The Manatee County Commission has chosen to play Russian roulette with Governor DeSantis and it has cost the taxpayers of Manatee Country millions of dollars and will doom our citizens to endless traffic jams for years to come.
Governor DeSantis is revered by conservatives across our country for his common sense approach to protecting the environment while protecting Floridians from higher taxes and the “woke” agenda.
DeSantis and the Republicans watched US cities across the country become dominated by leftists who support higher spending and less police officers. The legislature passed a bill that prevents local governments, which are many times dominated by leftists and people who dislike our President, from adopting strict rules that end up hurting the local economy.
This has occurred across our country.(Chicago, New York, DC, St. Louis, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, etc.) These cities enacted local measures that have been a burden to the taxpayers.
Our local yokel, “Handgun McCann, along with Jason Bearden and George Kruse declared war on our Governor over this issue. They have publicly mocked our Governor and acted like AOC when she mocks President Trump.
This public war has cost our county millions of dollars. Manatee County received $46 million dollars between 2020 and 2024 from the State of Florida. This past year the county received zero funds.
The county usually receives around $10 million dollars from the federal government. This year the county received zero.
More importantly, the DeSoto Bridge replacement funding has been pushed off into the future. Every day thousands of Manatee County citizens sit in traffic jams. We desperately need to replace the DeSoto bridge in order to facilitate an orderly movement of traffic over the river. We need state funds to make this happen.
The State was ready to help fund this project when our commissioners declared war on Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature. This is one of the greatest examples of a lack of political intelligence. Throughout history, politicians have realized they must get along with their party leaders if they wish to avoid causing economic harm to the community they represent.
Elected officials in Chicago may have had disagreements with Mayor Daley but they did not go to war with him publicly because they were intelligent enough to understand that it would hurt the ward they represented.
Our former county commissioners may have had disagreements with Governor Bush but they knew that an open war was suicidal.
Sadly, Manatee County citizens are beginning to feel the pinch of our commissioners declaring war on DeSantis and the Legislature. We recently elected new county commissioners who ran on platforms of limiting growth in order to improve our traffic issues. These commissioners are committing an “own goal” (soccer terminology) fiasco that will prevent us from eliminating the traffic issues we now face.
Everyone has a right to disagree with their political leadership. That is the American way. Intelligent people understand that there are ways to disagree and still have good relations with party leaders.
Unfortunately, Manatee County has some commissioners on a “religious crusade” that is going to hurt the taxpayers of our county for decades.
Bob Spencer
Publisher
Manatee Herald
publisher@manateeherald.com
