Do You Know What it Means to Miss St. Florian?

 

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

According to Blake Edwards in his “councilman remarks to the public”, “Youth in Government” day for the Florence City council has been going on since his senior year at Bradshaw High School in 1972. There was not even the Internet then, much less a “Google machine” so we will just have to take his word on it. The meeting on 03/19/2024 of the council this year was held at the Florence Lauderdale Coliseum. The cell reception is very bad in that building so it could not be live streamed, but the city recorded it and put the entire meeting on the City of Florence government Facebook page. It seemed to be a “run of the mill” meeting with little on the agenda that would merit controversy. 

There were some fireworks though. Apparently, even Bernie Delinski from the TimesDaily was in the audience for this meeting. His article in the newspaper covering the meeting of course focused on the reactions of the children in attendance but what was surprising was that the kids seemed most impressed with the “remarks from the public” portion of the meeting. The speeches made seemed to cover what is important to not only these young people, but most of the city of Florence presently. AND the city of St. Florian to the north too! 

Topics covered the city becoming involved again with Project Say Something in their bid to place a plaque next to the Confederate statue in front of the courthouse. Mr. David Carson was totally against this and vowed to fight this action any way he could. River Zurinsky brought up the missing live streams of meetings on the city FB page and how this was another example of the lack of transparency on the City’s part. Mr. Matt Eckl asked the question to the council of how landowners in St. Florian could opt out of the annexation if they desired to. He stated they were told by Senator Tim Melson this could be done and wanted to know if the council was aware of this procedure. No  one responded. 

Then there was Mr. Michael White who seemed to just throw the kitchen sink of grievances at those on the dais. He started by wishing the kids good luck when they graduated and stated that the current council has not recruited any jobs they could get where they would be able to pay ALL their rent with their meager salary. Then he brought up the transparency issue by reminding everyone that those who were being annexed into the city of Florence in St. Florian found out about it by reading the newspaper. He finished with the high retail sales tax rate that is paid in Florence. He stated that it is the citizens' money being spent by the council, not the opposite. Tax money should be spent wisely and with the input and approval of the citizens. The kids applauded each speaker.

All in all, it was an entertaining meeting. Not very much city business was handled of importance, but this was a good chance for the kids to see how government operates. It made me wonder how much things have changed and how much has remained the same since the first “Youth in Government” day Blake Edwards brought up that happened in 1972. Back then, it seemed like this area was truly destined for greatness. Good jobs with union pay at several facilities and there was even talk of building something called a “mall” with a city of shopping under one roof out on the new Outer Loop. Makes me think of a version of a campaign ad: Are we better off now than 50+ years ago?