Is Vanessa Baugh playing politics with naming of new Manatee park?
Baugh is pushing commissioners to name new park, even though it's in Misty Servia's district.
Every organization has “unwritten rules,” regulations and constraints that guide and/or restrain behaviors that are assumed over time but never written down. The Manatee County Commission is no exception.
One of the commission’s unwritten rules, but referred to frequently, is that you defer to another commissioner’s wishes when a decision being considered affects only residents of that commissioner’s district or is similarly parochial. After all, they know their district the best — and who knows when you will need the favor returned? Think setting a new speed limit on a neighborhood street or the naming of a park.
Commissioner Vanessa Baugh has apparently chosen to break this rule.
Baugh, the commissioner for District 5, has added to the commission’s meeting agenda for May 24 the naming of a new neighborhood park being developed adjacent to Kinnan Elementary School, in District 4, which is represented by Commissioner Misty Servia.
Servia had taken the lead in the effort to come up with a name for the park. She produced a video about the new park and encouraged residents to submit possible names.
The county received about 350 responses to an online survey between Feb. 18 and April 1, with about 25% of the suggestions being that the park, whose main features will be a walking trail and a dog park, be named after Gov. Ron DeSantis. Other names mentioned included Army Spc. Christopher Cobb, a Manatee native killed in combat in Iraq in 2004; former presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump; and Snooty the manatee.
What’s going on with Baugh and the naming of the park? One theory circulating among some Baugh critics on social media is that Baugh hopes to stain Servia, who set a detailed process for how the park should be named, as being a RINO, or “a Republican in name only,” if she objects to naming the park after the governor. That could benefit Mike Rahn, who with Baugh’s support is challenging Servia from her right in the GOP primary in August. (Baugh, who frequently clashes with Servia, has donated money to Rahn’s campaign.)
The names of the residents — and others — who responded to the survey have been redacted from the summary posted on the county’s website, so it’s impossible to determine, for instance, how many people responded more than once.
But there are signs of a possibly organized effort to name the new park after DeSantis. For example, of the more than 90 votes in favor of DeSantis, about 85 were submitted between March 24 and April 1.
The meeting agenda item does not list Baugh’s preference for a name, but she has a history of gushing her fealty to the governor — especially since early last year after she abused his good graces with the vaccinegate mess.
The Florida Ethics Commission has found probable cause to believe Baugh broke several written rules — including a commission policy on how the county was to distribute COVID-19 vaccines — when she organized an exclusive clinic for residents of two zip codes in her district after DeSantis delivered a couple thousand extra doses to Manatee when supplies were tight. Text messages showed that Baugh, among other things, hoped the clinic would boost the governor’s political fortunes in the county.
One result of that scandal, which remains unresolved, is that DeSantis could ultimately decide whether Baugh remains in office if her ethics trial before an administrative law judge later this summer goes bad for the commissioner.
The eventual name of the park, and really, which commissioner suggests it, doesn’t matter. The park will be open to all residents and their dogs, who certainly will enjoy it no matter its name.
What’s critical is that the process that leads to the naming of something as apolitical as a park is not manipulated to achieve a political advantage.
That should be another unwritten rule.
You can reach the writer at Marc.R.Masferrer@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @mrmasferrer. You can also like The Bradenton Journal on Facebook.
I’ve lived in this community less than a mile from that park and we are rich in history in our subdivision that has been decades here longer than any wall community
I submitted the name New Pearce which has a long line of history in this area dating back to the 1800s. If it should be named anything it should be names for our community of New Pearce… For the record