I doubt anyone would argue that Manatee County's per-capita ratio of shameful and/or embarrassing events is among the worst in the nation. Whether it's animal cruelty, government corruption, or even insurrection, we've made national and even international headlines. This week, however, we really outdid ourselves.
In the midst of a pandemic, and in a scene reminiscent of the Hunger Games trilogy, the governor, some politically-connected developers, and our county commission chair seem to have conspired to ensure that some of the richest and least at-risk members of our senior community were allowed to jump the line in order to receive what is supposed to be a lottery system for getting the COVID vaccine.
Republican governor Ron DeSantis has been hosting "pop-up" vaccination events throughout the state, ostensibly to turbocharge overall vaccinations among those 65 and up. Only many of the sites chosen for the events seem to be Republican strongholds tied to powerful GOP donors, including one of Pat Neal's developments in Sarasota County.
Schroeder Manatee is the company that develops Lakewood Ranch. Its CEO, Rex Jensen, told the media that Neal called him, with DeSantis on the line, and asked about having such an event in a couple of Lakewood Ranch communities. Fearing backlash from other LWR neighborhoods that weren't selected, Jensen has said he decided to get the county involved through Manatee County Commission chair Vanessa Baugh, who is not only the commissioner for Lakewood Ranch but was elected with Jensen and other SMR entities providing her biggest block of financial support.
Rather than simply turning the matter over to the county health department and continuing to draw from the lottery pool of approximately 150,000 qualified residents who've yet to be vaccinated, Baugh unilaterally decided that they would come exclusively from two zip codes in her district, which happen to be among the wealthiest three zip codes in the county and have COVID numbers that are among the lowest.
In other words, while the 3,000 doses would be going to Manatee County seniors as DeSantis bragged on national television, the odds were increased that they would be delivered to those who needed them the least by any objective metric, jumping past many less-resourced, higher-risk residents who’d have to wait for their name to be drawn from a much larger pool. As there were only around 7,200 residents eligible in those two zip-codes–which have a median income of around double the county at-large–their odds of receiving the vaccine would obviously be drastically improved.
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If that dreadful act wasn't horrible enough, Baugh then directed staff to add five individuals to the list that wouldn't even have to take their near 50 percent chances, including Jensen and ... wait for it ... Baugh herself! That's right, a county commissioner who is worth millions of dollars by the way, according to her financial affidavits filed with the SOE, actually used her position to jump to the front of the line for a dose of a vaccine that protects against a deadly disease during a global pandemic while hundreds of thousands of people in the county, many of them poor and at heightened risk for death should they contract COVID, continue to cross their fingers and hope they'll get lucky at some point down the line. And if you think the story couldn’t possibly get worse, consider that Baugh has been a vocal critic of mask mandates and has routinely refused to wear one at public events and failed to ensure that other commissioners follow CDC guidelines at public meetings.
Of course, when word got out, the citizenry was justifiably livid. DeSantis flippantly proclaimed that if we didn't like the way he was doling out potentially-life saving vaccination doses, he could just as easily take them elsewhere, presumably another place dense with rich Republican donors who'd remember it when he launches the presidential bid he'll surely be delusional enough to one day attempt.
For her part, Baugh was anything but chastened by having been caught doing something so objectively vile that any other public official with a sliver of self-respect (or even self-awareness) would have immediately resigned over. Instead, she apologized. Not really for the terrible thing she did, however, but rather for the governor having been embarrassed by other people playing politics. Then, in one of the most obtuse scenes I've witnessed in nearly 25 years of journalism, she weirdly tried to heroify herself for not going through with her plan to get herself vaccinated ahead of everyone else–after she'd already been caught jumping the line. How brave of you, commissioner.
To hear the Baugh supporters on the right-wing of Manatee County politics tell it, the very fact that 3,000 additional people have been vaccinated is a victory for all citizens because it simply improves the odds for the rest of the pool, since those privileged few will no longer be competing for the available doses–more than 5,000 of which were canceled this week because of transportation delays owed to the snowstorms hammering much of the U.S.
