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Highlands Today

Sun 'n Lake makes right step in voting system

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 8, 2009

Sun 'n Lake of Sebring made a big step toward improving the way its board of supervisors are elected. It's still not perfect, but at least it's an improvement. Let's hope this is the first of many steps to rectify the unfair election process there.

The special improvement district has allowed every owner of a lot to have a vote when it comes to electing supervisors, even if they are absentee owners. That means large development companies, holding thousands of empty lots, can, and do, stack the board in their favor. A minority of the board is elected by a one person/one vote system.

It's clear why the majority supervisors want this system, because as long as their voting pleased the big lot holders, they stayed in office. What seemed strange was hearing them justify this unfair system of representation. It's difficult to imagine that in their heart of hearts they believed what they were saying, unless the status quo benefited them personally in some way.

The argument we've heard is that the people who own land in Sun 'n Lake, but do not live there, would have no say. To that we would say: then live there! There are lots held in all our communities and throughout our county owned by individuals, but the owner doesn't receive a vote unless he or she lives here. And they certainly don't get extra votes for having numerous tracts of land.

Highlands County commissioners voted Tuesday to change the system, and allow one vote per acre, which cuts the number of votes the big landowners have in elections. A big landowner holding 2,000 lots, and therefore 2,000 votes, will, under the change, have 500 votes. Clearly it's still not one person/one vote, but it takes us in that direction.

Sun 'n Lake supervisors are considering litigation against the county for making this change, and who knows where that leads. But we can't imagine a logical argument against this change. It improves something that's obviously unfair to the people who live in Sun 'n Lake.

County commissioners made the right decision on Tuesday. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

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