Note: This webpage was first put up back in the PSJ Incorporation battle days. Thus, not all links will still be able to send you to the page intended.
This is a Paid Political Advertisement. Paid for and approved by Linda McKinney 6025 Keystone Ave. Port St. John, FL 32927. Independent of any group, organization or committee.
The residents of Port St. John, Hardeeville, Delespine, Williams Point and Frontenac do not appreciate being forced into something on the goals of a few. Forceful incorporation of four communities is not a good thing. It is not something to be proud of.
Hardeeville, Delespine, Frontenac and Williams Point will lose their identities if incorporation passes. Frontenac, Williams Point, Delespine and Hardeeville will lose their heritage. They will lose their past; and part of their futures. The descendants of the man Williams Point was named after will have a spot in the road to look at to show their children where Williams Point used to start; but if incorporation passes, it will have a "Welcome to the City of Port St. John" sign over where their grandfather's name used to be. That's an abomination! These people will lose their future; the ability to determine their own destinies would be taken away. They would no longer be in control of what happens to their grandfather's/father's namesake area. They would no longer have that. Their name would be indistinguishable from the rest; they would be forgotten. It would be a post card collectable: This used to be known as Williams Point, but it has gone the way of City Point (it used to be somewhere between PSJ and Cocoa), Bonaventure, Georgiana, Tropic, etc. All of these areas lost. All gone. Now, we are going to forcibly do the same thing to Williams Point, Hardeeville, Delespine and Frontenac. For what?
Because that's what some people in the traditional boundaries of PSJ want. It must be done because that's what is best for traditional PSJ. Well, what is best for Hardeeville? What is best for Delespine? What is best for Frontenac? What is best for Williams Point? Not incorporation against their wills!
What is best is to keep PSJ as it is, let the others stay as they are, have less government instead of another layer, and to pay less taxes. That is what is best. Not taking away people's heritage. Not forcibly incorporating our neighbors.
If ALL of PSJ wanted to forcibly incorporate Delespine, Frontenac, Hardeeville and Williams Point, would that make it right? If you grew up in one of those places and you had your family home there from the time you were small, and your grandmother and her mother had their homes in the same area, would you want someone to come in, rename that area, and tax you for the privilege of having your heritage taken away? Of course not!
But that is what PSJ4T wants people to do. They want people to vote in favor of doing exactly this. It's not right. It's not fair. It's not America. At least, not the America I know and love.
Please, do the right thing, friends and neighbors. Vote against incorporation and vote against this form of tyranny. Vote against this land-grabbing movement and those supporting it. Vote against this form of enslavement of the four communities. For in my opinion, that is what it truly is: a government-sanctioned form of slavery.
Consider: When a slave (for the sake of correct grammar, let's say the slave was a man) was "brought over" he would lose his name. In Alex Haley's book, ROOTS, Kunta Kinte was renamed: Williams Point, Hardeeville, Delespine and Frontenac will all become Port St. John. Slaves lost their right to self-determination: as will Delespine, Frontenac, Hardeeville and Williams Point. Slaves had no voice: neither did the four communities in becoming part of the municipal overlay. Slaves had no say in what happened to the land they worked: if the majority of the voters in PSJ votes against the whole of the voters in the four communities, then the four communities will have to put up with the City Council of PSJ deciding what happens to their areas as far as planning and zoning is concerned. Slaves were treated like second or third class citizens: is that not what is happening to the people of Delespine, Williams Point, Hardeeville and Frontenac? Is that not what is happening when they have no voice? It's a form of slavery!
People of Port St. John, have mercy. Show some compassion. Show what good neighbors we truly can be, when and if we want to. Don't vote for this form of socialism. Don't vote more for PSJ by taking away from four communities. This is America: not Russia; not China. Don't take away from some to give to one. Show yourself, PSJ, for what you truly can be: a great community. Unincorporated. Independent. Strong. Ready to face the future. But at the same time, able to admit that we have no right to take away from Delespine, Hardeeville, Williams Point and Frontenac what they choose to be. Let them be what they want to be. Don't force them into something else. Don't force them against their wills to become part of us. Don't take away their heritage. Show mercy. Show compassion. Be a great community. Because you are.
Friends and neighbors: I don't know what else to say. I am in trouble already. I may be in more now. I only want to tell you the truth. I only want to show you something that you may not have considered; show it to you perhaps in a way you could better understand if I approach it at a different angle. Whatever the case may be, I will go on with this fight. I will be there for the people of Delespine, Frontenac, Hardeeville and Williams Point; as well as for the people of Port St. John. Because I think this is wrong for PSJ and the four communities. It raises our taxes when we just had a tax raise from the County (that Maureen Rupe joined a lawsuit to make sure happened); it gives us an additional layer of government (even Ms. Tidd didn't argue that in her threatening letter); and it makes us an entity to be loathed and feared because we don't care about our neighbors. Is this what you want? Is this what would be best for us? For you? For the four communities?
Please consider the future. Not just the future of PSJ; but the future of your neighbors. The future of the people who can't afford to pay more taxes. The future of the people who can't squeeze more into their fixed incomes. The future of four communities that would disappear into the night of December 31, 2002, when PSJ would become a city by law. Those four communities would never be seen again. And their heritage would be gone forever. A legacy for PSJ, the City.
I have a dream... A dream of compassion.
Copyright © 2002 Linda McKinney. All rights reserved. This is a paid political advertisement.