Baugh got one thing right, however. No one should play politics when it comes to a deadly virus. But that's exactly what she and the governor did. These aren't their vaccine doses. They are not the spoils of elections to be doled out as the winning factions see fit and in a way that will benefit their future campaigns. They are the people's vaccine doses and should be delivered in a manner that is just and equitable.
If DeSantis wants to increase the number of people getting vaccinated, he shouldn't be calling private citizens who happen to be big-time GOP donors, offering to set up shop in a place that will make all of them look good to people they care about. He should be calling the doctors at our health departments and asking how giving them thousands of additional doses might best benefit their community, which, in our case, would have been adding them to the existing pool, or, if he was going to allow us to break from the state's own requirements and single out groups that were to get preferential treatment, it should have been based on heightened risk, not heightened political payoff. And if a county commissioner is approached about helping a private citizen whose money and donations entitles him to a direct line to the governor about assisting, they should do the same.
In a normal, pre-Trump world, Baugh would probably have no choice but to resign over such a spectacular failure of leadership. But as she said Tuesday, she wasn't going to, not even close. In her mind, she's a victim, just like the governor. A victim of all of the mean people who'd rather play politics than just accept that she's the chair and will do as she sees fit, whether it's within the scope of that position or not. If ever there were a modern parallel to the Let Them Eat Cake quote often ascribed to Marie Antoinette ...
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At Tuesday’s meeting, county commissioners are scheduled to vote on firing county administrator Cheri Coryea in a 2:30 p.m. time-certain item, a proposition that comes at a big price tag for taxpayers. Four commissioners (Baugh and her three recently-elected allies on the board) have already signaled they will do just that. For her part, it was reported this week that Coryea suggested randomly pulling the 3,000 names right from the countywide pool, and Baugh admitted Tuesday that it was she who directed Public Safety Director Jacob Saur to use the zip codes she herself had chosen. It should be noted that directing staff is not the role of an individual commissioner or even the chair.
That said, Commissioner Baugh has long proven herself nothing if not woefully inept in terms of understanding the board's policies and procedures, or public policy in general, despite having served on the board for over eight years. She’s the type of elected official, one that is becoming increasingly common, who, despite having such a limited grasp, spends far more time and energy offering opinions than asking questions, and it’s this inability to sit silently that so often demonstrates her ineptitude. If only her new allies on the board had been more familiar with BOCC politics, they may have considered this obvious reality before giving her the gavel.
Still, when confronted with the painfully obvious on Tuesday, not one commissioner moved to reorganize the board–even after Baugh not only confessed to orchestrating the two-zip code stunt but to abusing her position by way of putting her own name at the front of the line! So, to be clear, Baugh will not be resigning, the only one who can remove her is DeSantis, it seems she’ll remain chair, and Coryea will be the one held accountable, though no one has been able to meaningfully articulate exactly for what. Her greatest sin, it seems, is not being named Dominic DiMaio (the much less-qualified candidate that politically-connected developer Carlos Beruff had lobbied commissioners to hire as administrator when Ed Hunzeker moved on).
We’ve reached peak insanity, folks. Not that it can’t get worse. I’m sure it can and will. We’ve just gone way past the point where our local government can be taken seriously in any way whatsoever. Congratulations, commissioners. You’ve spent millions of dollars of your special-interest donors’ money to get seats on a board that you’ve turned into nothing more than a tired punchline to an old joke. It was already disreputable, mind you. You just turned it into a theater of the absurd.
And while some of the partisan cheerleaders you insulate yourselves with will no doubt continue along with the charade, referring to you as the honorable commissioner whoever when they introduce you at some hobnob or fundraiser where you types pat each other on the backs and convince each in turn that you’re all courageous heroes who are all but saving the world, just listen closely, and I’m sure you’ll hear the echoes of laughter coming from anyone who happens to pay attention to the embarrassing charade that is Manatee County politics–or tears and sobs from those who've been left behind and for whom laughs are a luxury.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of ourweekly podcast. He is also the host ofPunk Rock Politixon YouTube. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. His latest book, Burn Black Wall Street Burn, is scheduled for release in late April. His other books are availablehere.
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