this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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New Florida law requires city officials to disclose net worth; some are resigning instead (www.usatoday.com)
submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Two Daytona Beach Shores city commissioners have resigned as the latest in a wave of local elected officials leaving before Jan. 1, when they face more stringent financial disclosure requirements.

Mel Lindauer, a Shores commissioner since 2016, told The News-Journal on Wednesday the new requirement − submitting what's known as Form 6 − is "totally invasive" and serves no purpose.

Commissioner Richard Bryan, who has also served since 2016, said in his Dec. 21 resignation letter that he had another priority but added the Form 6 issue "affected the timing" of his decision.

...

Many state officials already file a Form 6, including the governor and Cabinet, legislators, county council members and sheriffs. The forms require disclosure of the filer's net worth and holdings valued at more than $1,000, including bank accounts, stocks, retirement accounts, salary and dividends.

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[–] derf82@lemmy.world 153 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"What difference does it make if one elected official is worth $100,000 and the other is worth $10 million?" he asked. "That's totally irrelevant."

Because I trust someone worth $100k or less to have my interests at heart far more than someone worth $10M. Do these people really not get that?

People are sick and tired of being ruled by the wealthy. The truth is, city government pay is often so bad, it’s only the wealthy with large passive income that will go for it.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 99 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It also shows who's accepting other money. If you're worth $10m but entered office with a lot less, the office doesn't pay enough for you to have earned all of that. You must have accepted ~~bribes~~ "donations" to get there.

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 49 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Exactly this. Finance transparency should be a requirement for public officials. I honestly don't care if my politician has a NW of 10 million. I do care if that's tied to industries they are supposed to be regulating. I also care if they started out with nothing and became millionaires after joining politics.

That said, billionaires should be barred from ever interacting with politics. Congratulations, you won capitalism, now leave the rest of us alone.

[–] jimbolauski@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

City officials typically don't take bribes, they'll buy land after learning about a project, or select a company for a job that uses supplies from your company. One of the famous politicians in my area bought a bunch of land when a highway project was announced and made millions.

[–] Nerrad@lemmy.world 112 points 11 months ago (3 children)

LOL. How in the world did this legislation get passed? In Florida, of all places.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 81 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, sponsored the legislation in the Florida Senate. Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, sponsored the House version of the bill and said it brings "parity" among elected officials.

Also sponsored by Republicans, voted for by a state Congress with a Republican super majority, I'd love to know what the catch is, but it's definitely a law that should be everywhere, public servants should always have transparency to prevent corruption and as the sponsor said "bring parity" to local elections.

[–] Meltrax@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The catch is that it applies to city officials, not state or national level. So, not to any of the Republicans who sponsored or supported it.

[–] danl@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

Nah. It already applies to everyone else - this is maybe just about limiting the pool of challengers.

From the Florida Government site :

Who Must File Form 6: All persons holding the following positions: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Cabinet members, members of the Legislature, State Attorneys, Public Defenders, Clerks of Circuit Courts, Sheriffs, Tax Collectors, Property Appraisers, Supervisors of Elections, County Commissioners, elected Superintendents of Schools, members of District School Boards, Mayor and members of the Jacksonville City Council, Judges of Compensation Claims; the Duval County Superintendent of Schools, and members of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation Board, each expressway authority, transportation authority (except the Jacksonville Transportation Authority), bridge authority, toll authority, or expressway agency created pursuant to Chapter 348 or 343, F.S., or any other general law, and judges, as required by Canon 6, Code of Judicial Conduct.

[–] reversebananimals@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

I'm surprised too but it sounds like its working as intended!

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

I was about to say that finally something good is coming from the state. Got used to disappointing headlines.

[–] UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 100 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Meanwhile in Norway every citizen can look up any other person's tax returns. Income and fortune all neatly presented on a government website.

[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 57 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I just today learned that Finland does this as well. It took a while to consider, but it would help people to get paid fair wages, detect corruption, and to generally ensure people are more honest about their finances. Overall, it's a very different approach to what it means to be in a society together.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think this works much better in society with low inequality, or maybe for ones that got rid of most robbers, scammers, and fraudsters. But then again, maybe Finland and Norway are good in that regard and that's great then.

[–] jwt@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And by 'works much better' you mean: there won't be country-wide outrage, I assume? I think it's actually meant to bring to light inequalities, awkward as it may be.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

No, I meant less targeted robbing and burglary, and people that can rest peacefully knowing that they earn pretty much the same amount as their neighbour

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Privacy is by and large the tool of the powerful to abuse power and privilege.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago (6 children)

This sounded like a bad idea to me, but I can't actually come up with a reason why, so maybe it's not.

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

I can see why people would not like it from a privacy standpoint. It would never fly in America for everyone. For government officials? I like this one.

[–] jantin@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The reason is it's like a treasure map with multiple "x"-es for any burglar. While in the Nordics it's not that much of a problem (though I did read once or twice stories of people who were repeatedly and uniquely targeted because they were somewhat richer than their neighbours and despite not showing off), in any country with a large, unsupported poor population and limited to none public trust...

