By Linda D. Cooper

It has been brought to my attention that a sitting commissioner or anyone running for public office is allowed to request employees on taxpayer/company time to sign their candidate petition forms.   It is common practice for sitting commissioners to go to county departments to ask employees to sign their petition forms.  

John Meeks, a three-term senior sitting commissioner was making the rounds this week to county offices and yards collecting signatures for his petition for his possible fourth term.

Commissioner Meeks purchased Ace Hardware around January 2020 and sold $138,453.41 of hardware to the county from January 1, 2020, to March 21, 2023.   In the same period, he sold to the Levy County School Board $64,034.16.  No problem selling to the county departments but there is a problem when there is not a fair and equitable distribution of county taxpayer dollars to the other local hardware stores.  Full disclosure, I did file an ethics complaint on John Meeks because several people approached me with their concerns but feared retaliation if they said anything or filed a complaint.  I believe it was a rock-solid complaint addressing the monies not being fairly and somewhat equally distributed among all the Levy hardware stores.   A few changes did come about from that complaint but that’s a story for another day. 

He has the advantage of selling his hardware to the county, as well as an open-door policy to all county departments for soliciting signatures for his petition cards.

I don’t know about you, but if a senior sitting commissioner came to my county office asking me to sign, I probably would not refuse.  Just good job security and politics to sign the petition.

I have a call into the county’s local labor union LiUNA Local 630 asking if it is a labor violation.  It will be next week before I have an answer.  

Basic Candidate Qualifying Fee Information

Candidates have two options to pay the qualifying fee. One is to pay the full qualifying fee or provide signed petition cards by registered voters.  Below is the fee schedule without petitions:

• Major party candidates will be 6% of the annual salary of the office sought.
• Nonpartisan office and candidates with no party affiliation will be 4% of the annual salary of the office sought.
• Minor party candidates will be 4% of the annual salary of the office sought, unless the minor party chooses to assess the party fee, in which case it will be 6%.

Salaries based on the Office of Economic & Demographic Research site for 2022-23 for Levy County are: Sheriff $160,473, Clerk of Court, Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections, Tax Collector, and School Superintendent salaries are $124,623, County Commissioners $43,011 and School Board Members $ 33,364.

Signed Petition Card Requirements

A candidate needs 309 signatures plus a recommended thirty additional signatures in case some signatures cannot be verified.

The Supervisor of Elections office validates signatures which costs 10 cents per signature or the actual cost of checking signatures, whichever is less, to be paid to the Supervisor of Elections for the cost of verifying the signatures.  Petitions cannot be verified unless payment is made in advance or unless an undue burden oath is filed.a

I called county coordinator Wilbur Dean concerning Meeks’ county department round-up of signatures.  He said candidates from all constitutional offices and state offices do the same.  Definitely not a level playing field for anyone attempting to run against an incumbent!  Can’t wait for more term limits legislation to stop these career politicians instead of the public servants they were meant to be!

————————–

Posted December 9, 2023