The Sept. 19, 2017, Holley Navarre Water System board meeting was peculiar in several respects. For the first time in months, all members were present. The meeting was contentious, filled with outbursts and accusations, open hostility, and President Bien May clearly lost control of the meeting; indeed, at times he personally joined in the unseemly shouting match. There was fighting and serious disagreement among the members on almost every issue, but two were at the very top of the list.
As always it’s good to indulge in the Christmas Kool-Aid but regarding your editorial, “The district 4 Master Plan…” it overhauls history, drops names and in short could almost convince a newcomer that incorporating Navarre will fix the problems.
Merry Christmas! I found out recently (Ancestry DNA) that I’m 25 percent Jewish so Happy Hanukah to my fellow Jewish friends and ancestors. I learned in church this past Sunday that Jesus celebrated Hanukah and at that time – it was called the “Feast of Dedication.” Christmas fell on the calendar at a great time this year because our staff has time to visit with family between this issue and the Jan. 4 issue.
I covered Trump’s visit Friday. I was in the media section – which I later regretted. My husband was in general seating and he had great seats and was in a better position than I was to get great photos. However, I had my super-duper long lens – and a ladder. I only had a ladder because another photographer brought two ladders and he could only be on one at a time. Therefore, I was the guardian of the ladder he wasn’t on. The atmosphere was electric and positive. There were some protestors outside – but not very many. We had someone call our office on Friday and invite us to go protest with them. For the record, media doesn’t protest – or shouldn’t protest – though they do it all the time – in their own pages. But, that is another topic. The civic center was full rafters to floor. There were even rows of people two deep in front of the media pit – where they weren’t supposed to be. Thankfully – I had the aforementioned ladders. Every time Trump mentioned fake news or the lying media, some in the crowd in front of us would turn around and sneer and snicker – a little. They were trying to be as polite as possible while sneering – but I felt like I was in a cage at a Zoo and we were the attraction. However, they quickly forgot about us – in between jabs from Trump. Of course, I knew he wasn’t talking about Navarre Press. I even had someone tell me later that every time they heard Trump call out the fake news media he thought – “except Navarre Press.” He must have been reading my mind – because that is what I was thinking. When I was with Matt Gaetz on Open Gaetz Day in Navarre even Gaetz told me that he has never had an instance when Navarre Press has misrepresented him. And, for good reason, we don’t. We aren’t perfect and don’t pretend to be. We own up to our mistakes and fix them. But we don’t take news out of the paper because it is derogatory to our friends and we don’t put slants on stories. There isn’t anyone that we would go out of our way to compromise our core values or our mission for. There just isn’t – because there is no one worth compromising ourselves for. And, there is a lot of salacious “news” we know that we don’t print because it really isn’t news.
To say that the media is knee-jerk and irresponsible is to make the understatement of the millennium. To say that the American people are gullible to their knee-jerk is to speak a sad truth. On no other subject is this more relevant than the matter of sexual harassment claims.
Trump was not my first choice for president; however, he is our best choice. Finally, we have a president who does what was promised during the campaign. Typically the election is won by someone who tells you what you want to hear then when elected does what the establishment directs.
