Any incumbent who barely ekes out a primary win with only 43.5 % of the votes should be alarmed at what is clearly a loud message of voter dissatisfaction with past performance. That’s the stark reality that County Commission candidate Susan Latvala faced when she looked at her bathroom mirror the morning after the election. The shaken professional politician Latvala has good cause to be grateful, however, because luck was on her side. Had her two opponents—Beverly Billiris and Carl Folkman—not split the Republican vote, there is a strong likelihood that Latvala would already be out on the streets. Second, there was a record-low vote due to the torrential downpours. (Did Latvala perform a rain dance the night before?) With serious cause to fear the full wrath of her angry constituents on November 2, Latvala’s political machine must be in full damage control mode. 

 

Given the viciousness of the Republican candidates toward each other in the primary, Latvala’s Democratic opponent in the general election—Bob Hackworth, the ex-mayor of Dunedin with an excellent reputation on a local level—should prepare to see Latvala come out slinging dirt from the get-go. The next eleven weeks of electioneering shall be interesting. 

 

The primary campaign was filled with many events, including one nasty debacle that may come back to haunt Latvala in the weeks ahead. Specifically, the Latvala machine purposely set off a false alarm that caused a politically motivated witch-hunt via a costly investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor, Racketeering & Fraud Investigations. 

 

A young lady named Robyn Poppick, then an employee of WorkNet Pinellas, had some students out on a civics lesson project learning how the democratic process works. The lesson was to practice collecting petitions for political candidates. To make the exercise more realistic, the example petitions contained the name of Beverly Billiris, one of Latvala’s opponents in the Republican primary. When a cursory report reached Latvala, she reportedly flew into a rage and pushed a number of political buttons. When Poppick telephone Latvala to explain the civics project, Latvala immediately hurled a stream of invectives and threatened Poppick with prison. According to a St. Petersburg Times story, Ms. Poppick was fired from her $48,000 per year job and has since not been able to find employment. 

 

Needless to say, the investigation proved that Ms. Poppick had committed no crimes nor was there any malice. She has been cleared of all charges, but now she is bankrupt. Her reputation has been sullied and she cannot not get a job. One can only speculate that if the sample petitions had listed Latvala instead of Billiris, Poppick would still have her job.

 

Susan Latvala, unrepentant, has not extended an apology to Poppick, much less offer to help her regain her job. Via a misguided act of political vengeance, an innocent person has had her career destroyed and left bankrupt by Latvala’s vicious political machine. Sadly, good people such as Poppick are simply considered collateral damage in incumbent Latvala’s desperate bid to continue feeding at the public trough at a $90,837 annual cost to Pinellas taxpayers.

 

Like other career politicians who take for granted the power and perks of a government job, Latvala has acquired a bad case of “arrogance of office.” She has been in office a long time. TOO LONG! 

 

During the primary, Latvala’s arrogant disregard for her constituents was evidenced by her willful absence from candidates’ forums so she could attend political cocktail parties. Perhaps she was avoiding situations where she would have been publicly embarrassed by her lack of accomplishments and her dearth of ideas. Let’s hope Latvala can find some points of view to share with Pinellas voters in the weeks ahead.

 

Public forums with give and take questioning will be difficult for charisma-challenged Latvala. She has a well-deserved reputation for her tart tongue that spews forth sarcastic and vitriolic words toward both her constituents and Pinellas County employees when they somehow invoke her wrath.

 

The gristmill of the Latvala political machine that is awaiting her opponent, plus the money the Republican Party and business interests will pour into her coffers will be something to behold.

 

It is well know that avoiding toxic people is a key to living a happy life. Likewise, voting out toxic politicians is a key to good government. Hopefully, the voters will not falter again at the ballot box.

 

Latvala would do well to pay heed to Abraham Lincoln’s admonition: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."