Stabins Win Sends Mixed Message

Given the widespread disdain shown toward the three incumbent county commissioners following a contentious budget hearing last summer, there was much interest Thursday to see how the first of them would fare during the primary election.

Republican Jeff Stabins trounced his two opponents and is now headed for a November showdown with Democratic challenger Ramon Gutierrez.

Now it's incumbent Democrats Diane Rowden and Chris Kingsley's turn.

Stabins' 43 percent margin of victory is a message from the citizens that they are happy with the current level of leadership from their elected officials, said Rowden, who will do battle with Republican John Druzbick in November.

It discredits those who are "trying to disseminate propaganda, half-truths and no truths out there," Rowden said.

"I've said all along that the people in Hernando County are smart," Rowden said. "They pay attention, they watch the government broadcasting channel, they read the newspapers and they call us and they see the results out there.

"We've lowered the millage, streamlined government and we're doing what the people mandated," she said.

Kingsley said he believes much of the anti-incumbent attitude has died down in recent months because the county, especially since the hiring of a new county administrator, has done what the public has asked.

The department streamlining, government transparency, accountability and stricter attention to spending habits is having an effect, said Kingsley, who faces off against Republican James Adkins in November.

"Some people are stuck in the past and we're moving into the future," Kingsley said, referring to anti-government activists.

One of those activists is Blaise Ingoglia, who organized a series of Government Gone Wild seminars last summer that purported to show a lack of fiscal constraint by Stabins, Kingsley and Rowden.

This week, Ingoglia launched a Web site called www.hernandotruth.com to press his point.

Ingoglia doesn't view Stabins' win as a ringing endorsement for the incumbents. Quite the contrary, he said.

"Jeff Stabins could not even get 44 percent of the vote in his own party as an incumbent," Ingoglia said. "Which means that if he was running against one person, he would have lost."

Ingoglia said Stabins' two opponents, Burmann and Zydenbos, canceled out each other's vote, enabling Stabins to win.

"The people of Hernando County have spoken and they are telling Jeff Stabins resoundingly that they did not approve of the job that he did," Ingoglia said.

"Just because he won doesn't mean that the overall community approves of his overall decisions," he said.

"Having said all of that, I personally would like to see Jeff get back to his roots and the reason why we all voted for him in the first place," said Ingoglia, who has vowed to use his own money to defeat the incumbents.

Linda Hayward and her grass roots Hernando County Taxpayers Alliance were also vocal in getting the anti-incumbent vote out.

She called Stabins' win a letdown and, like Ingoglia, believes the other opponents' presence on the ballot allowed the incumbent to come out on top.

"I don't think I was surprised but I am very disappointed with that race," Hayward said.

However, Hayward said she will not give up the fight and will focus now on the November election to get Adkins elected over Kingsley.

As for the Rowden-Druzbick match-up, "I honestly (think) they are one and the same," she said dejectedly.