[–] TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's almost like places with honest and open financial records like that have policies that support less income equality and therefore less thieves exist there. What a concept.

[–] force@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I wouldn't exactly say that, Nordic countries have extraordinarily high rates of theft/robbery/burglary compared to the rest of Europe despite the fact that most people report feeling more safe from said crimes. Usually rates of those kinds of crimes are mostly correlated with how "rich" a country is, for example most first-world western countries have pretty high rates of theft while the "poorer" eastern European countries have extremely low rates of theft (and certain other crimes like rape and assault) – it's a pretty big culture shock to go to e.g. Tirana and see store owners just leaving €200 bottles of wine or jewelry or whatever on display outside the store without any containers, or women walking alone at night in secluded areas, because it's so uncommon to get crimed that way.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with the post-communism and very high income equality in those countries, or maybe it's because of extremely harsh punishment for said crimes under communism, but in the context of "richer" countries income equality seems not to be a big factor compared to how "privileged" or financially well-off the average person in the country is (in the context of the EU and America/Canada). But that's just the culture you get when you center your economy around capitalism/corporatism for centuries and money is made the most important thing/the biggest measure of success.

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sauce for Nordic crime rates? This disagrees: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2023®ion=150

[–] force@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

The link doesn't show me what you intend for it to show for some reason (Edit: it may be lemmy or my app, it is inserting a "registered trademark" symbol in place of the string reg). But here:

Robbery (2003-2017) – https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/robery/Europe/ Notice robbery is higher in Western/Northern European countries, notably Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, compared to most Eastern European countries. Some outliers like Norway.

Larceny ("Theft"), Robbery, Rape, Assault (compiled from Eurostat 2018-2020) – https://www.eupedia.com/europe/crime_maps_of_europe.shtml for theft, robbery, and rape, western European countries lead by a long shot with an obvious extreme spike in Nordic countries. Burgalary is more of a mixed bag, with northern Europe and France/Belgium/Netherlands/Switzerland/Austria/northern Italy doing pretty god-awful, compared to just Slovenia/Croatia/Bosnia/Hungary doing poorly. Eastern European countries have much lower rates of assault than Germany, Italy, France (with the excetion of Hungary) but comparable to the rest of Europe. Homicide would seem more common in non-EU eastern/southern European countries + Romania&Bulgaria however.

Homicide (2021) – https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268504/homicide-rate-europe-country/ this suggests eastern/western doesn't have noticeable impact on murder, and most EU/associated countries form a relatively steady progression, with the exceptions of Finland, Albania, Montenegro, and the Baltics which are higher – with Sweden and France being the next highest of course.

The website you referenced also seems to give total crime overall (not specific crimes) to be mostly unrelated to geography in the relevant countries it has data for, with France, Belgium, and Sweden having the most. numbeo

Generally it seems like the statistics agree with me, although the amount of things that compare specifically theft between European countries is surprisingly little. And I'm mostly emphasizing theft since that has a clear correlation with highly capitalism-centric economies.

To clarify terminology, when I speak of "eastern Europe" I generally am referring to the UN Statistics geoscheme plus Croatia and Albania, in EU or EU association. I feel that is generally the best definition to work with and encompasses what most people think of "eastern Europeans" in this kind of context (but I'm sure some people think of eastern Europe as Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, or the Baltics instead). And of course "northern Europe" is Scandinavia + Finland, "western Europe" is anything that lies east of Czechia + northern Europe (not the UK though). Slovenia is kind of impossible to label as one so I won't argue for any categorization but most western Europeans would probably place it in "eastern" if they had to choose between that and "western" due to being post-communist & Slavic-language speaking.

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah you specifically stated that Nordic crime rates are higher than EU, which your own references prove to be completely false.

[–] force@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

What? I stated rates of theft (larceny, burgalary, robbery, etc.), rape, & (for non-nordic countries) assault are generally higher in nordic countries & richer western countries compared to eastern Europe. Which the sources literally prove. Theft & related crimes and rape are consistently extremely high in the north (especially Sweden) and a little less so in the west, and very low comparably in most of eastern EU. The exception is robbery for Norway & Denmark. Assault is extremely high in Germany, France, Italy compared to eastern Europe except for Hungary. It's also fun to note that the amount of eastern Europeans who report seeing/experiencing a crime is much less than people in rest of Europe.

That goes along almost exactly with my initial statement that theft crimes as well as rape & assault are generally much higher in rich western & especially northern European countries (with a few exceptions for some crimes). I didn't say "all crime is higher in nordic countries". You're grasping at straws and just blatantly lying saying it's "completely false" that nordic countries have much higher theft or burgalary or especially rape etc. lol.

But this comment was mainly about theft. Because the OOP was claiming that nordic countries have low theft. Which is the complete opposite of reality, it's completely false – they have the highest theft in Europe. I'm sorry you don't like the data but you can't just deny reality (well, I guess you can deny reality if you really want to).

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nordic countries have extraordinarily high rates of theft/robbery/burglary compared to the rest of Europe

This you? It’s fucking false. Stop moving the goalposts between east and west Europe and admit you are wrong or at least misspoke.

