Voters seem to want control back

Monroe County voters left no doubt Tuesday that they have had enough of government by nepotism and cronyism, at least in the Monroe County School System.

By nearly a two to one margin, voters Tuesday agreed that a school superintendent should be hired by the local school board instead of elected by the populace.

The same question had gone down to defeat four times before.

But spurred by a financial scandal that rocked the school system earlier this year and still echoes through its hallways today, voters decided that the Superintendent needed to be beholden to someone other than the people whose job’s he or she controlled.

That financial scandal resulted in the arrest of Superintendent Randy Acevedo, twice elected by voters to run the school district, for covering up the alleged crimes of his wife, Monique, who worked for the district under Randy, because everyone worked under Randy.

The scandal also snagged several Acevedo supporters who relied on the elected Superintendent’s good graces to keep their jobs, meaning they had legitimate reasons to turn a blind eye to the shenanigans allegedly undertaken by Monique.

And of course, there was the fact that everyone who turned a blind eye eventually answered to Randy.

It was a tailor-made prescription for abuse and disaster. It became just that.

But Tuesday’s vote ends the vicious cycle of must-scratch-each-other’s-back.

The appointed superintendent will no longer be beholden to the employees’ good graces for his return to office, and the employees will no longer have to assuage the ego of the elected superintendent to ensure job security because he isn’t answerable to the school board.

This decision ensures that the school system has as its administrative leader a highly-qualified individual that has proven their expertise over years of producing results. His decision ensures that a bad choice for superintendent can be rectified by the board elected by the people to safeguard their kids.

We didn’t have that ability before.

Now a crappy school system can be blamed solely on the elected board that sets policy and is elected to oversee the correct functioning of the system toward what should have always been its end goal—that of educating our children.

And that elected board can take action to head off problems by changing administrators, or they can answer to the voter.

In all, not a bad day’s work for our electorate.

This decision may also herald a general shift in voter attitude, or at least we’d like to think it might.

Because voters still have some important decisions to make in November, not the least of which is the fate of Amendment Four to the Florida constitution.

Amendment Four will give the voters final say over changes to the local comprehensive land use plans.

For years, elected officials have been taking small steps to get the process of controlling development further and further away from the voice of the people.

Amendment Four, born on the heels of the building boom and bust that nearly destroyed Florida’s economy, is the people’s initiative to take back control of their neighborhoods.

And just as our local question of whether to hire or elect a superintendent was a statement about forcing the hands of politicians to cater to the will of the people, so is the controversy surrounding Amendment Four.

People have the chance to tell politicians that business as usual isn’t going to be business as usual.

We did it locally. Now we need to help others do it statewide in November.

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