Readers comment on the Gainesville City Commission election and more
Prepare to vote
On Jan. 25 there is a special runoff election to replace a city commissioner, and odds predict a historically low turnout (10% to 13%). A tragedy of our nation is having incredible freedoms while struggling locally to exercise one of the most important rights. Our right to vote should be treasured and protected. Instead, it is ignored and abused.
When you don’t vote in local elections, you are handing vast amounts of power to a small group of voters who tend to be polarized. When you vote without understanding a candidate’s background or ideology it can be even more dangerous, as you may elect someone without understanding how they have or will directly affect your life. Your new city commissioner will impact almost every aspect of your life by the time they leave office.
These days it’s difficult to determine truth from fiction. Social media is littered with lies and falsehoods — one-sided opinions and jabs — influencing people who grab onto the first negative sound bite. I hope that we can spend more time as a community in our schools training children to be objective, be informed and closely follow local politics in preparation for adulthood and the great responsibility of voting.
Gregory Stetz, Gainesville
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Invested in our community
The last few years in Gainesville have been very troubling, and I’m not talking about the pandemic. More city officers have resigned in the last year than usually resign in a decade. Lots of strife but little action is what we’ve seen.
What Gainesville doesn’t need is another inexperienced person, learning on the job. We need an at-large city commissioner who knows how to get things done because they’ve gotten things done in the political arena their entire career. We need Cynthia Chestnut!
The Chestnut family has been active in local politics since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. They are invested in this community, and understand what citizens here need.
We want development without displacement. We want reduced crime, achieved by increased opportunities. We want clean energy, done equitably.
Please vote on Jan. 25, and join me in voting for Cynthia Chestnut!
Jackie Davis, Gainesville
Biden lost me
President Joe Biden's speech in Atlanta trumps even the Afghanistan debacle. In a span of less than 30 minutes, the "president of healing” accused half of the electorate of racism and sedition.
In a single address Biden abandoned all effort toward healing. In a single event he told us if you do not agree with the totality of the voting rights legislation pending in Congress, you are George Wallace or Jefferson Davis. No discussion. No effort to engage. No possible sliver of healing in that speech. None.
He said, in effect, if you don't agree with me, you are not only wrong, you are a criminal and un-American. Well, he just lost me - and if he loses people like me - those of the other party willing to listen and to support and to engage; when he has lost these, he has lost any hope of being an agent of healing.
The Atlanta speech saddened me for it exposed the fallacy of my hope. Biden is as bound to the radical elements of his party as was President Donald Trump to his. And we are burdened with yet another four years of acidic rhetoric and self-righteous posturing, always pointing out how bad are “those other people.”
Thomas Lane, Gainesville
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville letters to the editor for Jan. 20, 2022
