Open prediction thread

On this Election Day we’ll reveal two things:

• Progressive Pensacola publisher Derek Cosson voted YES several days ago.
• We’re hoping for a yes vote, but our official prediction is a 53-47 NO vote.

We believe there are flaws in the proposed charter, and there were flaws in the process that created it — but overall, it’s a good document, and would make a good foundation for the City of Pensacola’s future. It’s got some excellent provisions such as citizen initiative, independent redistricting, and regular charter review.

We want a mayor who can lead the City. We want a mayor like Sam Jones in Mobile who can bring thousands of jobs to the community and aggressively annex to ensure our City’s growth. We want a mayor like Rick Baker in St. Petersburg who can bring commercial and residential development to our downtown area. Under our current system, true leadership simply isn’t possible. Our ceremonial mayor isn’t given the authority or the resources to do what needs to be done.

And those flaws we mentioned? The good news is that the proposed charter is much easier to amend with the inclusion of citizen initiative and regular charter review provisions.

More good news: If the proposed charter does fail, many of the less controversial housekeeping measures can be implemented anyway. We can rework the proposed charter. If it’s abundantly clear that the majority wants to keep a council-manager government, we can develop a “leadership mayor” within that framework as other progressive cities have done.

Despite our enthusiasm for the charter, we predict a no vote based on the underhanded but effective election tactics used by anti-charter group No Boss Mayor, as well as high turnout among older voters, who we believe are more inclined to retain the status quo.

We hope we’re wrong.

Have any predictions of your own? Post them in the comments!