St. Augustine Record Letter: Business is no model for government

Posted: October 15, 2010 - 12:00am
By ANN PALMQUIST

Editor: In 1845, Henry David Thoreau told us about the two years lived on Walden Pond. By all accounts living on that now famous pond was anything but a successful "business" venture.

A guy named Gary Snodgrass is looking to pocket a seat at the St. Augustine Beach Commission and has said that he wants to run the city like a business. This wildly popular sound-bite may not be such a good idea. October's issue of the Economist warns, "Beware the lure of the businessman-politician ....and the politics of disastrous management."

The current crop of want-to-be candidates having taken root are spreading like kudzu, statewide. Who can forget little Ricky (Rick Scott) who ran his health care provider business with such business imprudence coupled with slipshodness accounting practices that his profits coupled with court fines have set a new record for fraud? Little Ricky draws the thinnest gossamer shroud of deniability counting on the voters' collective amnesia as he wants to be the next CEO of the State of Florida and to run it like a business. Seems that little Ricky's got some explaining to do.

BP's upper crust CEO recapped Business 101: profits chaps, profits. Repeat the mantra -- run it like a business. The BP guy, little Ricky, and Snodgrass all know how to run it like a business -- start small and grow. Ambitious businessmen-politicians explain how they want to run the community just like a business. Could this be only another scam? They know that their community is not a business, it is their home.

The city of St. Augustine Beach is a lot like Walden Pond, still a nice place to live. Thank you Mr. Thoreau. Your vote is so important. It's a community thing to do.

Ann Palmquist

St. Augustine Beach