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Has local realty companies bought the County Commission?

Commissioner Cornell represents the poorest county district

Buying more land to build a $23M animal shelter

$23M animal shelter to lock up dogs

Let the dogs roam on wild spaces the county owns

Candidate

Our Candidate

He Is Not Afraid To Speak Truth To Power

Anthony Johnson is not interested in throwing money at problem symptoms, he believes in addressing the root cause



Help me take Alachua County to the next level

Citizens in the east and west tell me we are heading in the wrong direction

The Board of County Commissioners has clearly moved away from any type of pragmatic governance and adopted a wild reckless ideologue driven style of governing that has all the sensible people on edge. Every experimental idea out of Palm Beach seems to land on fertile ground with the current crop of commissioners. They have yet to present any new meaningful ideas that doesn't call for higher taxes
I'm running to replace Ken Cornell because he is a large part of the problem. His close association with realtors and developers while serving on a County Commission that has the responsibility of approving or denying developer permits is a conflict of interest.

Anthony Johnson

Anthony Speaks To Real Issues
Anthony isn't just jumping on the bandwagon because it is a convenient time to do so

Regressive taxation does not require intelligent thinking

County government thinks it can regressively tax its way to prosperity. With each iteration of tax hikes, the county loses more of its citizens to surrounding low tax counties. Even county employees see the advantage of living outside the county. I don't see how continuing to over tax a shrinking tax base will be successful.

Discounts for building in Urban Cluster

Multi-Modal Transportation Mitigation (MMTM) is a blue light special for developers.

The current members of the BoCC inherited a situation where developers are given 39 percent discounts on impact fees, if they develop within the urban cluster. The logic behind giving such huge discounts was it would spur growth. The theory at the time was if developers built a certain way (mixed-use high density) there would be no reason to charge develops for traffic concurrency or road impact fees because their development would not result in more cars. With mixed-use development everybody would live, work, shop, and play in their neighborhood, so they would have no need for a car. Impact fees that cover Multi-Modal transportation (bikes and roller blades) are all the developer pays for a large 1500 unit apartment complex. Fee to cover automobile impacts are excluded from MMTM fees. The MMTM theory is still being pushed by the County Commission as our roads suffer from gridlock.

County doesn't believe a day of reckoning will ever come

Sales tax revenue is not something you don't want to get hooked on when you are responsible for managing a county. Sales tax revenue is not stable enough to make long term plans around. The County Commissioners do not want to face the fact that a day of reckoning is coming and sales tax revenue will drop below the projected amounts they have become dependent upon. Not only has the county shifted the majority of the discretionary budget to the sales tax bucket, they have plans to shift capital infrastructure spending to the sales tax revenue bucket as well.

Anthony's Views On His Opponents
Anthony is facing a Democrat and a Republican in November for County Commission District 4 seat.
This section of this page will be updated with the current snapshot of my opponents during the campaign.
Ken Cornell:
  • 07/15/2022- Ken Cornell was elected to the Florida Association of Counties (FAC) Board of Directors.

    FAC is a lobbying group that makes money by lobbying in Tallahassee. The group has no allegiance to any particular cause so it can be thought of as a prostitute that only cares about the money a John is willing to pay. FAC tried to lobby against the citizens of Alachua County who were in favor of allowing single member districts to be put on the November ballot. Ken Cornell solicited the service of FAC against his own people during his quest to suppress voter options on the November ballot. Ken Cornell's actions seem to indicate he has conceded the County Commission race or he plans to brazenly sit of FAC's board and the BoCC simultaneously. I can't help but question where Ken Cornell's priorities are.
Ken Cornell is a very likeable guy and fits the description of the quintessential politician. I personally think he would be great in Washington given his mastery of the political game. Unfortunately, his type of political gamesmanship at the County level requires too much symbolism in order for him to try to remain relevant. Local level politics because of their close proximity to the people require more than symbolic solutions.

