My record speaks for itself

By Eric May, Vice-Mayor, High Springs

It was a hot summer day in late July when I found myself stumbling across a newspaper article that forever changed my life.  The story was the announcement of the upcoming local election for two High Springs City Commission seats. 

You see, I was always the type of person who, like most of you, had some sort of dislike of government but really had never taken action on it.  The more I thought about it, the more I knew what I had to do.  The time was right for me to step off the sidelines and answer the call of public service, to change our government from the top down. 

So that week I went down to City Hall and met with a friendly city employee who gave me the necessary paperwork to get me started.  Before I knew what hit me, I found myself in a field of eight candidates vying for two seats.  One of the seats was held by a nine-year incumbent Mayor/Commissioner and current Alachua County Commission Candidate Jim Gabriel, and the other was held by a popular six-year incumbent, both considered to have strong name recognition.

The next four months were a bit of a blur, and could be described as a roller-coaster of campaigning and hard work.  The end result?  My premise of smaller government, Reagan conservative ideals, and promises of less taxes struck a chord with voters who put me and another newcomer into office.  Last November I was sworn in as High Springs' newest Commissioner, joining what I consider to be one of the finest commissions in recent history. 

Seven months have come and gone since that ceremony and I am happy to report I am part of a commission that is doing what our founding fathers wanted: putting more power back into the hands of the people.  We are reducing government waste, reducing fees, reducing processing times, increasing private property rights, and at the end of the day, improving our citizens' lives by increasing their liberties.  

In that short span of time I have had the pleasure of supporting and voting for suspending impact fees to help the local economy, eliminating overbearing historic regulations, gutting a highly restrictive sign code, avoiding utility rate increases, taken steps to eliminate the business-unfriendly conditional use permit, passed a comprehensive plan that provides for a better future for High Springs, completely remade the City website and email system improving citizen contact, and even reduced the commission's own salary.  The changes have been so substantive, in fact, that leaders from the Gainesville area are approaching High Springs more and more because the longstanding impression that High Springs was not business friendly is fading away.

Despite all this progress, last week, in response to facing criticism for wasting in excess of $420,000 in taxpayer's money during his tenure, Jim Gabriel called us a “do nothing commission.”

Mr. Gabriel, your comments in that article exemplify the reason you lost your re-election bid; you've lost touch with your boss, the people. Furthermore, your race for the County Commission has exemplified why partisan politics are broken; anyone can call themselves a Republican, just pay the fee and sign the paperwork.  But, it's a sad state when public officials like yourself vote for tax increases, increased fees, and wasteful spending projects and then go on to a higher office, putting the “R” behind their name on the ballot, expecting people to believe you are a conservative.

No, the title of Conservative is one that is earned through actions and voting records. It is a title that men and women like me have worked hard to earn and must work even harder to keep.