Priority Agenda

There are plenty of issues facing local elected officials during this busy election year but one should provide a template for assessing candidates this year - the end of county-wide voting.

For the county to provide a governing system that is more responsive to all the voters, one that provides the first block in gaining a long-term vision for what figures to be turbulent economic waters ahead, one that truly advocates economic development across the county and does not further divide the county.

That is what is needed as housing sags, the fishing industry navigates roiling waters and new jobs are slow in creation.

By its nature, single-member districts are boundaries, they are mechanisms to divide a county that, as the experience of transitioning to a consolidated high school proved, does not need any more divisions.

If for no other reason than taxing levels, the county should rid itself of single-member districts which provide a miniature version of the Florida House of Representatives or the U.S. Congress as dens where the game is to bring the bacon to the district.

Governing structures at the county level across the country have undergone an evolution as the West was settled and the nation moved further and further from Great Britain.

In the Northeast, county-wide or at-large voting governance held sway while in the South single-member district structures were more frequent.

As the nation moved west, various hybrids took shape, but, according to the National Association of Counties' research department, single-member districts are increasingly rare and predominantly of Southern persuasion.

Among Florida's 67 counties, 20 remain as single-member districts, dotted across the state, from Miami-Dade to Gulf, according to the Florida Association of Counties.

There are 40 counties that have at-large governing structures with seven counties so-called "mixed" counties; there are both single-member districts and at-large voting in the county.

What should be enlightening to Franklin County voters is that three of the top four Florida counties in per capita spending levels are ones with single-member districts as the governing structure.

Franklin, Collier and Gulf counties rank second through fourth in per capita spending levels, respectively.

While Franklin's property tax collection has retreated, as mandated by the state, a bit the past year, the county still far out-spends similarly-sized counties.

While the Franklin ad valorem taxing level is somewhere around $12 million, counties of similar size, such as Jefferson (roughly $4 million), Glades ($5 million), spend millions less and somehow survive.

And with state mandates requiring even more belt-tightening - if allowing local government to raise property taxes by 10 percent or even to 10 mills under certain circumstances can be called belt-tightening - the need for a longer view, a broader horizon has rarely been so pronounced.

This seems especially true in Franklin County where the very dynamics of life seem to be changing by the week.

Further, from 2001 to 2005, when the red hot real estate market fueled those back-door tax increases that commissioners became so enamored with, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners raised property tax collections from under $5 million to almost $14 million and created a patronage system by padding the workforce.

During a time when population numbers remained relatively flat and services hardly maintained a similar pace in growth.

Does all that sit at the feet of single-member districts? No.

But the better question is, what precisely has single-member districts provided that would offset the benefits of at-large voting. There is the question to ask candidates opposing county-wide voting.

At its fundamental, at-large voting represents what we are supposed to be bringing to the rest of the world, in some spots on the globe by military action.

But a system in which each voter has just a one-in-five say on how he or she will be represented at the county level could hardly be called representative democracy.

In this county, that term is reserved at the county level for constitutional officers, those who, this year being still another example, must face all the voters, each and every one.

With at-large voting, also, each individual voter will have five commissioners instead of one to call upon with issues about government.

Voters have overwhelmingly stated that a return to county-wide voting is their preference.

The Board of County Commissioners has chosen to sit on its hands over the issue.

So voters should make it the yardstick, make county-wide voting a staple for securing any vote. This is a time to break down barriers, just as the schools are doing with consolidation.

Single-member districts, at their core, serve as barriers to fiscally-responsible and efficient government, to responsive, long-term planning and a non-parochial vision for the whole county.

Franklin County has hardly faced a time in its history when that kind of long-term, broad vision is required.

County-wide voting may not be the panacea for good government, but candidates who support the immediate end to single-member districts would be steering the county down the path toward wellness.

And addressing the ills inflicted on taxpayers most of this decade.