Letter: Is Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe Planning a 2022 Congressional Campaign?
Thursday afternoon, Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe suggested he intends to keep drawing a salary as Mayor of Gainesville through January 2023, while refusing to throw cold water on suggestions that in late 2021 and 2022 he will be pursuing a seat in Congress.
When I tried to follow up with clarifying questions Thursday evening, Poe refused to respond.
Since July 22, Poe has repeatedly provided evasive answers to public questions seeking specifics about his rumored 2022 Congressional campaign.
Indications are that a Democratic-majority Congressional District is more likely than not to be created in 2022, linking Democratic-majority Alachua County with primarily African-American Democratic-majority parts of Duval County.
At a City Commission meeting Thursday evening I tried to follow-up on Poe’s Thursday afternoon statements about his intention to continue drawing a City salary during the 2022 Congressional election season.
I asked Mayor Poe:
Will you tell us here and now that when you reveal — or when it is revealed — that you are planning to seek election to Congress you will immediately resign as mayor so that the healing can begin?
On July 22nd you revealed much when in front of Dr. Michael McDonald, you carefully and condescendingl, answered my question about your intended run for Congress by stating you had never “indicated“ you were going to run for Congress.
Today, you again carefully answered my question about your intended run for Congress by stating you have not “filed“ to run for Congress.
It is clear to anyone who has listened to your carefully worded misrepresentations — beginning 13 years ago when you were first elected to the city commission — that you are an expert in misdirection, obfuscation, and lying by omission.
Many in our community are now waking up to the sad reality of who Lauren Poe really is. The scales in time will drop from the eyes of almost everyone.
But as a matter of human decency, I ask you to please tell us that if you run for Congress you will resign from your current job and allow someone with the best interests of our community at heart to step in as mayor and begin rebuilding.
If your dishonest self-serving behavior over the last 13 years is predictive of your behavior going forward, you won’t have that decency. But I’m going to give you a chance.
Will you tell us here and now you are sorry for damage you have done to our community?
Will you tell us here and now you denounce any scheme to raise the salary of the mayor and give the mayor even more power than you have seized unto yourself as mayor?
Will you tell us here and now that when you reveal — or when it is revealed — that you are planning to seek election to Congress you will immediately resign as mayor so that the healing can begin?
I’m waiting for your response.
I was disconnected. Poe never responded.
Debbie Martinez, Gainesville
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com
Huh..what….you are like a clapping seal with a lisp. Did Ray Washington give you a script
If this total failure thinks he’ll ever be elected again, even as head dog catcher, he’s sadly mistaken. He has led Gainesville to be the laughing stock of the state with his ignorant and woke cowardly leadership he be beat worse than Jimmy Carter’s last run. We don’t need no mo PO!
Unfortunately with the progressive liberal democrats infecting society, don’t be surprised if he is elected to public office again. Question is, will his family continue to believe his lies as much as that particular group of voters do? Some people’s thirst for remaining in the spotlight cloud moral and ethical values, (see 45th president).
I hope the uneducated find someone else to believe…
Many thanks to the Alachua Chronicle for printing this as I was not present at the City Commission meeting. I noticed, according to The Alachua Chronicle, the similar message was directed at Mayor Poe over a year ago. My question is simple;
Is anyone listening? Will the Sun print this message? Will the small fraction of voters get this message?
I’m damn sure not going to attempt to reprint this in the Sun!
No offense to anyone in the conservative media, but the blue haired liberals are NOT paying attention to this dialogue about their beloved Poe.
This inept ability to reason is rampant in our society. Anyone thinking Biden and Harris are doing a good job? If you think so then you better brush up on your Chinese.
Poe was pressured to resign from his “teaching” job at Santa Fe College last June under pressure from the BOD. He justified his resignation from full-time employment claiming he didn’t have time to do both jobs – a fact that has proved painfully true for City dwellers …. Continuing his short few years as Mayor with a meager City pay check was obviously not the choice his wife would have preferred. …. Quietly rumoring a run for Congress is a good excuse to offer his family and may be a wild option that holds his only hope for real retirement and income for his family … a family whose financial security has likely been sacrificed for Poe’s necrotic self indulgences.
If he runs, I see a lot of potential for a “What the people of Gainesville think about Mayor Lauren Poe” TV commercial. Have a big fundraiser with an effigy of Poe, some tar/feathers followed up by a fake guillotine, maybe also have a big Poe pinata for the kids. Inside would be a bunch of worthless IOUs on slips of paper.