The longer you are in politics the more baggage you accumulate. Ken Cornell has serious baggage he has to deal with; baggage that creates pressure, and is clearly a distraction to him. He is trying to rope-a-dope the pressure by not taking a hard stance on major issues that come before the board; taking the approach of trying to be for and against at the same time. His "slick Willie" style of politics is not good for the county, especially at a time when the public is looking to politicians to address their problems with real solutions, rather than symbolic ones.
Jame Elmore: James Elmore is relatively unknown to me and to be quite honest, I'd never heard of him until I saw his name as a candidate for district 4. Since then I've come to find out he is an ex-county employee where he put in around 31 years. I haven't heard him speak on any of the issues so I can't say much about him as an opponent yet. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is probably a good man given his service at the county.

I personally don't think he is ready for the County Commission given his short life away from government. In other words, I don't feel he has been acclimated into the real world yet after being in county government for so long. The county is in need of fresh new ideas forged in the crucible of the real world. Since government is inherently inefficient, putting Mr. Elmore on the County Commission as a replacement for Mr. Cornell would at best be seen as a lateral move by the voters. Feeding at the government trough for over three decades can have a distorting effect on one's decision making; principally due to the moral hazard situation between government and the taxpayers. I prefer to see James Elmore forge a path outside of government as a prerequisite to being seated as a member of the County Commission.
More About Anthony Johnson
Anthony has raised a family, had an illustrious career and managed to stay humble before God through it all; now he wants to give back
Anthony is a product of the Alachua County public school system (k-12).
Anthony's affinity for technology began to shine through at a very early age. As a third grader he became the go to person for teachers at Williams Elementary School whenever they were having film projector problems that they couldn't solve.

After graduating high school He was accepted into the Control Data Institute in San Francisco where he graduated with an AA degree in Electronic Technology. Silicon Valley was the ideal location for Anthony to begin his career and he efficiently made the most of his opportunities.

Anthony was given the opportunity to open a San Diego branch office for a Melbourne, FL based electronic field engineering company. The position was a good fit and Anthony excelled at servicing the aerospace industry as a field engineer.

He would retool and enhance his career by enrolling in the University of California San Diego where he received certifications in Web Publishing, Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Certificate, LAN/WAN Networking Fundamentals, and Unix Server Configuration and management.

Anthony as a savvy investor during this time was the youngest African American to apply for and be granted an FFC license giving him the right to own and operate a Cell Phone tower in Tucson, AZ.

Anthony enrolled in Coleman University San Marcos, CA where he graduated with a degree in Computer Information Systems. While at Coleman he was recruited by a group of venture capitalist that were looking to fulfill the Medicare RFP that was requesting ideas on how to transition from paper to electronic medical claims processing. Anthony and two other developers involved in this initiative went on to create the nation's second largest healthcare claims clearinghouse.

Anthony made a personal family decision to become a consultant so he could be more flexible in his career. He was always a dependable onshore resource for companies like Disney, IBM and BofA whenever they wanted to roll out a high profile project that required a specialized team of developers and architects.

Anthony made sure his family was equipped with the best technology while they were in school. He had them all on PCs and on the internet as early as 1990. He and his daughter built and sold PCs out of their garage during the early days of home computers, and to this day Anthony has never owned a computer he didn't custom build himself.

Anthony and his wife of forty-one years (Janice) have a low-stress medical billing and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) business that they enjoy as a way to keep busy.

Anthony wants to see the young men of Alachua County have a greater range of choices when it comes to earning a living. Anthony plans to bring back decent paying blue-collar jobs to Alachua County.

It breaks Anthony's heart when he sees so many worthless college degrees being sold today at such exorbitant prices. Anthony is a huge fan of trade-school and certificate programs.

Anthony wants to be a commissioner for plain old working class people; people who get up and get out there even though they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. With Anthony on the Board of County Commissioners, working people will at least be able to sleep better at night, not having to worry about what the county will hit them with next.
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