Residents in Ponte Vedra Beach got to know and hear from some of the candidates that are running for the pair of St. Johns County Commission seats up for grabs during the primary election in August thanks to a forum held by the Beaches Coalition July 11.
All candidates running were invited to attend the forum, but only three showed up to take part.
Krista Keating-Joseph running for Commission in District 4 and Johnny Coe Counts and Charles Labanowski, both running for Commission in District 2 were the others present.
The term “smart growth” was something that each candidate took time to talk about and agreed that the county needs to do a better job of managing its growth moving forward.
According to Keating-Joseph, she believes the current residents have been overlooked with all the talk centered around the potential of people moving to the county.
“We have to remember to think and care about those who are already here and not as much about those that are coming,” Keating-Joseph said.
Labanowski stated that the improper use of impact fees has helped lead to much of the mismanaged growth in his eyes.
“Impact fees are not being paid by the developers,” Labanowski said.
Remembering to preserve the county’s agriculture was also something raised by Counts, who has a family farm himself and has seen the continued loss of land in the county with the ever-growing development projects taking place to keep up with the growth.
“Agriculture still produces 25% of the jobs in St. Johns County,” Counts said. “We need to think about that when we’re making our decisions.”
None of the three were in favor of the sales tax expected to be on the upcoming ballot.
Keating-Joseph questioned Jerimiah Blocker, who she is running against and the incumbent in the district 4 seat, and the way he has handled the sales tax increase proposal.
“I know we have extra money,” Keating-Joseph said.
Labanowski agreed and did not even understand how it even made it to the point of getting placed on the ballot to begin with.
According to Labanowski, the county’s tax base grew from $1 billion last year to $1.3 billion, so any tax on the residents was puzzling to him.
“They want you to vote on taxing yourself, essentially,” Labanowski said. “You should not be put in the position to have to even vote on that.”
Counts pointed to the U.S. Constitution as to what he uses as a model when making his decisions.
“If we do what government is meant to do, and protect those rights, everything will work out. Unfortunately, bureaucracy feeds on bureaucracy,” Counts said.
Keating-Joseph said that if she is elected, one of the things she would do first is to move to put general comments from the residents at the front end of the commission meetings, as opposed to towards the end as it is now.
“We work for you, and you are the ones we need to be hearing from,” Keating-Joseph said.
Labanowski promised that if elected, he would have a “true open-door policy,” where any resident would be able to reach out to him at any time.
