UNFORGIVABLE
How Three County Commissioners Racially Divided a County…And How We Get It Back
Elected officials are humans, and although we desire perfection from them, we do tend to understand that there are occasional slip-ups. There are times when even the best of representatives wish they could take a vote back, or have a “re-do.” Despite the fact that the electorate is largely forgiving of certain transgressions, there are certain actions that inexcusable, and inherently, unforgivable. Falling under that category is the latest decision from three Sarasota County Commissioners.
Let me start by giving some background. Sarasota County is a coastal county on Florida’s Gulf Coast, featuring a population of 379,000. The county is rather wealthy compared to neighboring counties, although it has its share of poverty. Within the county, is the community of Newtown in the county’s capital city, Sarasota. Newtown features our county’s largest minority population, and one of its most civically engaged. Newtown was the first black community in the county, and has a rich cultural and civic history. Leaders from this community, like Fredd Atkins, fought for decades to gain equal rights, and it appears, they’ll have to keep fighting.
Fredd Atkins was the City of Sarasota’s first African-American Mayor, and has also filed to run for Sarasota County Commission in 2020. Unfortunately, he, and the entire Newtown community and county for that matter, have been met with a challenge from three County Commissioners afraid of losing their majority.
In 2018, Sarasota County voters approved “Single-Member District Voting,” ensuring that, for each of the county’s five districts, residents of that district would vote only for the County Commissioner candidate running in their district. This measure eliminated the need for candidates to run countywide, allowing for grassroots and underfunded candidates to have a fair chance. This also created a system of accountability, as Commissioners would now be directly accountable to the citizens in their district, which they themselves also have to live in. This measure, a good move for voters and honorable candidates, was met with resistance from three County Commissioners.
Shortly after the single-member district amendment passed with 60% support, Commissioners Nancy Detert, Michael Moran, and Alan Maio all supported re-drawing the new single-member districts. They first went to County staff to determine if the population differences between the districts were greater than the state threshold of ten-percent (10%), which would mandate a re-drawing of district lines. County staff determined they were not. Unhappy with their own staff’s conclusion, Detert, Moran and Maio then hired consultants to do their own work to determine the population of each district. The consultant group reported that two districts were beyond the ten-percent threshold, only to have their report busted for being laced with critical errors.
The key contribution to the re-districting effort came from former Sarasota County GOP Chair Bob Waechter, who submitted his own drawing of the single-member districts, under an assumed name: “Smith.” Waechter himself has been convicted of political crimes when he made campaign contributions under the names of Democrats, to a Republican candidate, in order to weaken her efforts in the Republican primary. He then lied about submitting the map under the “Smith” name, until finally admitting it.
As for the map, Waechter couldn’t have done anything more rotten, or drawn the map any worse, if he tried. Of all the ways he could have drawn the districts, he shuffled the community of Newtown into an entirely new district, also shuffling Fredd Atkins out of the district he was running for. In 2020, as they were in 2016, Districts 1, 3, and 5 are up for election. The Newtown community, along with Fredd Atkins, resided in District 1, until Waechter did his dirty work. After the shuffling of district lines, the historically-rich and civically-engaged community found itself in District 2, which won’t be up for re-election until 2022, assuming the lines don’t get re-drawn again after 2020. This means that an entire population, and the largest minority community in our County, wouldn’t be able to vote in 2020, and would have to wait six years before they could vote, while everyone else waits the standard four.
In November, just a week before Thanksgiving, Commissioners Detert, Moran and Maio approved the Waechter map, making it the new official district map for Sarasota County. Thousands of residents from across the county have protested, speaking out against this awful move. The three didn’t care. They did it anyway. They simply didn’t care.
It’s hard to see this move as anything but racist gerrymandering. Waechter could have drawn out any other group; he could have drawn out thousands of white people, but he didn’t. Detert, Moran and Maio could have voted “no,” and waited for the 2020 census and re-drawn lines according to appropriate data. They didn’t. Instead, they approved a map that drew out the largest minority community in Sarasota County. The map didn’t draw out a bunch of white people. It didn’t draw out special interest campaign contributors. It drew out the most culturally rich community we have. It drew out Fredd Atkins, a man who has been a community advocate for over forty years. There’s no way to see this move as anything other than racist. A lawsuit filed by Fredd Atkins and other community advocates has alleged the same, and has been backed by many affluential community advocates, and even others around the state.
In the midst of this awful move comes a question: Hhw do we fix this? Fredd Atkins is still running, and if this lawsuit forces the the district map to revert back to its original make-up, he’ll have a Democratic majority in his district. He’s running to unseat Mike Moran. Cory Hutchinson, a North Port resident, was originally running in North Port, but was shuffled into Venice after the Waechter map was approved. Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, he’s running to unseat Nancy Detert, who was the leader of the re-districting effort. Supporting these candidates will ensure fair representation for Newtown, and all of Sarasota County!
It’s unfortunate that there is still so much racism in communities that we call home. It’s unfortunate that we still have to fight against it, but it is a duty that we must act upon, and we will. For all those who have been disenfranchised, and all those whose voices have been hurt by this awful re-districting effort- we are fighting for you, and we won’t stop until we succeed. The power of the people will succeed, as it always does.
Unforgivable, according to the dictionary, is something “so bad as to be unable to be forgiven or excused.” A move that reeks of racism and gerrymandering certainly fits that category.
To support Cory Hutchinson, visit www.hutchinson2020.com. Political Advertisement Paid for and approved by Cory Hutchinson, Democrat, For Sarasota County Commission, District 3.
