Lee County voters casting a ballot in the Nov. 3 General Election will determine whether they will continue to be able to cast a ballot for each member of the Lee County Board of County Commissioners or whether they will limit their vote to only the member who represents their district.<\/p>\n
The proposed change to the Lee County Home Rule Charter will let voters decide whether members of the five-member commission should continue to be elected \u201cat-large\u201d \u2014 which allows voters to cast a ballot in every race \u2014 or whether commissioners will be elected only by those in their district.<\/p>\n
If the County Charter Amendment Referendum garners enough \u201cYes\u201d votes, the change will go into effect in 2028.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t think much of the conversion to single-member districts when State Rep. Mike Giallombardo, R-Cape Coral, sponsored the legislation to put the referendum on the Lee County ballot. <\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t think much of it in June when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed off.<\/p>\n
And we don\u2019t now.<\/p>\n
The key question is, why would we trade five votes for one, trade accountability to each registered voter to just the 20% or so in any particular district?<\/p>\n
We acknowledge the arguments in favor. <\/p>\n
Proponents say it will be easier, and cost less, to run for office within a particular district instead of countywide. They also say \u201csingle-member\u201d districts will provide for better representation within each district.<\/p>\n
But as we have stated before, \u201ceasier\u201d and \u201ccheaper\u201d for politicians does not equate to \u201cbetter\u201d for taxpayers. Especially when those taxpayers will be stripped of the ability to elect a board they believe to be best able to represent \u2014 and be accountable to \u2014 the county as a whole.<\/p>\n
Let us point out that the change more than a decade ago for the School District of Lee County didn\u2019t get us better schools nor did it foster more diverse representation.<\/p>\n
What it has fostered is a political atmosphere that has elected school officials actively supporting a candidate challenging an incumbent, so those who touted \u201ceasier\u201d and \u201ccheaper,\u201d we guess, have proved the point.<\/p>\n
The County Charter Amendment Referendum appears on the Nov. 3 ballot as:<\/p>\n
Referendum Providing for the Structure of the County Legislative Branch <\/p>\n
Shall Chapter 2025-222, Laws of Florida, which amends the Lee County Home Rule Charter to provide that, beginning with the 2028 general election, the Board of County Commissioners shall be composed of five (5) members elected in single-member districts, become effective?<\/p>\n
Yes<\/p>\n
No<\/p>\n
Our vote is a NO. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s simple math: Keep all five members of the Lee County Board of County Commissioners accountable to all of us.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also common sense: Don\u2019t make it easy, don\u2019t make it cheaper, for those who look to work the system for political benefit.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Eagle editorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee County voters casting a ballot in the Nov. 3 General Election will determine whether they will continue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-427495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}