Diane Melendez: Why I voted for Bill Bishop and more!

[Cheshire Cat]

Considering the fact that tomorrow is actually voting day and realizing that many will have waited until the last minute to chose their candidate's I wanted to revisit a few things.  By now many people know that I support and have voted for Bill Bishop to be the next mayor of  Jacksonville.  My support of him is a reflection of research, experience with candidates and elections and just good old common sense. 

First and foremost it is important to remember the the upcoming elections are all "unitary", which means that there is no ballot designation or qualification to run in any of the races beginning with the Office of Mayor down through all the other open seats that is predicated on political party.  The office of Mayor is a position of authority which is supposed to be representative of all the people in our city regardless of their political party, race, religion or sexual orientation.  When choosing and researching any candidate for office it is important to understand that you are literally checking the qualifications for the candidate as well as interviewing them for a very important job.  You along with other's will hire them with your vote.   That is the criterion for the decisions before us all.  Consider yourself a CEO hiring for the cities most important jobs from Mayor to Sheriff to SOE to council seats. 

Considering the fact that this is 2015 and hiring is supposed to be a mechanism of qualifications and experience as well as how the candidate for a job presents themselves. This is particularly important if they are taking a public position representing your company (city).  The above should be the criterion of focus.  In this election cycle we will all be choosing the person we feel is best suited to hold that position as well as giving consideration to their previous records if and when there are any.  Presumably, experience is key when hiring for the top job in any organization. 

There are four candidates for the office of mayor, one incumbent and three challengers, one of which has solid experience in city business another a person who has sat on some committees and one more candidate with absolutely no experience in city government at any level.

Omega Allen is clearly a competent woman who has involved herself in Jacksonville over the years, is educated but has no real hands on experience with the inner operations of City Hall. 

Alvin Brown certainly has some experience which is just at 3 1/2 years in office.  The quality of his leadership while in office has been questioned repeatedly as well as his ability to keep promises to some voters who supported him. This led to his biggest supporter Peter Rummell, lambasting him and his weaknesses in office via the media. Rummell called Brown a weak leader.  Brown was involved in back door dealing, as well as his administration being the target of a Times Union lawsuit.  There was his attempted strong arming of JEA officials who would not stand for it, to put through a deal that city committees now declare is not viable. Then there is the fact that he has no clear ability to understand or deal with our city financing from presenting broken budgets that needed to be put in order by city council to presenting a budget that would put our city into further debt to the tune of over 230 million dollars.  He claims he has kept his no
increase in tax pledge but the fact is that our city council was forced to raise property taxes in order to balance his past budget documents. Our taxes have gone up 14% on his watch.  Round all of this out with the fact that the most pressing issue facing the city down is our pension debacle and that still remains unsolved. Further several of the current members of council are of the opinion that the pension plan he offers is fatally flawed and completely unfunded,  it becomes even more clear he is not the leader we need.  On the flip side, he has the gift of gab and can excite listeners to his visions for the short term, but after three and a half years people want more than future promises and "happy talk".

Then we have Bill Bishop.  He is certainly qualified in education and experience.  He comes to us with up to date knowledge on all aspects of city business including old and current legislation as well as an in depth knowledge of the city budget.  He has a plan for the pension as well as a plan to fund our needed city operations and at the same time meet the 40million yearly payment that would be a stabilizer to the bleeding pension problem.  He understands development as an architect and certainly has the education to back that understanding as well as a history of being a business owner. 

Finally is Lenny Curry who has continually run an add that has his dad saying "Lenny is no politician" in the face of Lenny himself trumpeting the fact that he is proud of being the former chairman of the state GOP.  It doesn't get more political than that.  Then he backs that up with promo's and endorsements from all manner of GOP operatives.  He has run an ugly campaign devoid of substance and has no experience at any level with the inner workings of city hall.  But he is an accountant that has had a small business for 10 years.  Nothing in his resume supports him having the necessary experience, education or ability to take the city's top office.

So here we are with four resumes from four job applicants before us.  As CEO (taxpayer) we can set aside the two resumes without the necessary experience for the top job. That lets out Omega Allen and Lenny Curry.  We are then left with two applicants and one has a full four years more hands on experience in city hall than the other remaining candidate.  He also has a clean record of service that does not include back door dealmaking or lawsuits. It does include a healthy respect for clarity of thinking in words, action and deed and a well thought out and needed plan of action for this city to grow within the hands of a solid leader.

