A Post-Election Debrief

I recently caught hell for calling a former, super-long-time commissioner the foundation of good ole boy in my city. That person, Tom Fellows, won this year’s election after clearly spending way more than his opponent. I mention this because on election night, while I was waiting for the ballots to arrive at City Hall, another former commissioner stopped me and said that I had called him a good ole boy. Memory kicked in when I realized I had never called him that.

“Not true.” I said, but, no-o, he doubled down insisting that, yes, I did call him that, as he laughed and laughed. He began listing all of his educational achievements on his fingers. And was about to go somewhere else with his monologue when the room was called to order and the counting of votes began. He quickly sat down and I decided to let it go.

Come the end of the night and I’m standing outside with this same fella in the frickin’ rain as he asks his wife, a current commish, if I indeed called him that. She immediately busted out saying, “No. It was Barbara.” Wonder who that could be? Perhaps another former commish?

Anyway. In the end, he apologized to me and I found out more about who he hangs with. A win-win. I also found out that politicians are excessively sensitive to the phrase “good ole boy,” which I find to be one funny-as-hell quirk in those kinds of folks. (Seriously, if you don’t act like a good ole boy, you won’t be called one.)

What Could Improve

While there appears to be room for improvement in Davenport’s election processes, one area stuck out to me: the notifications to voters that elections were coming up.

As did others, I noticed that not even one election-reminder sign this year was placed anywhere in the Jamestown area, a neighborhood that seems to get forgotten far too often. There wasn’t a sign even near the area. Apparently the election-reminder signage was distributed pretty much on Davenport Blvd and the downtown area. Neither Jamestown nor our local HOA communities received any reminder signage.

Another area that needs improvement is voter turnout, which apparently no one anywhere in Polk County has the will to do anything about. Just get a load of Polk County’s commissioner Bill Braswell’s take on why there’s low voter turnout. (It’s at right.)

Generally this is not a problem that can be blamed on city staff. The basis for this problem is dead-on with our politicians. Braswell, for example, considers Polk voters “naïve,” ignorant and without imagination. Pretty ballsy for anyone to say, but a county commissioner?

In short, Braswell doesn’t know why folks around here don’t vote. (To be sure, it’s a problem throughout the US, but we’re not talking about them here. We’re only talking about Polk County, Florida, and Davenport for this article.) According Jan Brennan of the Civic League, Bradenton, Florida, reached a 47% voter participation rate in their last mayoral election. They did that by engaging with voters, not just during their elections but all the time.

As far as I can tell, Davenport’s commissioners rarely engage voters, although they do seem to try during elections. Folks notice that and respond accordingly. In Davenport’s case, residents respond by not voting. Why should they? Our politicians not only can’t seem to make the case for voting, they have never even tried.

Back in 2023, I spoke to all of our commissioners about this issue. To date, they have not responded, nor have they done anything about it. Davenport’s voter turnout remains below 10%, as usual, and will continue to be so as long as our politicians remain uncommunicative with constituents outside of election time. Residents need (not want but need) to know about what goes on inside these various Chamber meetings and what the heck they’re up to in the name of Davenport.

And the Winner Is …

Good ole boy or not, no matter what he is, Tom Fellows, ironically a Law & Order Party member, is back on our Board. If he serves two full terms, he’ll have been our commissioner (or should I say, commissar) for 26 years with nothing but a 10-month break (not even one full term) off the Board.

In 2025, this action of him running again for office was in clear violation of Charter Article II. Section 2.01 (2) – Term Limits, but, no-o, if you thought there were term limits in Davenport, think again. There is something in the Charter called term limits but it apparently does not apply to good ole boys.

Whether he likes it or not, that will end up being a part of Fellows’ legacy to this city. It will be his ability to have openly violated rules that American people in Davenport put forth in writing, a very MAGA thing to do, and you can be sure Tom Fellows is a very MAGA man. He will be one of three Republicans on our Board of Commissioners, the other two are an NPA (no party affiliation) and a DINO.

It’s About the Rules

Rosie O’Donnell, who fled the US in January 2025, asks questions that all Americans, including MAGAs, should be asking themselves. When you pose to yourself her questions, it becomes clear that MAGAs, all of them, are not only fooling themselves, they are also expecting that intelligent and woke Americans will eventually accept the felonious, treasonous, American traitor we know as Felon 47 as the true and legitimate President of the United States. He is not. His sycophants, like our good friend MAGA Tom Fellows, will be documented in history as being even more willfully ignorant than the Germans were when Adolph Hitler rose to power. Our politicians must be held to account for adhering to rules, all rules. You too, Fellows fam.