Author: Staff Reporters

Unfortunately, passion often overwhelms order to flirt with chaos.

Passion too often ran rampant at city council and county commission meetings in 2022. Too often, elected officials, staff and residents let their emotions override their better natures.

Not that passion, by itself, is bad; it’s expected and commendable. People should be passionate about issues affecting their lives and the lives of their children.

And the issues about which residents and government officials were passionate last year were – and are – important: the placement of a wastewater treatment plant that will serve Milton, East Milton and the rapidly growing industrial parks for half a century; placement and design of a highway that will change traffic flow and the character Milton’s historic downtown; the changing demographics and population density in the county’s mostly rural midsection; protecting not only the region’s water quality, but it’s availability.

All of these issues, and others, created political and social friction in Milton and Santa Rosa County that, frankly, is unavoidable. Inevitably, different residents, even different government entities, will have different interests; naturally, those interests will affect their priorities when considering the political questions of the day.

Which brings us back to our wish for 2023: Civility. None of the matters listed above have been settled; they all can be expected to come before the city council or county commission (or both) in the months ahead. Too often, folks on different sides of each question failed to listen to one another’s concerns and questions and reasons for their position. Too often, those folks spent more time demonizing their opponents, attacking their character, motivations and associations than listening and considering and asking reasonable questions.

We saw residents distribute the criminal record of a city official to attack his credibility, accuse him of lying with the barest hint of evidence, and call for his resignation or dismissal because his job requires him to build a wastewater treatment plant that, to date, appropriate authorities have funded and permitted. The residents have legitimate concerns, but stunts like that diminish their credibility.

Several times throughout the year the Milton City Council had to stop proceedings because one or more councilmembers disrupted meetings with outbursts and rants often spouting offensive personal remarks at one or more of their colleagues on the board – which, of course, usually prompted an equally disruptive and angry rebuttal.

We saw residents accuse county commissioners of conflict of interest, of neglecting their duties, of ignoring constituents…some residents regularly used rumor and innuendo to attack commissioners’ characters.

None of that is productive and has to stop. It’s not just Milton and Santa Rosa County. Over the past several decades, civil discourse has crumbled under the weight of an unnecessary and destructive culture war that both helped create and is perpetuated by hyper-partisan national politics. People on the front lines of this culture war consider words like “compromise” and “moderate” to be derogatory, evidence of weakness of character.

On the contrary, we believe those words indicate strength. To objectively consider an opposing opinion and find areas with which one agrees or might accept in exchange for some accommodations to one’s own position shows a maturity that can build mutual trust and cooperation.

The issues we know will face our local governments in 2023 are important and controversial; we don’t expect unanimity of opinion. But we fervently hope that we all can discuss these and other matters with patience, calm and respect.

Happy New Year!