A week ago we asked Question 1 of some of our local candidates for County Commission and the state legislature. The first candidate to answer the question is Paul Tocker, a Republican running for the Palm Beach County Commission. Here’s the question again, and Paul’s answer:
Q: According to the county budget summary (pdf), Palm Beach County spends approximately $3.3 Billion a year (not including internal and interdepartmental charges, and interfund transfers).
Do you think the county should spend more, less, or is this about the right amount?
If more, where would you spend more and where would you get the money from?
If less, what spending would you cut?
A: I believe the County should spend less. I would want to use the new audit section within the Office of the inspector general with the County auditors depatment and volunteer resourses to
1- Find and trim waste.
2- Do cost benefit anaysis
3- Determine duplicated services
4- Consolidate services with our 38 County Municipalities wherever possible.
5- Liquidate some County owned properties
6- Access unrestricted reserves without jeopardizing our bond rating.
7- Set spending priorities
I would try to implement the Taxpayer Action Board recommendation to take the majority of cuts from the PB Sheriffs office, not the County Departments.
County-wide ad valorem taxes pay for the county departmnts and the Constitutional Officers, including the Sheriff. In the past 8 years, PBSO has grown to a significantly larger part of the budget.
Most of the growth in the PBSO budget has been in the personal services costs (salaries and benefits ), and PBSO deputies are now compensated more than 30% above the national average for similar positions.
Its important to maintain and improve our high Quality of life for our residents and visitors that include paramedics – fire rescue public health, safety and security roads and infrastructure, parks and recreation, Palm Tran & Tri-Rail, veterans and other community group concerns, and helping the truly poor, homeless, elderly and infirm.
Category: Politics
Candidate Question 1
We sent the following question to each candidate who is on the ballot for the upcoming State Legislature and County Commission elections for districts covering West Boca Raton. So far the following candidates have agreed to participate: Geoff Sommers, Melanie Peterson, Steve Perman, James Ryan O’Hara, Paul Tocker and Rick Neuhoff.
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Dear candidates:
Below is Question 1 for our West Boca News campaign coverage for the 2012 election. We will publish your answer in full, unedited. We recommend 100-250 words, but feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Please respond by June 22nd. We will post your answer shortly after we receive it. If we receive no answer by the 22nd we will publish that you did not respond, but will revise to include a late answer whenever it comes.
For state candidates (State House and State Senate), Kevin Rader, James Ryan O’Hara, Geoff Sommers, Melanie Peterson, Steve Perman and Joseph Abruzzo:
Q: According to the Florida state budget, the State of Florida spends approximately $70 Billion a year.
Do you think the state government should spend more, less, or is this about the right amount?
If more, where would you spend more and where would you get the money from?
If less, what spending would you cut?
For county commission candidates (Mary Lou Berger, Steven Meyer, Rick Neuhoff, Paul Tocker):
Q: According to the county budget summary, Palm Beach County spends approximately $3.3 Billion a year (not including internal and interdepartmental charges, and interfund transfers).
Do you think the county should spend more, less, or is this about the right amount?
If more, where would you spend more and where would you get the money from?
If less, what spending would you cut?
Upcoming Elections for West Boca Raton
The candidates have filed their paperwork for the 2012 elections. At the statewide level, there is a primary and general election race for US Senate with many candidates in the major parties and also candidates who have no party affiliation. If any of the candidates come to West Boca, we hope to cover such events.
While most media attention is focused on the presidential race, there are significant local elections coming up that more directly affect West Boca. And because there are far fewer voters, your vote matters more in these races. Any voter can vote by absentee ballot. Get more information here: Palm Beach County Absentee Ballots.
The races that are more local include US Congress. In our district Democrat Ted Deutch (website not working at the moment), who apparently lives about 10 houses from me though I’ve never met him. Also on the ballot are Cesar Henao and Mike Trout, neither of whom appear to be associated with a major party.
For State Senate for our area, the GOP has two excellent candidates I’ve met quite a few times: Geoff Sommers and Melanie Peterson. The two will face off in a primary in August. The winner will face Democrat Joseph Abruzzo (website under construction) in the general election.
For State Representative, there will be a Democratic primary between Steve Perman and Kevin Rader, also in August. The winner will face Republican James Ryan O’Hara in November.
These two primaries were a bit of a surprise to many. Peterson and Rader were both originally planning to run different offices and switched at the last minute. Rader’s switch was apparently so recent that Google thinks he’s still running for Senate. This is what I saw in my search for his name just now:
For County Commission, West Boca is in District 5. There are three Democrat candidates who will compete in a primary, with the winner facing Republican Paul Tocker. Tocker is an old friend of mine so I have to confess I’m rooting for him. The Democrat candidates are: Mary Louise Berger, Steven H. Meyer, and Rick Mark Neuhoff.
