Early last week, State Representative Randy Fine was criticized for placing his campaign signs illegally on City and County property.
Fine in turn threatened the City of Palm Bay’s City Attorney Patricia Smith for the existence of the ordinance prohibiting the practice he is in violation of.
City and County workers spent half their days throughout the week collecting his signs and bringing them to public works.
Fine would then send a representative to public works to pick his signs up and place them right back where they were. He told workers he would just let them pick them up so he could collect them from one centralized location instead of having to drive around the district picking them up himself.
This has costs the tax payers thousands of dollars, and there is technically no punishment for the practice in the ordinance itself. Several citizens have stated that there should be a Rand ‘Fine” added to the enforcement portion of the ordinance.
However, on Thursday, one of Fine’s State staff, Anna Budko, was seen at 9:30 in the morning putting up Fine’s signs in Rhodes Park. She was actually approached by Fine’s opponent Dr. Adkins while Anna was surrounding Dr. Adkins’ one of two signs out there with Randy’s sign.
So now, not only is Fine wasting tax payer dollars for the city and county by forcing workers to have to pick up his signs, but now he’s using state workers paid with tax dollars to put them out.
Keep in mind Fine recently called elected officials with official government cell phones criminals for wasting tax dollars, stating they should just use their own cell phone like he does.
What does this make him?
Creating a Randy “Fine” in all municipalities would make great sense and would be a simple matter of economics and good government.
Local governments should certainly estimate how much staff time and gasoline it costs to pick up each sign. All candidates should also certainly have to pay to pick up each sign.
I would suggest $5 per each small sign and $50 for each large sign, believing that that would cover the costs plus have a little extra punitive wallop to make them “follow the law”.