[–] force@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah buddy I can't help it if you're stupid. You can literally look at the maps which are very conveniently laid out for you, oh what's this when you look at theft? They are the highest in Europe by far. Oh and what's this, burgarlary is way higher in nordic countries than it is in most other European countries too??? No way, I wouldn't believe it if it weren't RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF US. Oh and finally, Sweden is much higher in Robbery rates than most of Europe, with Finland also being in not so good shape! Impossible, astonishing even.

The only way you can interpret this data as "nordic countries don't have high theft rates" is if you exclude most of Europe. Which is why I brought up eastern Europe, they usually show a stark contrast in these crimes and many of them have comparable or greater population than Nordic countries (Poland literally has more population than all of them combined). They are very relevant to the discussion

And I guess your reading comprehension sucks too because in the first comment I immediately mentioned how countries who aren't "those dirty eastern europoors" (as western europeans often think if them) generally have a lot more crime, there was no "goalpost shifting" that was in my original comment lmfao.

I don't have the patience to deal with your ineptitude anymore. Good day.

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Dumbest motherfucker ever. Learn to read data asshat.

[–] force@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Jesus Christ no way you're this stupid. I'll spoonfeed it to you like you're five I guess:

WOW, look at that, they ALL have higher rates than the ENTIRETY of mainland Europe, with Denmark, Sweden, and Finland having at least 2x the amount of most western countries and 5-10x the amount of most eastern countries.

Compared to the other European single market countries (not micronations) which have data, Sweden & Denmark is the same as or worse than 18 (86%) of them, Finland is the same as or worse than 14 (67%) of them, with only Norway not being way higher than most at 8 (38%). Almost as if it proves my generalization to be accurate! Unless you for some reason misinterpreted it as "ALL Nordic countries have higher of EVERY CRIME than EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY EVER under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES", in which case that's on your own stupidity, not anything wrong with my comment. For specifically robbery it's clearly less clear-cut, but Sweden is still clearly much worse with it than ALL of Europe except for Spain, Portugal, and Belgium/Luxembourg, and Finland has worse rates than 14 (61%) of the other single market countries with data (again, other than micronations):

Pretty much the same thing applies to motor theft (although I find that less relevant).

Oh and just in case you suddenly don't like maps, or you just really hate Eurostat for some reason, here's a different source from 2016 which will of course be different from 2023 statistics, but it's still generally pretty accurate to modern statistics like the ones already discussed. Denmark and Sweden are LITERALLY the two highest, with Norway and Finland being 5th and 6th. I don't generally pile on Iceland since they're kind of weird and complete outliers in a lot of ways compared to the rest of Europe, but just in case you care they're 13th here which is still worse than half even when you take out all the unrelated countries. And here's another funny graph for burgalaries from 2019, Denmark is the highest by a large margin and Sweden is 3rd.

Like I get that you can't handle being wrong, but like God damn you're literally denying reality. I have to present you this shit like you're a middle schooler for you to understand because apparently you're too braindead to process basic statistics. Go whine to someone else, better yet don't turn your lack of basic brain functioning into other peoples' problem.

[–] Keineanung@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

Had the exact same thought process.

[–] Valar_Morghulis@jlai.lu 10 points 11 months ago

Because you see it from your personal point of view. Seeing it from a government perspective it’s public money and should be easily identified. Also if I remember correctly, in Norway you have to identify yourself to get access to the data.

[–] havokdj@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Because it could potentially subject you to a planned robbery? That's about it, although I think it definitely depends on the place too. Norway likely doesn't have to worry about that issue.

[–] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it's because tax forms also contain information that definitely should not be available to anyone who wants it. Employer information especially - anyone trying to escape from an abuser really doesn't want that info widely available.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

You don't have to reveal everything on the form.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

I'm in favor of transparency, but this sounds like it was designed to put democrats in prison.

It only applies to city officials, not county or state, (more likely to be democrats) and has stiff penalties for any errors discovered during an audit.

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 74 points 11 months ago

Every level of government should require this, IMO.

If folks want to resign over it, I get it, and that's fine. You are meant to be replaced regularly anyway. Career politicians are more of a bug than a feature.

If you don't want people to know your finances, you shouldn't be a public servant. Power should include transparency.

[–] crackajack@reddthat.com 48 points 11 months ago

I am surprised they even passed that law. For Floridian standards, this is good and the bar isn't even high 😂

[–] Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago

The one's resigning are the people that shouldn't be in office. It's likely a great benefit to Florida that they're gone.

[–] JokeDeity@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

Hmmm, 2016... Did something else happen around that time that may have emboldened certain people with certain idealogies to get into positions of power?

[–] fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

Corrupt Florida men and women fecking off from positions of power they shouldn't deserve.

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 11 months ago

I might resign too. But in my case it would be because I didn't want to quantify how little my life has amounted to.

[–] moody@lemmings.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

People are afraid of others knowing how much money they make. Either out of pride or shame, or out of fear that something out of place may be discovered.