This leaves Bill Bishop as the best more qualified candidate to fill the office of mayor in 2015.  He has all the needed assets to lead our city with none of the major slip ups of working outside of the sunshine or attempted manipulations of top officials in other agencies that was an action putting Brown outside of the law and ethical boundaries. Bill has run a clean campaign on a shoestring which in and of itself is an endorsement of his ability to get more done with less.  This is why he got my vote and my support. 

I hope everyone who has not voted will look to qualifications, experience and record when making their choices in all open races. 

[Jimmy]

Can we start a petition to have this featured at the top along with the other poster's endorsement??

Nicely done, Diane!

[Cheshire Cat]

Can we start a petition to have this featured at the top along with the other poster's endorsement??

Nicely done, Diane!

Why thank you Jimmy.

[Jimmy]

Sometimes I think there must be a mouse in your pocket, Stephen.

I'd like to predict we'll all still be friends in about 26 hours when this phase is behind us.

[Jimmy]

That's why I said we'll still be friends!

Group hug!!

[Cheshire Cat]

Can we start a petition to have this featured at the top along with the other poster's endorsement??

Nicely done, Diane!

,
maybe we can trade!  You run todays piece on the PAC websites in return!

But it is our tradition to have lots of voices.  We even ran an editorial predicting a Hogan win last time, if you remember.  We reached out to Bill but he hasn't sent over anything.

Just curious Stephen.  Have any of the candidates for mayor given Metrojacksonville direct comment on their campaigns?  I know Chris Hand promised something on the pension issue but I never saw anything posted about it after he made the commitment.

[Chris Hand]

[/quote] I know Chris Hand promised something on the pension issue but I never saw anything posted about it after he made the commitment.
[/quote]

Diane, I am responding to this thread as you mentioned a City of Jacksonville issue. I believe we sent over the information on retirement reform. I'll double check and make sure. Thanks for following up.

[Cheshire Cat]

Thanks for the update.  I know I also sent a private request and received nothing.

[Chris Hand]

Thanks for the update.  I know I also sent a private request and received nothing.

Diane, when did you send your request? I just checked my email and don't have anything incoming from you. If you'll provide me with your email address (mine is chand@coj.net), I will happily send the information your way. Thanks for your continuing interest.

[Cheshire Cat]

I sent an email the day you stated you had the pension plan to share. 

[Jax native]

I truly wish lol wasn't so impossibly lame that I could use it now. 

[thelakelander]

Can we start a petition to have this featured at the top along with the other poster's endorsement??

Nicely done, Diane!

,
maybe we can trade!  You run todays piece on the PAC websites in return!

But it is our tradition to have lots of voices.  We even ran an editorial predicting a Hogan win last time, if you remember.  We reached out to Bill but he hasn't sent over anything.

Just curious Stephen.  Have any of the candidates for mayor given Metrojacksonville direct comment on their campaigns?  I know Chris Hand promised something on the pension issue but I never saw anything posted about it after he made the commitment.

Yes. Only Alvin Brown so far. Yesterday, Kristen emailed me a list of answers from the Brown camp to questions she sent to all candidates a few weeks back. We intended to run all four together as a single article but since the response rate was low, that's not going to happen. So give me a few minutes and I'll post Brown's answers to Kristen's list of questions in this thread.

Edit: I'll put them in a separate thread, since this discussion is about why Diane is voting for Bill Bishop.

[Cheshire Cat]

Ennis, the Bishop campaign contacted me.  The leadership in the camp went to everyone involved that would have received any requests from Metrojacksonville for information or the filling out of candidate questions in any format. No one remembers receiving anything beyond recalling the fact that Stephen had chatted with Bill.  They affirmed that had Bill received such a request he would most certainly have responded as is his way.  He is all about answering the questions from voters put to him.  He in fact is one of the only candidates to engage the smallest of groups who showed any interest in his positions and thoughts while campaigning.   

[thelakelander]

Probably a mishap or misunderstanding. No big deal, as far as I'm concerned. Luckily, there's more than enough lively discussion taking place on the forums already. Hopefully, Bishop has a good day and we can follow up.

[thelakelander]

Yes, I'm talking about a list of questions specifically developed from the conversations in the forum by one of our writers, Kristen Pickrell. I'm not too concerned about the lack of response because they went out much later than I originally anticipated. Also, I wasn't too concerned because most of these questions were answered during the debates and in other venues that have been discussed pretty openly on this site. Assuming there's a run off, I'll strive to make contact much earlier in the process.