Servia’s links to developers troublesome

The Herald’s recent editorial justly criticized the Bert J. Harris Property Rights Protection Act. It impedes the ability of a community to control growth.

However, your editorial was too quick to dismiss the link between campaign contributions from developers and the actions of officials elected after having their campaigns bankrolled by developer-friendly interests. You correctly state that “voters should examine the list of a candidate’s supporters,” yet you ignored those lists when making endorsements during the primary.

In the District 3 School Board race, you failed to inform the public that a large portion of challenger Misty Servia’s support comes from developers and those in related industries. It is necessary to look beyond the standard contribution disclosures to see if there is a connection to a special interest group. An internet search on each contributor reveals what each supporter does for a living and with whom they are allied.

Based on information at votemanatee.com, Ms. Servia received $57,526 of which $13,000 are loans she made to her campaign, for a net of $44,526 from supporters; $33,048.66 of that amount, or 74.2 percent, came from the developers or those in related industries.

More troubling is that Servia’s job as a planner with King Engineering, a major provider of services to nearly all local developers, will force her to abstain from voting on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditures as our growing district adds classrooms in the coming years. She cannot vote on matters that could financially benefit clients of her employer. Electing Servia would reduce the School Board to four voting members on many of the most important questions that will come before it.

This story was originally published October 10, 2016 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Servia’s links to developers troublesome."