Two Daytona Beach Shores city commissioners have resigned as the latest in a wave of local elected officials leaving before Jan. 1, when they face more stringent financial disclosure requirements.
Mel Lindauer, a Shores commissioner since 2016, told The News-Journal on Wednesday the new requirement − submitting what’s known as Form 6 − is “totally invasive” and serves no purpose.
Commissioner Richard Bryan, who has also served since 2016, said in his Dec. 21 resignation letter that he had another priority but added the Form 6 issue “affected the timing” of his decision.
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Many state officials already file a Form 6, including the governor and Cabinet, legislators, county council members and sheriffs. The forms require disclosure of the filer’s net worth and holdings valued at more than $1,000, including bank accounts, stocks, retirement accounts, salary and dividends.
“What difference does it make if one elected official is worth $100,000 and the other is worth $10 million?” he asked. “That’s totally irrelevant.”
Because I trust someone worth $100k or less to have my interests at heart far more than someone worth $10M. Do these people really not get that?
People are sick and tired of being ruled by the wealthy. The truth is, city government pay is often so bad, it’s only the wealthy with large passive income that will go for it.
It also shows who’s accepting other money. If you’re worth $10m but entered office with a lot less, the office doesn’t pay enough for you to have earned all of that. You must have accepted bribes “donations” to get there.
Exactly this. Finance transparency should be a requirement for public officials. I honestly don’t care if my politician has a NW of 10 million. I do care if that’s tied to industries they are supposed to be regulating. I also care if they started out with nothing and became millionaires after joining politics.
That said, billionaires should be barred from ever interacting with politics. Congratulations, you won capitalism, now leave the rest of us alone.
City officials typically don’t take bribes, they’ll buy land after learning about a project, or select a company for a job that uses supplies from your company. One of the famous politicians in my area bought a bunch of land when a highway project was announced and made millions.
LOL. How in the world did this legislation get passed? In Florida, of all places.
Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, sponsored the legislation in the Florida Senate. Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, sponsored the House version of the bill and said it brings “parity” among elected officials.
Also sponsored by Republicans, voted for by a state Congress with a Republican super majority, I’d love to know what the catch is, but it’s definitely a law that should be everywhere, public servants should always have transparency to prevent corruption and as the sponsor said “bring parity” to local elections.
The law, for example, requires listing off every single asset you own that’s worth more than a thousand dollars. And punishment for errors is jailtime.
Absolutely obscene. Just thinking about my average apartment that would include 5 desktops, 2 phones, 2 tvs, couch, sundry jewelry, etc. Plus cars and other big ticket items. And I really don’t have a lot of stuff outside my computer hobby. I’m almost certainly missing quite a few things, as well.
I live in Florida too, just didn’t see what the catch was in this one instance, but I’ve been paying attention to the Monique Worrell fuckery that DeSantis pulled to get her out of office over her political affiliation. There’s been a whole lot of stupidly specific legislation to gain the Republicans meaningless or homophobic/racist political clout, my own in the closet state rep sponsored the anti-Drag show bill, while his wife hosts an event where pageant kids get sexualized. Overall the GOP are trying govern via legislation while doing all kinds of corrupt and inhumane shit like participating in sending migrants all over the country with our tax dollars, yet next election these idiots will keep them in office while they continue to not improve the state for anyone but the rich, white, and Christian.
The catch is that it applies to city officials, not state or national level. So, not to any of the Republicans who sponsored or supported it.
Nah. It already applies to everyone else - this is maybe just about limiting the pool of challengers.
From the Florida Government site :
Who Must File Form 6: All persons holding the following positions: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Cabinet members, members of the Legislature, State Attorneys, Public Defenders, Clerks of Circuit Courts, Sheriffs, Tax Collectors, Property Appraisers, Supervisors of Elections, County Commissioners, elected Superintendents of Schools, members of District School Boards, Mayor and members of the Jacksonville City Council, Judges of Compensation Claims; the Duval County Superintendent of Schools, and members of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation Board, each expressway authority, transportation authority (except the Jacksonville Transportation Authority), bridge authority, toll authority, or expressway agency created pursuant to Chapter 348 or 343, F.S., or any other general law, and judges, as required by Canon 6, Code of Judicial Conduct.
Meanwhile in Norway every citizen can look up any other person’s tax returns. Income and fortune all neatly presented on a government website.
I just today learned that Finland does this as well. It took a while to consider, but it would help people to get paid fair wages, detect corruption, and to generally ensure people are more honest about their finances. Overall, it’s a very different approach to what it means to be in a society together.
I think this works much better in society with low inequality, or maybe for ones that got rid of most robbers, scammers, and fraudsters. But then again, maybe Finland and Norway are good in that regard and that’s great then.
And by ‘works much better’ you mean: there won’t be country-wide outrage, I assume? I think it’s actually meant to bring to light inequalities, awkward as it may be.
Privacy is by and large the tool of the powerful to abuse power and privilege.
This swings both ways. Public information such as voting records, for example, were used to coerce, intimidate, and physically hurt innocent people in the past. I think it takes a mature culture/society to use public information responsibly and I don’t think we are there yet.
Then again, a ton of awful stuff happens in private already, so there needs to be a balance of some kind.
This sounded like a bad idea to me, but I can’t actually come up with a reason why, so maybe it’s not.
The reason is it’s like a treasure map with multiple “x”-es for any burglar. While in the Nordics it’s not that much of a problem (though I did read once or twice stories of people who were repeatedly and uniquely targeted because they were somewhat richer than their neighbours and despite not showing off), in any country with a large, unsupported poor population and limited to none public trust…
It’s almost like places with honest and open financial records like that have policies that support less income equality and therefore less thieves exist there. What a concept.
I think it’s because tax forms also contain information that definitely should not be available to anyone who wants it. Employer information especially - anyone trying to escape from an abuser really doesn’t want that info widely available.
Every level of government should require this, IMO.
If folks want to resign over it, I get it, and that’s fine. You are meant to be replaced regularly anyway. Career politicians are more of a bug than a feature.
If you don’t want people to know your finances, you shouldn’t be a public servant. Power should include transparency.
There’s only one problem: Until it’s a requirement on every level it shouldn’t be one for single levels.
This law is not a tool for transparency, but a weapon for state politicians against local politicians disagreeing with them.
What we have here is a law in a majorily red state that does not apply for state officials (republicans) but does apply for local politicians (democrats in several big cities) that can punish minor infractions (please try to make a list of everything you own with the correct values that can withstand an audit by the state…) with jail time. Go figure…
I am surprised they even passed that law. For Floridian standards, this is good and the bar isn’t even high 😂
