Clearwater Had An Election, Did You Vote?

The Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office released some data on the way Clearwater voters decided the mayor and three referendum questions. The candidates that ran for mayor put a lot of hard work and effort into their campaigns. The members of the Charter Review Committee also put a lot of time and effort into preparing items for a citizen decision.

Although very disheartening but not surprising to anyone was that citywide only 24 percent of Clearwater’s registered voters even bothered to provide any kind of input on these decisions. Out of the 49 active precincts in the City of Clearwater not one had a voter turn out greater than 50 percent. The precinct with the most involvement was 521 which had a 44 percent turn out for mayor and slightly higher percentages for the charter amendment questions. 

The precinct with the lowest turn out was 379. Voter turn out in this precinct was 3.8 percent for mayor and 4 percent for the charter amendments. Interestingly this precinct and precinct 500 were the only precincts that candidate for mayor, Christine Marketos-Cuomo won. Mayor George Cretekos won in all other precincts.

The charter amendments didn’t do so well. 

Amendment 1, changing when the Charter Review Committee must meet, “Shall Section 7.02 of the City Charter be amended as provided in Ordinance No. 8296-11 to require the appointment of a Charter Review Advisory Committee every six years instead of every five years?" was put on the ballot to save some money.  This amendment passed in only three precincts. Did you know that the city council can vote to have a charter review any time it decides it needs one? A hard problem is finding willing volunteer citizens to commit to serving on this committee, getting them to stay until the job is done is even harder.

Amendment 2, extending term limits, “Shall Section 2.03 of the City Charter be amended as provided in Ordinance No. 8297-11 to extend term limits for the Mayor and City Councilmembers from two terms to three terms effective with the election of January 31, 2012?” went down in flames and didn’t pass in any precincts. This is kind of scary because could there ever be a day when no one but a term limited individual is the only one willing to serve as a city council member.  For this election Doreen DiPolito and Jay Polglaze ran unopposed. What would happen if these two council members didn’t want to run?

The last item, Amendment 3, publicizing a notice of availability of the city audit, “Shall Section 2.01(c)3. of the City Charter be amended as provided in Ordinance No. 8298-11 to require the publication of a notice of availability of the annual city audit?” passed in all precincts. The State of Florida requires that all counties and any municipality with expenditures and expenses or revenue greater than $250,000 undergo an annual audit by a Certified Public Accountant or Certified Public Accounting firm. These annual audits are required to be sent to the Florida Department of Financial Services within prescribed deadlines. Failure to complete this in a timely manner has some dire consequences for non compliant municipalities. The City of Clearwater, through its charter, has set some extra conditions on how often the same auditing firm can be used. This is one way to verify audits and correct problems early.

You as a citizen hold some pretty strong power but you have to use it or someone else will decide for you. Registering to vote and voting are good first steps. Visit http://votepinellas.com to learn how to register, update, or change your voter registration information. You can have ballots sent to your home address to avoid long lines and parking issues at polling places. Almost 67 percent of the voters casting ballots in the last election did so from the comfort of their very own home and there’s a good chance you could do it too if you register to vote.

You can find out more about what’s going on with the City of Clearwater by visiting http://www.myclearwater.com. Here you will find agendas, meeting minutes and streaming video of council meetings and other types of board meetings. Clearwater does a pretty good job of making information open and accessible to the public.

The Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition is also putting information out about candidates running for office this year. Please take a look at our forum for information regarding candidates and issues that impact the citizens of Clearwater. Through this forum we hope to share and exchange ideas and information about what is important to us as citizens.

Contact us to find out more about the Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition. You can comment about this blog below or you can take this to our forum.

Clearwater Neighborhoods Coalition