Charlie, Alachua, and exhaustion

I covered Alachua politics for several years as a journalist. I wrote the novel Tortoise Stew as a way to deal with the drama and traumas of covering the official business of this city. Charlie writes in one of his messages that he is “exhausted” by all that has been happening. That struck a nerve with me because I too felt exhausted every time I had to fight a battle for public records or play the game to get an interview.

Charlie attended a book talk about Tortoise Stew recently with several community members and the mayor of the neighboring community of Newberry. This mayor does not necessarily agree with Charlie’s methods, but at this talk both agreed that government becomes dysfunctional when the side in power refuses to listen to opposing opinions. This has been happening in Alachua probably since Reconstruction. When the ruling party refuses to listen, disenfranchisement occurs and democracy has gone underground.

The best thing about the discussion of Tortoise Stew occurred when Charlie and the mayor exchanged ideas and communicated ways to enfranchise citizens in order to make local government functional once again.

Alachua’s dysfunction needs to be used as an example in this country for how to destroy democracy.

Please feel free to post this email.

Patricia Camburn Behnke

www.authorsden.com/patriciacbehnke