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/news TUESDAY • MARCH 22, 2011 B
metro
♾
BRIBERY CASE
Prosecutors: Nelson’s racism
claims ‘nonsense’ Story, B-3 abel harding
on politics
Voting is more
Courts facing $72.3M deficit
Judicial branch Associated Press week wrote letters released mented an emergency Circuit Judge Donald Mo-
than a right:
It’s your duty
Monday to Gov. Rick Scott branch-wide hiring freeze ran said he, like most judges
TALLAHASSEE | Florida’s and legislative budget and an emergency operat- around the state, is taking a Voting was different in
implemented court system has frozen
hiring and is bracing for
leaders asking for a $21.7
million supplemental ap-
ing budget freeze,” Canady
wrote.
wait-and-see approach.
Moran said he expects the
1980.
For starters, people
hiring freeze, possible staff furloughs
due to a $72.3 million defi-
propriation and $42.5 mil-
lion in budget transfers to
If those steps aren’t ap-
proved, furloughing court
Legislature and governor
to keep the courts running
turned out. Throngs of
them. It also wasn’t as
budget freeze; cit blamed on a shortfall in
filing fees after mortgage
make sure vital functions
continue through June 30,
personnel would be next.
“Such furloughs would
but warned if they don’t,
the courts could be shut
effortless to be counted in
those days. Early voting
furlough would foreclosure cases dramati-
cally declined.
when the fiscal year ends.
“To meet the current
cause severe disruption
in the functioning of the
down for May and June. If
that happened, he said, the
didn’t exist in Florida. If
you wanted to vote, you
be next step Supreme Court Chief
Justice Charles Canady last
funding crisis, the judicial
branch has already imple-
courts,” Canady warned.
In Jacksonville, Chief COURT continues on B-4
stood in line on Election
Day.
My parents’ polling sta-
tion was a small, one-room
wooden structure, the size
of a large outdoor shed.
It had no other use than
a polling site on Election
Day. Cars would park all
along the sides of County
Road 335A in rural Levy
County as residents came
from miles around to cast
a ballot.
I remember waiting in
the car.
Those were the days
when you could leave
your kids unattended in
a parking lot without too
much concern, after all.
In fact, the car next to you
was likely to have a kid
or two in it as well. There
were six of us then and
we entertained ourselves
for what seemed like an
hour while Dad and Mom
snaked through the line
to join the millions who
swept Ronald Reagan into
the White House.
I remember the first
time I cast a ballot. The
year was 1992 and a bil-
lionaire with big ears and a
nasal twang was trying to
turn the political establish-
ment on its head. I was
away at college, but I dis-
tinctly remember sending
Photos by Bob.Self@jacksonville.com in my absentee ballot.
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The results weren’t what
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� I had in mind, but I never
UNF class takes on homelessness
stopped voting. Neither
do Americans, at least
when the presidency is on
the line. Turnout in those
years remains high. In fact,
nearly 78 percent of Duval
County voters turned
Students help remodel housing to help ���������������
���������
out in 2008. But interest
in local elections — the
��������� officeholders we are most
youth at Community Connections ������������� likely to interact with on a
���������������� daily basis — continues to
By Justin Sacharoff ������������� disappoint.
justin.sacharoff@jacksonville.com �������������� There are unlikely to be
�������� any lines today.
Florida is one of the worst states in the country (43rd out ���������� Despite the fact that
of 50) when it comes to child homelessness, according to The ��������� early voting has made it
National Center on Family Homelessness. ������������� increasingly effortless to
The seriousness of the problem was enough to convince ������������� cast a ballot, fewer than
student Aryn Mooney and her public relations class at the ������������ 10 percent of Jacksonville
University of North Florida to make youth homelessness ���������� voters had participated in
their cause for the semester. early voting or returned
Each semester the students in professor Bobbi Doggett’s PR absentee ballots by Sunday
class work on designing a campaign for an organization. night. Experts say with
This semester Doggett chose Forsaken Generation, a na- that kind of indicator,
tional organization based in New York aimed at ending youth turnout is unlikely to top
homelessness and sex trafficking. 30 percent today.
The students are dedicating a room at Community Con- While brave rebels
nections, which provides services and transitional housing battle a tyrannical dicta-
tor on the other side of
REMODEL continues on B-8 the world for a voice in
their governance, voters
in Jacksonville appear to
have little interest in those
Local artist waits decades Worker fired tapped to lead the city we
call home.
It’s not just Jacksonville,
as police probe
of course. Turnout in
to answer his true calling
Tampa’s municipal elec-
tions was barely 22 percent
at the beginning of this
As a boy, Patrick
missing funds month. In Gainesville last
week, it was less than 15
percent.
Many simply have no
Golden learned to love appreciation for the right
art by seeing how much
The case involves a Shands controller’s so many of our fathers and
his maternal grandfa- office employee and a $200,000 gap mothers fought to defend.
ther, John J. Clark, loved On Sunday, as we were
one of us it. By Dana Treen leaving the early voting
charlie patton The basement dana.treen@jacksonville.com site where I cast my ballot,
of Clark’s home in my 8-year-old looked up
Northampton, Mass., was filled with can- An employee in the controller’s office of and me and asked a simple
vas-covered pieces of Masonite, which he Shands Jacksonville has been fired while in- question.
would lean against a coffee can and paint. vestigators unravel a $200,000 discrepancy “Is voting something the
“He was a hobbyist, a very talented hob- in payments made to vendors since 2009. law says you have to do?”
byist,” said Golden, principal and creative The employee, who is not being identified he asked.
director of the Jacksonville advertising because no arrest has been made, began There’s no such law on
firm Burdette Ketchum. working at Shands several years ago and the books, of course, and
Golden got more encouragement after was pinpointed in an internal audit, ac- there shouldn’t be. But, as
his family moved to Flagler County and cording to the hospital and the Jacksonville I told my son, it should be
he came under the influence of a “won- Sheriff’s Office. considered a duty.
derful” high school art teacher, Sheila According to a police report, an off-duty Educate yourself and
Crawford. He attended Flagler College officer working at the hospital Friday was vote.
in St. Augustine, which had a “wonderful told initial reviews of financial records The future of your city
art program.” His faculty adviser was the showed $98,000 in overpayments to St. depends on it.
renowned sculptor Enzo Torcoletti. Jude, a vendor of Shands.
But even though Golden was studying Several purchase orders were different FLORIDA MORNING
fine art, his goal from the time he got to but had the same invoices for the same pa- Visit jacksonville.com/
Flagler was to be a commercial artist. tient. floridamorning for our
His last art show was in 1988. His work Payments were tracked to St. Jude at the new early-morning digest
at the time was “very representational,” Bob.Self@jacksonville.com same time that second checks using the of Florida political news.
Golden said. “There wasn’t a great �������������������������������������������������� same vendor number but made out in a dif-
amount of depth to the story I was trying ������������������������������������������������ ferent name were sent to a Jacksonville post abel.harding@jacksonville.com
��������������������������������������������������� Twitter: @abelharding
PATTON continues on B-8 ������������������������� SHANDS continues on B-4 (904) 359-4184
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