There are a number of other positions up for election. Click the following for: Qualified candidates for Palm Beach County.
We will do our best to cover the elections most local to West Boca, and will reach out to candidates to ask them to answer questions about what they would do in office.
Boca Tea Party June 2012
A bit less than 100 showed up for a Palm Beach County Tea Party event at Boca Greens tonight. The event included a nice buffet dinner.
In the audience were two GOP candidates headed for a primary for State Senate, for the new 25th district. The two are Geoff Sommers and Melanie Peterson. Both are impressive. Their primary will be on August 14th, and we hope to do at least a couple stories on them. I was pleased to see Sommers carrying a copy of The Road to Serfdom.
During dinner there was a presentation by “Tice” about socialism and Marxism in US politics, connecting that history to the current occupant of the White House. I heard members of the audience expressing disapproval of this approach – “it’s not about his past. It’s about what he’s done as President.”
Local chair Alex Berry spoke about the county organization and its focus on fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets. He also spoke humorously about how upside down our world.
Slade O’Brien was the main speaker. He is Florida State Director for Americans for Prosperity, and a resident of Boca Raton. Before he spoke he handed out cards titled “It’s the Spending, Stupid!”
AFP is focused on fiscal and economic issues and not on social issues.
“Compromise got us $15 Trillion in debt. We don’t need to compromise. We need to win.”
O’Brien spoke about the general election and the challenge of beating Barack Obama. Obama is well liked among independents, but they do not like his policies.
Judicial elections are also coming up, and no Florida judge has ever lost a “merit retention” election. Three judges on the state Supreme Court are up and AFP is working on educating voters on these elections. Three new faces on the court would be a major change.
The Florida legislature is not doing enough to support Gov. Scott’s efforts to bring jobs to Florida, even though both houses are majority Republican.
O’Brien also criticized corporate tax credits that favor cronies and out of state businesses that move here over businesses that are already here. He also spoke about public employee pensions, calling to end defined benefit plans for new government hires. He does not favor altering pensions for existing employees.
Other topics included eliminating state corporate tax (only 2% of state budget); improving school choice education options for families; transparency in local government regulations and permitting; transparency in state contracts, which are a large component of state spending; and removing more state regulations and licensing.
Specific areas where the legislature failed to support Gov. Scott on cutting corporate taxes and eliminating cronyism, among other issues.
Another candidate, James Ryan O’Hara, mentioned that he is having a fundraiser on June 23rd.
Gov. Rick Scott at Boca Republican Club
–Update: Video of Gov. Scott’s speech has been added to the top of this post–
The Boca Raton Republican Club held an event tonight at the Town Center Marriott.
Incumbent State Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff introduced the Governor. Her primary opponent, Mike Lameyer, was in the audience. Strangely he was not invited to speak. Lameyer would cut $5B in state spending on illegal immigrants. He also expressed concern about pension abuse by state and local employees.
Gov Scott spoke about the importance of state legislative elections. He mentioned some other candidates and party officials.
He expressed appreciation for all the people who helped him elected. He talked about his early life, living in public housing as a child, served in the military, married now for over 40 years and now has a grandchild.
Scott said families want their kids to get a great education.
Eliminated tenure and added merit pay to improve teacher quality, plus easier to open charter schools.
Increased state funding for K-12 education.
Jobs – make sure Florida businesses can compete. Lower taxes, less regulation, shorter permitting and less litigation.
Cut taxes for small business, eliminated 1000 regulations. Unemployment at a 3-year low. Legislation focused on getting people to work.
Don’t let government raise the cost of living. Florida is growing because we like people here.
Cut back on PIP insurance. Should reduce that part of auto insurance 10% this year and 25% next year.
Supports 2nd Amendment. That drew a lot of cheers.
The US has the highest corporate tax in the world, the most regulation and massive deficits. Talked about importance of federal elections to make the US more attractive for business.
Sharply criticized Obamacare, increasing FL cost for Medicaid, and driving up cost of healthcare for businesses. It will kill jobs, raise taxes and destroy quality of care.
Talked about sunshine laws and efforts to make emails to and from him and top staff public.
Overall it was a good speech and well received, though we haven’t had an opportunity to fact check his remarks. We certainly invite comments.
Adam Hasner, candidate for Congress in East Boca, spoke after dinner. His speech was more about rallying the troops but didn’t include much substance. The audience, about 200-250, seemed to appreciate what he said.
State Rep. Bill Hager also spoke. He was rated 100% by the state chamber of commerce.