In Defense of Infantini

In this month's pooper paper rupester does her best to stir the pot against Commissioner Trudie Infantini (as usual). When rupester's education came to an end at age fifteen she apparently didn't realize that her future lay in America where free speech makes it okay for a Commissioner to speak her own mind. The fact that there are four other Commissioners (whom I call "Commies" because they come as close to Communism as anyone in America: witness the brouhaha over Infantini's free speech letter and their efforts to stifle it), who agree with rupester makes this a matter that I must cover completely.

rupester making a big fuss of Infantini's free speech is a sign of how much rupester fears Infantini. If it were not the case, rupester would ignore Infantini as she does Bolin. You see rupester kiss up to Fisher all the time (flatter him here, flatter him there; just as she did Scarborough), but she totally ignores Bolin, Nelson and Anderson. Fisher she needs to maintain her own "perceived power". Fisher, for his part and in his turn, is grateful for the flattery, laps it greedily up, and appoints rupester to another board/committee/commission. Brown nosing has its rewards. The others do not appoint her on a regular basis to anything; in no way threaten her positions, nor what she believes in. She can ignore them and suffer no harm, no depletion of stature in her own little world (and her own little mind). Not so Infantini.

Infantini is a threat to rupester because Infantini is a dynamic, successful woman who got where she is on her own merits (as opposed to the skirt tails of others, or programs for the benefit of), is well educated (a Master's Degree in Accounting), is respected among her peers and has her own opinion and is unafraid of speaking her mind without the support of others standing behind her. Infantini, being a very strong Conservative, is a threat to rupester in that way as well. Conservatism and rupester get along about as well as oil and otters. rupester abhors Conservatism at least as much as she abhors the idea of GOD being real.

Thus, Infantini's position is one that rupester feels a great need to denigrate and to try to destroy it as soon as possible: a special election for Infantini's district would be a great thing in rupester's mind. It would also be a feather rupester could stick in her hat and crow about. (Only fitting, if you know what I mean.)

If you read Sept. 2011's pooper paper, you'll notice that rupester brings Comm. Fisher into the fray via mentioning a letter he wrote that was supposed to counter Comm. Infantini's letter. Fisher's letter, written to negate the impact of Infantini's truthful letter, was a failure. For instance:

Para. 1: Fisher states that certain percentages of us will pay lower taxes and therefore, Infantini is wrong. I seriously doubt it. Infantini is a CPA whose work was good enough for her to be previously employed as an internal auditor for the County. Suddenly when she becomes Commissioner she no longer understands the way taxes work? I don't think so.

Para. 2: Fisher is incorrect and a bit wonky. An explanation of the "Save Our Homes" exemption is available here. Fisher stating that the County Manager and Commissioners have no control over how our homes are assessed is technically correct: but it is not accurate because the County has to vote on how much money to spend. When the Commissioners vote to spend as much money as possible - at the expense of the taxpayers of Brevard County - their actions raise our taxes. Their spending and what they want to spend is what determines their need for our money. Fisher's redirection - "Don't look here. Quick! Look over there!" - is just that: a way of saying, "It's not our fault!" when he voted for quite a bit of spending himself. Fact: Even Brevard's own Property Appraiser's website says that Infantini is correct:

"Does the [Save Our Homes] cap limit property taxes?"
"No, the cap limits the increase of the assessed value of your property. A property's assessment could go down, but property taxes could go up if the local taxing authorities increase their tax (millage) rate."

Para. 4: As Fisher points out in his letter, "The Florida tax system is extremely complex…" That's Fisher basically saying to the citizens of Brevard County that we're too stupid to understand it and we should leave all of the hard stuff to the Commissioners and not worry our pretty little heads about it. (Pat, pat on the head.) It's not that we want it explained in a letter. What we want is to believe that the Commissioners who are "representing" us are representing us well and truly. That is, instead of Commissioners sitting above us in their dais and looking down on us from above as they plan for our future without regard to what we truly want, we want Commissioners who listen to us and follow our wills and not their own.

In fact, on the Property Appraiser's own website there is a little chart that shows exactly what is happening here and explains it to everyone:

"EXAMPLE
HOW TAXING AUTHORITIES CAN HIDE TAX INCREASES BY IGNORING THE
ROLLBACK MILLAGE RATE"

Jim Ford's website shoots the other four Commissioners in the foot and proves Infantini correct. I think we see who is afraid of which Commissioner here. A person who left school at age fifteen, an AA in who knows what; a B.A. in Education; a Public Relations major; a Physical Education major: all playing the game that Jim Ford warned taxpayers about when he put his website together.

Of the others playing the game, Commissioner Infantini's education makes her the only one who is truly informed enough to understand the tax system as it is set up in Florida and in Brevard County. She is a Certified Public Accountant and, as such, is supremely qualified to speak on the subject of taxes and assessed value and millage rates and tax increases. All of that is well within her purview and her Master's Degree in Accounting makes it something she has proven she understands well. None of the other Commissioners can boast a Master's in Accounting. How they can assume their superiority of understanding - especially in a letter "debunking" Infantini's statements - is beyond me.

It all comes down to the fact that Infantini must be done away with. Those who do not like her - rupester, Fisher, Bolin, Anderson, Nelson - know they cannot get away with false logic, false math, or falsehoods with Infantini around. Thus, they must do away with her, get her disgraced, disqualified, disbelieved, and perhaps kicked from office; at the very least intimidated into silence and acquiescence.

Silence the lone opposition that you know has the facts - the only one who can truly oppose you - and you have a free hand to do whatever you wish. That is the goal of rupester, Fisher, and others who oppose Infantini: free reign to conduct the County as they wish. They wish to raise our taxes and to get as much for them - power, land for their "environment", etc. - as they can at our expense. Someone standing up to them is not acceptable and must be dealt with. Infantini is that person and she must be dealt with.

A little aside here: I met with Fisher soon after he became Commissioner and I told him that the staff he chose to keep (Scarborough's Lackovitch and England) had withheld Sunshine Law documents and information from me - after four Freedom of Information Act/Sunshine Law requests. It took getting the Brechner Institute and the State Attorney General's office on the same e-mail as the one I sent to Scarborough's office before they finally acquiesced and sent me the information I had requested (information rupester had delivered to that office just twenty-three hours prior to my first request). While I explained to Fisher what had happened (showing him the hard copy proof) and asked that the same sort of thing not be allowed to happen again, Fisher ate candy, fiddled with the wrappers and generally made me know that he wasn't interested in what I was telling him. I left with the impression that Fisher's office was open only to certain constituents and I wasn't one of them. End of aside.