In Praise of Unusual Suspects

Ed Swift is absolutely right.The Key West city commissioners should make more than their current, paltry salaries.Not only that, he's right in his reasoning. The City Commission should not justbe for those who are already wealthy, retired or employed by public agencies orothers who happen to be understanding about the demands of public office.

The commission should be for everybody willing to commit and offer up a huge amount of time and aggravation (it's actually beyond us why anyone does it).Thank God someone does. And diversifying the candidate pool, we are likely to have more choice and the possibility of better representation.Which is not to say the commissioners should make a full time professionalsalary. Their jobs are not, in fact, supposed to be full time and they are notsupposed to involve themselves in running the city. Their job is to set policyand direct the city manager, not tell individual employees what to do.But serving on the commission does require a lot of time on research of complexissues (every commissioner should be familiar with the city code) and they takea lot of calls from members of the public.Swift is proposing the commissioners receive $25,000 (they now get $8,500) andthe mayor receive $40,000 (the job now pays $12,000).Even with a raise, it's not enough to live on in our expensive little city. Butit might be enough to bring more people into the political arena, and that's agood reason.Selling this idea to the public is another matter.

Referendum questions withoutwell-reasoned campaigns behind them often fail - when in doubt, vote no, right?Maybe this could be the campaign where Last Stand and the Chamber of Commerce join hands at last.

As long as I'm agreeing with people I normally disagree with, here's another example: U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen deserves a high-five from the enviroworld for her stance against oil drilling off the Florida coast.Ros-Lehtinen, the Miami Republican whose Congressional district includes theFlorida Keys, was the only Republican in the Florida delegation who votedagainst the measure, which will allow drilling 125 from the Panhandle, 235miles from the Tampa area. Not only did she buck her own party, but she did itin a case where she could have had ample cover to go the other way: thedrilling measure that was finally approved in the waning days of the lastCongress was a compromise worked out by Florida's two senators, includingDemocrat Bill Nelson.Yet Ros-Lehtinen took a stand against the drilling. The only reason for her todo so was the concern of people in the Florida Keys, where an oil drillingmishap - even one far upstream, in the Gulf of Mexico - is our biggestnightmare.Mark Ferrulo, director of the nonprofit Environment Florida, called the bill"an early Christmas present to Big Oil" and "exactly the precedent that the pro-drilling lobby has been pursuing for decades. "Ros-Lehtinen was on the losing side on this important vote, but it wouldn'thave cost her to vote with the majority and her party. It appears she stood upfor green principle on this one and she should get credit for that.

As long as I'm handing out laurels to Republicans, here's a set for our newgovernor, Charlie Crist. He got off to a good start by creating a new opengovernment department, to make sure public records laws are followed. We knowfrom state and local experience that public officials can get a bit lax aboutletting the public know what they're up to. It's a good reminder from the top,and it's a good sign that this was one of his first official acts.Even more refreshing, he has made it a point to require state agencies to keeptheir communications in language ordinary humans can understand.This may sound like a simple request, but I'll bet the bureaucrats have a hardtime complying. It's in their interest to keep their business in their ownjargons, like a code. That way, you and I - you know, the people who pay taxesand thus employ them - have a hard time understanding what they're actuallydoing, and why. (For the ultimate word on this subject, see "Politics and theEnglish Language" by George Orwell.) Crist's request will need a lot of follow up and who knows whether he's reallygot the stomach for that. But at least his public recognition of the harmfulnature of jargon and bureaucratese acknowledges that it's real, and that it isnot, in fact, serving the public good. Go for it, Charlie.


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