The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1934-11-15
MoNRoE's COMMISSIONERS

3N0aWt& kAtEA1 - ~ UtucE county
commission in Florida that has been
honored - long As has been the commits
sion in Monroe county and certainly no
other commission has had greater faith
placed IN It BY the people. as has been
demonstrated at every succeeding biennial
election for more than quarter of GEN.
tury IL two instances.
William r. Porter, of the first dis
trict. has served the county continuously
for 30 years; Braxton Warren, Of the
second. FOR "a years, and has been de-
feated only once in all that time; Carl
Bervaldi. Of the third. indicated for Ia
years, and Norberg Thompson, of the
fourth. who has been reelected every time
ne has run for the office. Fulford, of the
fifth. served continuously until his defeat
at the recent general election by Nathan
Niles. who il among the most popular men
in Key West.
However. politics is fraught with
Jealousy, and the commissioners, during
the many years they have faithfully served
the county, have been unjustIy criticised
many a time.
But the people of Key West, knowing
one another intimately, are quick to de-
termine the cause of any criticism of a
local nature and. as consequence, have
not been fooled by self-seekers, who usually
hide behind the skirts of the taxpayers.
Those self-seekers. shedding crocodile
tears as big as grapefruit, have always
tried to give the impression that the sole
motive that actuated them was to benefit
the taxpayers, while, with half an eve. it
was easy enough for Key Westers to see
that the only thing the self-seekers were
concerned in was their own yawning
pocketbooks
Thus able to brush away the chaff
that was thrown into their eyes by self
seeking gentry, who, in good many in
stances, injected their criticism into cam.
paigns in the hope of defeating this or that
commissioner, who acted according to the
law and not as the self-seekers wished,
Key West voters have returned the COM
missioner to office, time and time again.
DO as | say or I'm ag'in' YOU is a
saying as old as politics itself, and it has
been directed against every man who has
held office from president to constable.
The present county commissioners
have been censured hundreds of times;
for instance, because of the salary
of $50 that had been paid each of them
for the last 10 years, yet they were in no
way to blame for the amount of that
salary.
The people of Key West themselves,
in 1924, held a mass meeting and by an
enthusiastic and a unanimous vote directed
the representatives in the legislature from
Monroe county to have the salary in
creased to that figure. Indeed, a unani-
nous decision had been reached to make
the salary 5000 month when one of the
commissioners first suggested and, a few
minutes later, he and the other members
insisted that the amount be not more than
s15O. 1QIg nHgnI
In the last election, when the pro-
posal was made to reduce the salary to
SIS, not single commissioner campaigned
against the reduction.
That is the type of men Monroe
county has as its commissioners. and the
people of the county are proud of them,
despite the recurring gimme gimme bark
ing that is directed at them.
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