April 2022 President’s Message

Click THIS LINK for the full copy of April’s Pine Ridge POST

President’s Message                                                                                  Sue Wassermann

JustWrightCitrus.com is Mike Wright’s new gig.  He was the Citrus County Chronicle’s most tenured journalist/reporter, having spent 34 years with the newspaper.  Now he works for himself, taking direction from his heart and covering issues he cares about.  His first topic was that we as a society need to get back to where we can have discussions where participants disagree and still remain respectful.  I say “Amen” to that!

Throughout his talk, you could tell that he really loves Citrus County, warts and all.  He thinks the Board of County Commissioners are in general, good people who are doing the best they can with what they have to work with.  For one, the physical layout of the meeting room doesn’t lend itself to discussion between Commissioners since they sit in a row facing the audience.  He’s disappointed by the current and previous Boards for lack of vision for the County and foresight into the issues that now are forcing their hands.  Although he is a realist, he believes that the County’s citizens and residents will help get the County back on track.  We just need to get some grass-roots activism going, like the now defunct Citrus County Council used to do.

Mike no longer interviews people.  Instead, he attends event, still investigates issues, and talks to interesting people.  Then he Wrights a blog post about it.  He takes a selfie everywhere he goes, to visually document his interactions.

Our Pine Ridge Civic Association meeting was well attended, but I found out later that several of the attendees are not Pine Ridge residents.  Apparently, this vociferous group has an agenda to get a certain person elected to the Florida Senate, and they for meetings they can disrupt.  They accused Mike and the Chronicle of covering up an issue that casts an unfavorable light on their candidate’s opponent.  I was about to step in and remind the crowd that we are a CIVIC association and our by-laws require CIVILITY.  But, Mike refused to take their bait and remained a gentleman, so the disruption was diffused.

I was unable to get our microphones working during the last meeting, so there’s no recording on our website, sorry for that.  Hope to see you at one of the next 2 meetings before our summer holiday. See pg 2.

Sue