Aubry’s Opportunity, Lingering Questions and Strategic Expediency: We’ll See

By Wednesday Gene Aubry will be sworn in as an Anna Maria city commissioner. After months of hearing the recallers’ and their lawyers’ cry of “Let the voters decide!” the voters did decide, by a 16 ballot swing of the 693 cast. Not exactly a mandate but, hey, a win is a win is a win. Aubry is now the commissioner. And though many questions have been answered in the frenzied last few weeks, just as many remain.

Will Mr. Aubry honor his published pledge “to recuse himself from any votes that have to do with” PAR?

Does the law even allow him to do so? If not, how does he abide such a pre-election promise?

If he can lawfully abstain, how will he and, we suppose, the City Attorney determine which votes “have to do with” PAR?

The answers will reveal themselves as Mr. Aubry’s tenure unfolds. We urge him to take this opportunity to analyze what is at stake, distance himself from the ever-circling undesirable elements of division and feculence and consider that Anna Maria is so much more than a five block stretch of Pine Avenue. If he brings the class and savvy he exhibited in his career to his work on the commission, then a few surprises may be in store for those who have come to doubt his intentions, or more meaningfully, for those who may expect a quid pro quo. We’ll see.

There are, however, other questions surfacing in the wake of this turbulent summer.

The election for office of Mayor is 43 days away, just five short weeks from tomorrow. It has been quiet thus far, perhaps more a factor of the recall noise than the efforts of the candidates. Both candidates, Mike Selby and Sandy Mattick, have begun direct mail efforts and if you are a voter you can expect more in the coming weeks.

It is no secret that much of Ms. Mattick’s support is expected to come from sources friendly to the “Let The Voters Decide!” recall effort and her patrons along Pine Avenue. She herself was instrumental in that effort, yielding clipboards, manning tents and witnessing more signatures than perhaps anyone throughout the petition periods. It would not be surprising to find “Let The Voter’s Decide!” emblazoned on signs in her supporters’ yards and across tee-shirts on their backs. Who knows? Maybe it will be her campaign slogan; she certainly is identified with that mantra as much as any individual in the recall posse.

But is it a mantra she truly believes in or was it just an expedient phrase to suit the circumstances? After all, who can argue with success, right? The voters did cross the statutory finish line before the appellate court and the drum beat of “Let The Voters Decide!” may have had more to do with the outcome than did the validity of the recall petition, which is still a big fat question mark. That “will of the people” stuff plucks a strident chord with voters.

So, as events unfold in the coming hours, days and weeks, ask yourself if it appears that Sandy Mattick truly does want the voters to decide. Or will she be persuaded by those undesirable elements to expediently abandon the mantra as no longer useful to the demands and desires of her patrons.

We’ll see. Perhaps sooner than we think.

Stay informed.

Bill Yanger