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Hernandez's silence shows lack of candor

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By TOM JACKSON

Published: October 25, 2009

It is the nature of politicians - just as it is the nature of spouses - to be occasionally irritating, sometimes vexing and oftentimes disagreeable. But for the relationship to endure these intermittent setbacks, the politician - like the spouse - must maintain, on the important issues, a flawless transparency erected on a foundation of honesty.

In Dade City, the time has come to assess where Camille Hernandez stands on those fundamental virtues. If her constituents find her lacking, she'll have no one to blame but herself.

Almost since her election in spring 2006, Hernandez has been an aggravation.

After running a campaign trumpeting openness in city government, she claimed not to be bound by the state's Sunshine Laws between her election and taking office. (She later relented.) In July 2007, she sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist requesting an investigation of then-Mayor Hutch Brock for "coercive practice, deceit, corruption" and so on, assertions easily refuted by the record.

Indeed, the entire 2008 municipal election campaign amounted to a referendum on Hernandez, then said to have had her eye on the mayor's post. For the record, two of the three candidates opposed to enhancing her status won.

Transparency, mugged

But, hey, you can't make pearls without irritants, and a certain portion of the Dade City electorate has continued to support Hernandez's unorthodox methods, remembering commission activities B.C. - Before Camille - as tending toward stagnation and old-boy favoritism.

As evidence of gem-making at work, some of her rivals on the board were willing, recently, to approve city dollars to rehabilitate the downtown building Hernandez owns with her husband, David Hernandez, across from the historic county courthouse.

Who's dysfunctional now?

Last week, however, Hernandez crossed the line.

While painting the repeal of the city's decades-old prohibition against private wells as a simple matter of property rights, as well as a boon to homeowners who would no longer use drinking water for irrigation, Hernandez failed the test of transparency.

Failed it? More like she mugged it, took it in a back alley and worked it over with a black jack and brass knuckles.

A failure to disclose

Throughout the board's discussion, Hernandez never took the opportunity to utter the simple phrase that would have lifted her off the hook of duplicity: "For the record and in the interest of full disclosure, there is a private well on my property."

But such an admission would have raised more questions than the Hernandezes seem inclined to answer, the first and foremost of them being: When was the well sunk?

Despite the requests of two city hall administrations, the pair have yet to provide documentation that the well was sunk by a previous owner and was thus covered by the ordinance's grandfathering clause.

Whether it was or wasn't, however, is immaterial as it pertains to the commissioner's truthfulness. If it's legal, you declare it, prove it, celebrate its benefits and move on. If it's not, you declare it and demonstrate that it has been capped, pending the outcome of the board's decision.

That Hernandez did neither reveals an unconscionable fecklessness. Whatever the merits of expunging anti-well ordinance, Hernandez's absence of candor cannot be overlooked, countenanced or otherwise tolerated.

By appearing to inject personal gain into policymaking, she has placed the integrity of the entire city commission at stake.

When news broke about the Hernandez well Wednesday, at least one of the commissioners who voted with the sponsor for repeal - the commissioner who is not Camille's reliable sycophant - must have felt especially had. Fortunately, Roberts Rules of Order allows a member of the winning side of a vote to reintroduce the matter for reconsideration.

We eagerly await Steve Van Gorden's historic motion.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for Tom Jackson's bonus insights.

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