A.G. Gancarski
Former St. Johns County Commissioner Mark Miner frets, on behalf of the St. Johns County Republican Party, about the potential impact of redistricting. The base map would split the county, impacting St. Johns at a time when it is feeling the impacts of growth over the last couple of decades and, arguably, needs federal help more than ever.
“As a former County Commissioner,” Miner writes, “I can tell you that working closely with our Congressman was vitally important to effectively addressing the funding, statutory, regulatory, and infrastructure needs of our county at the federal level to help our residents and protect our quality of life.”
“For thirteen years now, our county has had the benefit of having one Congressman dedicated to our county’s needs and interests. This occurred because in the current four county congressional district, our entire county is not divided up among several districts but is a large and influential county within the current district and has the full attention of our Congressman,” Miner continues.
“This brought very positive results for St. Johns County. For example, on issue after issue, as a County Commissioner, I worked closely with Congressman John Mica to solve problems and meet the needs of our residents. I can name several federal funding issues where our county’s residents won by having a Congressman who was very focused representing our entire county in Congress,” Miner states.
“Our congressional district is not required to be redrawn,” Miner adds, before going into “potentially bad news for St. Johns County.”
“The new proposed congressional district map which was just released divides and splits up our county. Instead of having our whole county completely represented within one congressional district which we have had for the last thirteen years, our county will be split up and divided between different congressional districts,” Miner contends.
“The bottom line is we will no longer have our Congressman and we will no longer have a unified voice as a county at the federal level. Our needs may not receive the same level of attention and our voice could be diminished,” Miner adds, before issuing a CTA to St. Johns Republicans to call Tallahassee and make their voices heard.
One comment
travis christensen
August 11, 2015 at 1:31 pm
This is silly. Under the current map st johns is under one comgressional district, but that district covers multiple counties. Under the proposed map the north end of st johns would fall under crenshaw, a senior congressman. I dont see the problem. Also, st johns has a good economic and tax base, if they are having problems they need to look at what their local governmwnt is doing wrong. County commissioners outaide of st johns would kill for thwir tourist industry, connectivity to jacksonville, taxable real estate, and nest rated school district in florida. Cry me a river, guy.
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