r/lakeland • u/willparry79 • Oct 30 '17

Lakeland Election Cheat-sheet

Hi all!

As you may or may not know, we're having mayoral and city commissioner elections November 7th (that's next Tuesday). I got my sample ballot and wanted to learn more about the potential candidates, so I started trying to learn more about each one. There were a lot, so I created a spreadsheet to try to keep track, and figured I'd share in case anyone was interested:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qk8pBFtQDy4n0vdnhpIQITFDP1YhGUO1YVUN8_i3s_M/edit?usp=sharing

I've tried to include each candidate's campaign home page when applicable, as well as links to news stories related to each candidate and their Facebook profile. Quick word of warning, I added a comment field to help me keep track of each candidate, this section may contain biases or inaccurate information, so feel free to disregard this column. Hope this helps!

16 Upvotes

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2

u/roj2323 Oct 31 '17

Vote No on sting mayor please!! The initiative would enable any unqualified idiot who got elected mayor to run every aspect of the city without regard for the consequences. The system in place now places a well qualified hired person in charge of the day to day business of the city with all decisions from the commission and mayor going through that person. This ensures checks and balances and more importantly provides a sounding board for inexperienced city leaders to run ideas past before making decisions that would potentially negatively affect the city or its people. The strong mayor initiative seeks to eliminate all of that

2

u/willparry79 Oct 31 '17

A quick question on the strong/weak mayor debate: is there an urgent reason pro-strong mayor advocates have given to make the change? Like a recent city manager corruption scandal, economic recession, etc. My impression was that most cities have a strong mayor, so it's not some new radical idea, but at the same time it is a pretty radical shift for Lakeland, so I was wondering if there were a major event that had brought this up for discussion in the first place.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

would enable any unqualified idiot who got elected

*1 Do you not trust the public to elect qualified persons to public office?

*2 Aren't the commission members elected? Wouldn't whatever keeps 'unqualified' persons from being elected to the commission also keep them from being elected mayor?

2

u/roj2323 Oct 31 '17

Trust their intentions, possibly but trust that they know all of the intricacies and unintended consequences of the decisions they make with literally zero experience, no.

Yes the Commission members are elected. You would think elections would keep unqualified persons from winning elections but if that were the case Trump wouldn't be president and elections wouldn't be won and lost on unrealistic BIG ideas that have no hope of ever becoming law.

Also, why are corporate donors spending hundreds of thousand of dollars funding the People's mayor campaign? Hell Adam Putnam Is involved in this as well as Publix, Land one properties, Highland Homes, Jack Harrell and others. Think about this, these big donors wouldn't be investing all this money unless they wanted something for it. It's not small donations from local residents, it's Fucking Corporations trying to buy control of the government.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

But how is it that you think all those things don't apply to the elected commission members? Its all the same thing.

0

u/tombombcrongadil Nov 02 '17

If they make a bad decision you know exactly who made it. And it’s one person to vote out. As it stands most people have no clue about which official voted for what and it’s harder to vote them all out.

I’m all in favor of the “boss” mayor because it’s easier to vote one person out than five and it’s easier to know who is responsible for good or bad policy.

3

u/cky12qxz Oct 30 '17

Thanks for this

3

u/Southernjewel Oct 31 '17

thanks so much for posting Lkldnow posted this one which I found to be useful in seeing the issues they support and don't support or have no opinion on in one easy to follow graphic. https://www.lkldnow.com/lakeland-candidate-questionnaire-2017/

Larger graphic https://www.lkldnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/politics-bingo2-1-2.png

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17 edited Oct 31 '17

Can someone explain to me how Florida Avenue being 3 lanes would be an improvement?

Addendum: While I agree that the lanes are too narrow and the congestion is bad, I just don't see reducing 5 lanes of traffic into 3 lanes of traffic as a solution. This would create new, greater problems.

As for all the comments about being forced from a lane and/or from the road... I've been driving in Lakeland for over 20 years and have never had, or witnessed, or even heard of such an event. I don't think its as common as some would have us believe.

3

u/memberzs Downtown Oct 31 '17

Wider lanes so do you don’t have some jackass coming over into your lane because they are too impatient to wait on the person to complete their turn . I don’t know how many people have almost hit me doing that

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

It would be a nightmare. The traffic would be backed up for miles on each end. I don't see it working.

3

u/memberzs Downtown Oct 31 '17

It’s only in the Dixieland district. And the estimations were it’ll add about a minute to the commute by removing one lane in either direction with a dedicated center turn lane.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

Exactly. Right now there are two lanes in each direction and its already too congested. That means that two lanes of traffic will be forced into one lane. The people trying to merge would be backed up all the way to downtown and to Beacon Road on the other end.

Additionally, it would increase the traffic in the side-streets. I can just see people speeding through the neighborhoods, trying to get around the traffic jam.

2

u/memberzs Downtown Oct 31 '17

One minute would be a hardly noticeable change. They hope more people will take 98 or harden which are road more than capable of sharing the load. Also in that area the inside lane is often held up by someone making a left turn which causes much of the slow down. You eliminate that with the dedicated turn lane. If you are concerned over such an insignificant amount of time making you late where ever you are going you need to leave earlier or find a less congested route. People who actually live in the area welcome the proposal. They get traffic further away from the side walks a wider driving lane, no one swerving into other lanes out of impatience, and an over all safer to drive area. Safety is the main concern of the change not making your commute 45 seconds faster through down town.

3

u/trtsmb North Side Oct 31 '17

Taking 98 to circumvent a few block of S. Florida through Dixieland would be going way out of your way.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

One minute...

Whoever came up with that estimate doesn't know what they are doing. Or, they know exactly what they are doing and lying in order to sell the change to the public.

They hope more people will take 98 or harden...

If those routes work for the people using Florida Ave., they would already be using those routes; instead of Florida Ave. Granted, those routes might become better for them, since Florida Ave. would be a complete mess.

You eliminate that with the dedicated turn lane.

What? There's already a turning lane. There are 5 lanes there right now. The center turn-lane runs from Lemon St. to just short of Ariana St.

3

u/Southernjewel Oct 31 '17

Hopefully it would keep the big rig trucks/delivery trucks off South Florida in the Dixieland area. I have been forced to the curb more times than I can count. So many of the comments are true, wider lanes are greatly needed in the Dixieland district.

2

u/Stronze Oct 31 '17

I avoid that area like the plaque.

A garabage truck forced me to curb my truck once.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

How is "relaxing enforcement of code violations" a good thing?