area choir from six local churches will sing.
08.15.06 -- Darts & Laurels: So quiet you can hear the moss moving
Monday, August 14, 2006
REACTIVE REMOVAL
By CHER PHILLIPS
Qualifications to run for Danaya Wright's abandoned seat on the town council opened today at noon. It's been so quiet around here you could almost hear the moss moving. This place seemed almost like the small town everyone who doesn't live here thinks it is (except for a little old meeting in the town lawyer's office a week or so ago that everyone in town has probably heard about already but we'll get into that in a minute.)
We're gonna try something called Darts and Laurels. It's kinda like yard darts without the yard. And it's part editorial. I talk about who done good and who didn't.
We'll start with a steel-magnolia LAUREL to Mayor Marsha Strange.
I'd always heard this town's government was built with a weak mayoral structure. Marsha Strange blew that idea out of the water last week.
For anyone who didn't hear, at the town attorney's office, Mayor Marsha Strange attended a meeting representing the town with former Code Enforcement Officer Art Davis and Sportsman's Cove Owner Casey Girardin. When Strange, Barbara Fellman and Art Davis were alone in a room waiting for mediation to begin, all hell broke loose. According to eye witness accounts, the meeting broke down before it began into a WWW verbal slapdown. Apparently, Marsha had to bear the full brunt of what some residents have called Art's "crusty" side.
Marsha told the council last week without going into the gory details how he treated her. She used the language of the open letter signed by about 100 residents saying he was aggressive and disprespectful. It was the same letter residents had asked her to give the council last month but they refused to hear it.
For standing and delivering, thank you Marsha.
We are grateful to you because you used his mistreatment to stop others from having to withstand it in the future. And we're awful sorry it had to come to that.
We're sorry it took his acting out against you for the council to see that all the other residents who complained weren't just making it up, or grinding a political axe, or getting even for his writing code violations against them, or being grossly misled by the Mistresses of Misinformation as Joe Phillips might like everyone to believe when he gets up on his you-people-don't-know-what-you-signed soapbox.
And that leads me to hand out another LAUREL to council members Frank Ciotti, Eunice Smith and Joe Phillips for removing Davis from the office of code enforcement followed with a jumbo-sized, council-pack DART chaser to each and every council member, including former council member Danaya Wright and Jim Strange who was absent from this month's meeting, for not taking the complaints of residents who'd voiced concerns about Davis sooner.
How many residents does it take for you to believe us? How many Fred DelRussos standing up in council telling you Davis threatened his property? How many nice couples like the Great Wall of McIntosh owners saying that from their experience with him, they can understand Davis inspiring animosity?
It sure would have been nice if the council had been PROACTIVE about making sure their constituents were treated with respect by the office of code enforcement.
posted by Cher @ 1:01 PM,
2 Comments:
-
At August 15, 2006 8:00 PM ,
said...
-
Hopefully our council will now unite the community rather than run the agendas of a few.
-
At August 16, 2006 12:07 AM ,
said...
-
I thank Marsha for taking care of the code enforcement issue in a dignified and professional manner. There was no name calling or personal recounts of things said, but rather a polite and factual statement to the council. I think that this is a nice example of the way affairs should be handled within the council.
Editor
Editor and Publisher:
I'm Cher From McIntosh, FL I'm a graduate student at the University of Florida working on a master's degree in Mass Communication. While I was finishing my undergrad degree in journalism last year, I reported on McIntosh, Fla. for an in-depth reporting class. I figured that the reporting and the public record files should go somewhere people can access them. Reporters don't report to keep the information they find to themselves. Some of that reporting is included here in a forum that allows response. McIntosh suffers because with no news coverage, the local government and the rumor mill have too much potential to run rampant over residents. I moved to McIntosh in the fall of 1999. My profile
About This Blog
The primary purpose of this blog is to accurately reflect what happens in town public meetings and dispel rumors. I record the meetings and make them available for download. One of the goals of this blog is to offer residents a place to voice opinions. The comments, views and opinions expressed there are not necessarily those of the editor.
